If you’re like me there are certain sensory inputs that can instantly take you back in time. It can be a song or a smell or a taste or a question, but it can make you feel the way you felt 40 years ago. For example, “Midnight at the Oasis” takes me straight back to the summer of ’76, ROTC summer camp, every morning the clock radio woke me up to the same song followed shortly by yelling and leaping out of bed. Good times. And then there’s “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress”, painting my Dad’s rental property with my brother Bob. I think it was the summer of ’72. I could go on and on, but it seems the older I get the more vivid the memories. So last week when our new Vice WG/CC Jeff Kozak mentioned he was taking his son to college for the first time this week, the memories came rushing back.

If I had to answer the question, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”, the answer would have to dropping Erin, my oldest, off at college for the first time. Now I’m not saying that dropping off daughter #2, Leigh, was easy, but I’ve been told that by the time you get to kid number 4 or 5 you just slow the car down enough to prevent major injury and keep going. The first time is always the most difficult. I think that works for colonoscopies as well!

So we rented a van, crammed in all of the things she was sure she needed, and headed for Knoxville. I remember fighting for a parking spot close to the doors, waiting for a baggage cart, and sweating profusely in the August sun. Peg set up her room, helped her unpack and met the, shall we say, interesting roommate. We dragged it out as long as possible, but eventually there was nothing else to do but say goodbye. As I drove away and watched her wave in the rearview mirror, it took every ounce of willpower not to throw it in reverse, drag her in the van and head for home. I didn’t go back, but let’s just say it was hard to see the road for a long way.

Being a parent, and I’m sure a grandparent, has been the most rewarding experience in my life. But the goal and the joy is to produce mature, self-sufficient, Godly adults. We’ve all seen parents who won’t let go and end up with kids that run away as soon and as far as possible. If you raised them right and let them go, they’ll come back not because they have to, but because they want to.

Good luck Jeff!

Those that know me, know that I’m a bit of a prankster.  I have my own definition of what qualifies as a prank and it might be a little different than the classic one.  I won’t do anything that’s mean/hurtful, that damages property, or could cause injury.  It has to be funny and I prefer it be as elaborate as possible.  I’ve done productions with professional actors, fake video conferences and transported large items across the country all for a good clean laugh.  But this little “hobby” started with an inspection back in the early nineties and it fell a little outside the box that has evolved since then.

Those who were in the Air Force back then will remember the great experiment of  putting C-130s in ACC.  ACC, or Air Combat Command, was born out of the reorganization of the Air Force after the cold war.  It is a combination of aircraft from SAC, bombers, and TAC, fighters.  AMC, or Air Mobility Command, is made of airlift aircraft.  Specifically, aircraft that deliver cargo and personnel either intertheater or intratheater.  To simplify, ACC drops bombs and shoots things, AMC delivers stuff.  The odd guys in the mix are the C-130s.

On the one hand, we’re the local delivery truck, moving cargo around a theater of operations.  We don’t have the long range capability to move large amounts across the oceans but we can land just about anywhere the Army needs stuff all the way up to the fight.  On the other hand, we airdrop troops and supplies right up to and past the front lines supporting troops engaged in direct combat.  This mission fits in with ACC, but hauling cargo fits right in with AMC.  This mission puts us in a position where, no matter which command you put us in, we end up being the bastard step-child.  So in the early eighties the rocket scientists at HQ AF decided we needed to be in ACC.  And actually, it kind of worked.

Our flying training schedule is more like a fighter schedule than an airlifters schedule.  We have to accomplish a lot of local flying to maintain currency in formation and airdrops and  fighter units almost exclusively do local flying.  However, when you mix easy going Herc crews, which include enlisted crewmembers, with A-type often egomaniacal fighter guys you can expect some, shall we say, conflict.  We knew it would be a one way street but in the reserves we were ok with that.  We knew that they would make a fighter pilot a wing commander in a C-130 unit, probably as a punishment for a minor infraction, but they would never make a C-130 pilot, let alone a navigator, the commander of a fighter wing.  We knew it wouldn’t last long, but active duty guys get promoted by coming up with boneheaded ideas that, for good reason, have never been tried before, so, as usual, we took the long view and worked through it.  That should be enough background for the non-Air Force among you.

