James H. Spencer has been promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Patricia A. Spencer of Peabody is his mother.

He is the chief of East Africa regional air operations strategy, assigned to the Special Operations Command Africa at Kelley Barracks, Germany. He has served in the military for 15 years.

Spencer graduated in 1993 from Haysville Campus High School in Wichita and received a bachelor of science in 1997 from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo. He also earned a master of science in 2007 from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Dayton, Ohio.