Brigadier General William Radiff joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1988. Following the completion of the Basic Officer Training Course, he spent the next four years at Royal Roads Military College (RRMC) Victoria and the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Kingston. In 1992 he attended 2 Canadian Forces Flying Training School in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan earning his wings on helicopter. He was then posted to 19 Wing Comox where he served as a CH113A Labrador Search and Rescue pilot with 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron for three and a half years. In the fall of 1997 BGen Radiff moved back to 15 Wg Moose Jaw where he served three years as a flying instructor on the CT114 Tutor, achieving an A2 instructor rating. BGen Radiff was posted to 4 Wg Cold Lake in December of 2000 and completed the Fighter Pilot Course on the CF188. In 2005, upon completion of the course he was assigned to 433 Escadron d’appui Tactique (ETAC), at 3 Wg Bagotville, Quebec and subsequently became a member of 425 ETAC upon the standing down of 433 ETAC in 2005. In 2006 he served as the Canadian Armed Forces CF188 Air Demonstration Pilot and that summer was posted to the Fighter Standards and Evaluation Team at 4 Wg Cold Lake where he served as the Officer Commanding FSET. The following year he instructed on the CF188 and held both the Sqn Operations Officer and Deputy Commanding Officer positions at 410. In 2009 BGen Radiff was posted to the Directorate of Air Requirements in Ottawa where he primarily worked on the Next Generation Fighter Capability Project. In 2011 he and his family moved to Montgomery, Alabama where BGen Radiff completed the US Air Command and Staff College program at Maxwell University at Maxwell Air Force Base.
The following year he was posted to the North American Aerospace Defence Headquarters serving as the Operations Officer. In 2013 he assumed the role of the Senior Staff Officer for Fighters at 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg. In the fall of 2014 he deployed to US AFB Al Udeid in Qatar for six months in support of Operation IMPACT as the Target Engagement Authority for Canadian Flying Operations and as the Senior National Representative to the United States’ Combined Air Operations Center for all of the contributing nations. For his efforts during this period, BGen Radiff was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. In 2015, BGen Radiff assumed command of the 409 Tac F Sqn at Cold Lake. He deployed, on many occasions to Eielson AFB, to Comox, British Columbia in support or NORAD operations and, to Inuvik, NWT in support of Northern Sovereignty Operations. In the summer of 2017 BGen Radiff was promoted to the rank of Colonel and, once again, uprooted his family and moved back to Bagotville, Quebec. BGen Radiff has most recently held Command of 3 Wing Bagotville, and finished the National Security Programme at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, Ontario; at which point he was promoted to his current rank. BGen Radiff has more than 3900 hours of military flying including 1800 hours on the CF188. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Kingston and a Master of Military Arts and Operational Science from the USAF Air University.
He is married and the couple has two sons.