On with the story.  It was time for our first major inspection, an ASEV or Aircrew Standardization Evaluation Visit.  Basically, Headquarters guys come in and inspect your flying program to include looking at all of your paperwork and records and then testing and administering flying evaluations to the crews.  It’s a big deal for flyers and if you’re not constantly staying ahead on the paperwork, preparing for it can be brutal.  Just our luck, we were the first Reserve wing to be inspected by our new ACC masters and we were more than a little nervous.  Since ACC had no C-130 expertise they had to go out and find a C-130 guy to help them administer the inspection.  The guy they came up with was a young major named Duke.  I know many of us know his last name, but in keeping with my new prank standards, I don’t need to mention it!

I felt kind of sorry for him.  I don’t think he was a blustery kind of guy but, once they pulled him into their world, he could either continue to be a C-130 guy or choose to bluster with the worlds best blusterers.  He chose the latter.  He felt he needed to establish some credibility so he proceeded to bust or downgrade pilots for ridiculous reasons.  In some cases for pilots following local procedures that he didn’t particularly like.  No amount of common sense or discussion would sway his, or the team chiefs, opinions so we just had to grin and bear it.  I remember a long discussion I had with the O-6 team chief where he kept pontificating about the importance of knowing and maintaining the C-130 cornering velocity during aerial engagements.  Really?!  (All non-flyers may skip the next sentence) As an Aerospace Engineer, I can appreciate the technical nuances of a discussion of L/D max, but in the speed range of a C-130 a 40 knot change in airspeed during an aerial engagement with a fighter is meaningless and once you go max power and pull at 60 and 2 you’re there without trying.  But I digress.

By the end of the inspection we were pretty fed up.  We passed with a respectable “Satisfactory”.  After a thorough tongue-lashing from Gen Smith for not getting an excellent, (he ate a donut in front of the camera as we were setting up for the video conference. I don’t think he knew the camera was on but it made the chewing out a lot more enjoyable (pun intended)) we decided some payback was in order.

With any prank, a small “circle of trust” is imperative so with a circle of two we hatched a plan.  My co-conspirator, let’s keep this anonymous and just call him Aldo, had secretly snapped a photo of Duke during the inspection and since Aldo had become somewhat of a early photoshop expert he created a graphic of Duke’s head with the classic red circle and diagonal over it with the caption “Don’t Be a Dukehead”.  We scraped together some money and he had, as I recall, 1,000 4”x4” stickers made.

If you’ve ever been in a military crew van, or a military base operations, you know that crews a tradition of putting up unit stickers wherever they can sneak one.  There are standard squadron patch stickers and then there are the more creative ones that sometimes become legendary.  We wanted this one to get the widest possible dissemination but we also wanted our careers to continue so I came up with a CYA plan.  If you don’t know what CYA stands for give it a little thought.  Some A’s need more C’s than others.

Peg and I were traveling down to Georgia to visit our friends Scott and Cindy that summer so I put together 10 manila envelopes with a dozen or so stickers in each one and had Peg address them to all of the Reserve C-130 units and some Guard units including my own.  She intentionally misspelled some of the names, including mine, and I mailed them from the post office in Marietta, Georgia.  All we had to do then was sit back and wait, and it didn’t take long.  Stickers started showing up across the C-130 world and beyond.  Crew vans, bathrooms, base ops, even the occasional urinal and ACC wasn’t happy.

Within a month all of the Ops Group Commanders received a letter from ACC demanding that the perpetrators of this prank be brought to justice and punished for sullying the reputation of this fine young major.  They would investigate and take “appropriate” action.  My boss, the OG, Col Zach Prescott, called me to his office and in the most serious tone he could muster he asked, “Do you know anything about these stickers?”.  My answer, “Yes, I do”.  And here’s where I learned to only give a simple answer.  If they want more they should ask.  “I got an envelope in the mail with a dozen or so stickers. Let me get them for you”.  I presented the envelope to him, pointed out the postmark from Marietta, which he found interesting, and excused myself.  Is it lying if you give half an answer?  He forwarded the results of his investigation to HQ and eventually the whole thing faded away.

Prologue:

Years later I did an ORI with Duke.  His career had not been damaged by being called a Dukehead and he got the message. His new unit heard a rumor that I might have some of the Dukehead stickers so they quietly came to me and asked if they could have 2 or 3.  They assured me that Duke just thought of it as a funny story and was actually proud of his fame.  I ran back to my office, came back with 2-3 hundred and handed them over with a wink and a smile.

