About 100 local politicians, family members and U.S. Army military and military support personnel gathered to welcome Col. Matthew C. Mason, the new commander of the Pine Bluff Arsenal, and hear him speak during his installation ceremony Thursday.
Mason comes to the Arsenal from the U.S. Forces Korea and Combined Forces Command at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, where he was the chief of the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Combined Joint Interagency Coordination Group. Brig. Gen. Daniel J. Duncan, commanding general of the U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command, officiated at the ceremony held at the Armed Forces Reserve Center, located just outside the PBA’s Plainview-White Hall Gate.
Mason, the PBA’s 42nd commander, replaces Col. Collin K. Keenan, who had been in command of the arsenal since April 13, 2023, and is retiring from active duty service.
Mason is a Missouri native, and he earned a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in geography from the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg and a Master of Arts in environmental management from Webster University in St. Louis.
In December 2001, Mason was commissioned as a chemical officer from the Army ROTC program at the University of Central Missouri. Mason was deployed twice in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
His other assignments included Battalion Chemical Officer, 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Fort Bragg, N.C.; Smoke/Decon Platoon Leader, 21st Chemical Company, Fort Bragg, N.C.; Headquarters and Headquarters Company Commander, Combined Joint Task Force Troy, Baghdad, Iraq; Assistant Professor of Military Science, University of Central Missouri; Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives Response Team Leader, A Company, 22nd Chemical Battalion, Edgewood, Md.; and Combined Explosive Exploitation Cell Commander, Joint Task Force Paladin, Bagram, Afghanistan.