Brig. Gen. Laura Yeager, commander of the Joint Task Force North within Northern Command, will assume command of the U.S. Army’s 40th infantry division on June 29, The Orange County Register reported Thursday. She will succeed the retiring Maj. Gen. Mark Malanka during a ceremony at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, Calif later this month.
Yeager, who will become the first woman in history to lead an Army infantry division, joined the service in May 1986 and served as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter aeromedical evacuation pilot earlier in her career.
She held several leadership roles in the Army including commander of the 40th combat aviation brigade, chief of operations, training and standardization at Joint Forces Headquarters-California and aviation maintenance officer at Headquarters California National Guard in Sacramento.