“Don’t Be a Dukehead”

Do you remember back in 2004 when the huge tsunami hit Asia?  The world was shocked and nations immediately began donating money for relief and rebuilding.  The EU pledged  several billion dollars and the US promised $500 million.  Well the European response was scathing.  With their noses pointed skyward they asked why the US was doing so little when they, the enlightened socialists that they were, had promised so much more.  However, the silence was deafening when billions of dollars came pouring in from private companies and individuals.  In the end, individuals in the EU gave very little to the relief effort, but Americans stunned the world with their generosity. Why?  Why are Americans so generous and compassionate?  Why do we get so little credit around the world for our generosity?  It all boils down to our view of the role of the government versus the role of the individual.

In much of the world, taking care of people, solving problems, building community, has been taken over, or always has been, the role of the government.  People see little need to donate to a worthy cause because fixing problems is the governments’ job.  They pay confiscatory tax rates and their governments have justified those taxes by promising them cradle to grave security.  In their minds, paying taxes is the moral equivalent of giving to charity.  Sadly, unless we do something, we are sprinting down that same path.

How did we get here?  It used to be that communities took care of themselves.  Churches had their ears and eyes on the community and when there was a REAL need they stepped up and quietly, compassionately, with the proper guidance when necessary, lent a hand.  But when government offers a solution, when faceless, rigid bureaucrats throw money at problems without working on the root causes, problems are never solved and programs become self-perpetuating.  But when did the government become the arbiter of whose needs are most important?  Has this evolution been accidental or intentional?

I think we can trace the problem back to the Great Depression.  When FDR botched a normal cyclical recession into a depression, he put us into a place where churches were overwhelmed by the needs of the community.  This allowed the government to step in with a smile and a handout and gradually marginalize the church and, to some extent, replace it as the moral authority.  But, has any government program ever solved a problem?  How many trillions of dollars have been spent since the Great Society program began?  Poverty rates have remained virtually unchanged but we now have a large sector of our population which has absolutely zero interest in either working or improving their economic situation.  As long as a check comes every month, why be accountable to anyone or anything.

We need to “take back charity”.  We need to make government stop trying to solve social problems with amoral solutions.  Churches and individuals are best equipped and positioned to see the needs, influence people to make better life decisions, and put resources where they will make the most impact.  Non-profits have much lower overhead and are managed by people who really care, work in the trenches, and understand the problems. Big government programs always produce results in direct opposition of their stated intent because bureaucracies are self-perpetuating and will never “solve” themselves out of existence.  Most of you work for the government, you know what I’m talking about!

There is a place for government in charity.  There are people with lifelong severely debilitating conditions which require long term costly care, but the vast majority of those living off of you and me are capable of becoming productive citizens but have never been held accountable for their own actions and decisions and never will unless there are some drastic changes in entitlement programs.  If you want to see the future, look at Greece, look at Spain, look at France.  The “takers” are willing to let their nations collapse around them rather than give up anything.  Democracies always fail once the “takers” outnumber the “givers”.  And Socialism always fails because you eventually run out of someone elses money.  Combine the two and it’s a fast ride to the bottom of the hill.

Take Back Charity!

I read an article online last week about a guy who used his obituary to confess to a crime he had committed decades before.  As I recall, it wasn’t a huge deal, but it had obviously been eating at him for his whole life so he wanted to get it off his chest.  After you’re dead seems a little late so I think I’m going to spend the next few weeks “confessing”.

I’ll start off with confessing to be, well, flippant with a most of you over a question that’s been asked almost daily for the last year.  I know flippancy isn’t on the list of deadly sins, but I think I owe my friends a real answer to the question; “So, what are you going to do after you retire?”.

I came up with a simple answer, an answer which, in keeping with my personality, was short and to the point; “Anything I want.”.  It’s true, but it doesn’t really answer the question for you or for me.  I’ve always been a planner.  I like to look ahead to where I think I want to be and then plan out the steps to get there.  High school was just a step to college which was a step to pilot training which was a step to flying which was a step to being an instructor……. You get the picture.  And I guess the final goal was an Air Force career.  But now I find myself having enjoyed the ride so much that, now that the roller coaster car is pulling into the station, I really haven’t figured out which ride to get on next.

I’ve spent the last month in Wilmington Delaware supporting what we call the “Banner” mission.  It’s just the name the Air Force gives for supporting the travel requirements of the President and Vice President.  During an election year travel increases tremendously so here we are hauling vehicles, equipment, and people from city to city ahead of, and after, POTUS and VPOTUS events.  Things have been pretty slow up to this point so I’ve found myself in what I’m calling “practice retirement”.  It’s not really the same since all of the things I want to do back home I can’t do, but it’s been odd not “having” to do anything for, sometimes, many days in a row and I’m have a little trouble getting my head around it.

