Gov. Janet Mills has nominated the first woman in Maine’s history to lead the National Guard following Gen. Douglas A. Farnham’s retirement announcement.
Nominee Brg. Gen. Diane Dunn is a former Assistant Adjutant General and Chief of Staff of the Maine Army National Guard.
Farnham, Maine’s current adjutant general and commissioner of the Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, will retire from nearly ten years of serving that role. He was appointed as adjutant general and DVEM commissioner by former Gov. Paul LePage in 2015, and was renominated to the position by Mills in 2019.
Farnham, a Brewer native, graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1984, eventually joining the Maine Air National Guard in 1991. Prior to being named adjutant general, Farnham was the commander of the Maine Air National Guard’s 101st Air Refueling Wing.
Farnham oversaw the Maine National Guard’s actions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as directing a number of Maine National Guard soldiers to assist during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
He was also responsible for the National Guard during an intense review of how the organization handled complaints of sexual assault, after a months-long Bangor Daily News investigation into what some former soldiers called a “toxic” and “permissive” culture of sexual abuse.
Mills’ nominee to fill Farnham’s role has nearly as much experience in the National Guard as her predecessor, with 33 years of military service.
Throughout her career, she has served in a number of leadership roles, and has experienced two of Maine’s military firsts; in 2014, she became the first woman to command a brigade in the Maine Army National Guard; and in 2020 she became the first female general officer in Maine Army National Guard history when she rose to the rank of Brigadier General.
Dunn’s nomination is subject to vetting by the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee and confirmation by the Maine Senate. If confirmed, she will be responsible for managing the activities of Maine’s Army and Air National Guard, Maine Veterans’ Services and Maine Emergency Management Agency.