female pilot in history. During the National Independence Day Armed Forces Promotions ceremony at the Fort Montana Barracks in Caracas on 5 July 2013, also marking 4 months after the sudden death of Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro announcement that Admiral Carmen Teresa Meléndez Rivas, the first-ever Venezuelan female admiral in history and by then the current Presidential Secretary, would be appointed as the first-ever female Minister of Defense in the nation's history as well as in its military history. She was later promoted as the very first female 4-sun flag officer of the Venezuelan Navy and of the National Armed Forces as a whole before officially taking over her ministerial duties. Ranks, uniforms and insignia Military ranks The most important reform in more than one century, was in 2008, with the enactment of the reform of the Organic Law of the National Armed Forces, which established, among many innovations, the transformation of the non-commissioned officer level "technical officer" to commissioned officer status. As part of the same reform, the rank of Major General, intermediate rank that comes after Divisional General and before the rank of General in Chief, was officially created. In the case of the Navy, the rank of Admiral in Chief, created also by the same reforms, is now equivalent to General in Chief. Thus the officer rank system used today is more compatible to those used by most armed forces. Since 2011 the officer corps is divided into Commissioned Candidate, Regular Commissioned, Troop and Command Corps officers, the latter three, alongside the Technical Officers Corps, forming the regular officer corps and the former being composed of civilian commissioned officers. Article 62 of the Organic Law of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces has the full order of ranks of military officers, and their equivalents in the Navy, while Article 63 of the Organic Law lists the full order of ranks for non-commissioned service personnel and Article 69 of the said law provides the military hierarchy of the enlisted personnel and ratings of the National Armed Forces. Amendments made in 2014 for the Organic Law of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces officially give the following as the highest rank for the following officer corps: Major General/Vice Admiral – Technical Officers Corps Brigadier General/Rear Admiral – Troop Officers Corps Brigadier General/Rear Admiral – Commissioned Candidate Officers Corps Three-sun ranking The rank of Lieutenant General (Mayor General in