I’ve discovered that I do need to have goals and projects.  Don’t get me wrong.  I won’t miss the never ending cycle of ORIs, UCIs, ASEVs and SAVs, but I think we all need the expectations of events and the challenge of deadlines whether externally or internally driven.  I’ve seen lots of guys with years of potential left but, when they retire, they fall into the pit of “Where should I go for lunch today?”  That might be a lofty goal for some, but it’s not for me!

So here’s my challenge for you.  If you’ve been reading these for the last six months I hope you’ve had a glimpse onto my soul, into who I am.  But now I need your help.  What should I do when I retire?  There’s no right or wrong answer.  I value all of your suggestions.  Maybe there’s something I’m missing.  All options are on the table.  A friend of mine, who had worked for a US Senator, came to me two or three years ago and asked if I would consider running for Congress.  She had the contacts and experience and friends who would help. She was dead serious, but I don’t think I could put up with all of the endless yammering and not really saying anything.  And, as you all know, I think I’m a little to, shall we say, opinionated.

Anyway, I throw that out there because it’s outside the box and that’s ok.  That’s what I’m looking for.  Once I get all of my family and friends remodeling projects done, I need some direction.  Don’t be shy.  Either send your ideas straight to me or make a comment on the blog site.  Either way works.  Don’t leave me looking for new restaurants!

I became an ART or Air Reserve Technician in January of 1987.  When I got off active duty in 1984, the only thing I was sure of was I wanted to move back to Pittsburgh to raise my kids and it didn’t take long for me to realize the Air Force Reserves and I had a lot in common. I enjoyed the sense of family and community the reserves offered and I knew I could settle in for the long haul.   So when an ART job became available I jumped on the chance not as a holding pattern for an airline job, but as an intentional career choice.

Luckily, my first ART job was the one I really wanted, pilot scheduler.  Now most new ARTs usually end up as a scheduler, whether they want it or not.  Folks get burned out with the continual changes and the pressure of filling the lines and everyone moves up in the pecking order when someone quits the program inevitably leaving the scheduling job as the empty seat.  Regardless of how it happened, I was happy.

I actually enjoyed the pace and pressure of the job.  I’ve always liked the challenge of solving a problem and crisis management and I especially like creative and elegant solutions.  But what I really liked most about scheduling was getting to know and understand people and what made them tick.

I find it interesting how many different ways people can be motivated.  Some people are very straight forward and transparent.  The ones who are all about the money, or looking to increase their flying time to become more competitive for an airline job.  But most are motivated by a more subtle mix of family, economics, duty, lifestyle and pure joy of the job, and finding where they are in that mix is what makes the job interesting and challenging.  I’m not saying you should manipulate people, but knowing the nature of their character helps to find where they can best plug into the needs of the organization.  And it really does boil down to character.

People don’t really change their character.  That is, unless they make a very conscious choice to do so.  In fact, the older you get the more you’re invested in who you are.  Each one of us live our lives making deposits in our character bank.  Small, seemingly insignificant decisions and choices made every day send a message to those around us telling them who we are, what we believe, how much we’ll bend, whether we really are who we say we are.  Simply put, the true nature of our character.  You make those little deposits and hopefully, you never have to make a big withdrawal.  Sadly, too many people have an empty, or near empty, account and when a tough decision needs to be made the result is predictable

Captain “Sully” Sullenberger did an interview after his successful ditching in New York and said that he had been making deposits into his training bank for 42 years.  He had been through countless simulator sessions, qualification training programs, and cockpit resource management courses and when he hit those birds and lost both engines he just had to make a large withdrawal from his account.

Each of us needs to be prepared to make a large withdrawal from our character bank.  In the face of tough times and challenges we need to be ready to stand up to what we know is wrong and stand up for what we know is right and have the consistency of character to make the stand a credible one.

I still enjoy being in the heat of battle.  The day to day challenges of a dynamic flying program.  But most of all I enjoy watching a team of highly motivated, consummate professionals make it look effortless.  It’s what I will miss most.

Thanks for the great ideas last week.  We’ll be standing up the new non-profit FATASS (Friends Against The Ankle Syndrome Society) within the next few weeks and we hope to go international with IFATASS by the end of the year.  I’m also exploring the option of partnering with the women’s organization WWHA (Women With Hairy Ankles) which is the opposite of our problem.  More to follow.

Over the years I’ve been asked a lot of hard questions, but last month I was asked one that really got me thinking.

It was a Friday night before a UTA and, as most of you know, things tend to get, shall I say, hectic.  So when a good friend’s wife put together a retirement party for him, I knew I had to find a way to squeeze it into my schedule.  As it ended up, I had to go right from the base to the party, dirty flight suit and all.  Bill was actually happy I came in uniform and I had a great chance to meet his brothers and talk military. I grabbed some food and fell into a lawn chair in the front yard with some friends and family as the sun slid behind the trees and the mosquitoes started their nightly patrol for victims.

Anton was sitting next to me and after a few minutes of small talk, he turned to me and just matter of factly asked me “So what do you do all day?”.  “You know what I do don’t you?” I answered.  “Do you just fly every day?”  “Well, no, I only fly once, maybe twice a week.”  “So what do you do all day?”  So there’s the question, What do you do?

When I first started this journey it was pretty clear what it was that made this career fulfilling, challenging and enjoyable.  Flying.  Everything was about flying and doing whatever other crap had to be done to keep flying.  It’s what gave the job meaning, it’s what made the job, not a job, but a joy.  And when the question was asked, the answer was simple.

Somewhere the answer slowly began to change.  You take on more responsibility, more rank, more jobs and slowly, insidiously you find yourself, well, different.  Days are filled with  meetings, email, taskers, counseling, mentoring, planning, arguing and countless other “ings”.  The only saving grace is that I’ve managed to keep flying for 33 of my 34 years.  I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll keep saying it.  When we lose sight of the Air Force core values and mission, and leadership takes on a coat and tie “corporate” posture, we risk losing sight of the goal and taking on the attributes of the civilians we work for.  I’ve always felt that we in the military have a responsibility to hold ourselves to a higher moral and ethical standard. And, sadly, the active duty “system” moves future leaders away from our core competencies as soon as possible.

Enough pontificating.  I had trouble answering Anton but in the end, I remember saying that 90% of my time was spent with ”people”.  Those “ings” are important.  Whether it’s mentoring, counseling, encouraging, or just talking, it’s all time well spent.  Our people really are our greatest asset.

Most importantly, the question will eventually be asked of all of us not “What do you do?”  But, “What did you do?”  What will your legacy be?  Will you be able to honestly say that you gave the taxpayers their money’s worth?  How will you be remembered?

Do you remember the first time you found out that you were going to be a father? It was one of the best days of my life. The only other experience that even comes close to bringing that much joy is when you find out you’re going to be a grandfather. Congratulations Erin and Tom!

I vividly remember the first time I went through Air Force Physiological Training. Up to that point I thought flying was all about hand-eye coordination and thinking on your feet. I didn’t really understand the physical stresses foisted on your body. There are trapped gas issues from the bends to farting to sinus blocks to gas in your teeth. There are the effects of G-forces from G-LOC to negative G red out. There’s increased radiation at high altitude. After they scare the gas out of you, they then try to mitigate the risk by teaching you techniques that will, hopefully, counteract the scary stuff. You learn how to do a good valsalva. How to do an M-1 (a method to force the blood back up into your brain by grunting and tightening your lower body muscles), but you can’t fight the radiation which some believe results in higher levels of cancer and female offspring! Finally they beat into your head the importance of hearing protection. Earplugs, noise cancelling headsets, whatever it takes because no one wants to be grounded!  In the end, you’re more afraid of destroying your body than crashing the airplane.

There are some conditions that they don’t warn you about. Frightening, life changing, debilitating, embarrassing conditions that can scar you for life. I’ve acquired one of those conditions and since being a victim is the highest goal to aspire to in America I think I’ll have to go to the VA to document it and hope to get a fat disability check for the rest of my life. I may even start a non-profit to fight this ravaging condition. Walk-a-thons, auctions and celebrity endorsements. I think I’ve found my post-retirement purpose. What is this condition you ask? It’s called H.A.S. or, Hairless Ankle Syndrome.

I don’t remember when the I first noticed the symptoms, but I do remember my kids, as toddlers, holding on to my ankle as I sat on the couch and the surprise on their little faces as if to say “my you have hairless ankles daddy!”.  I’m not really a very hairy guy anyway, but who would have thought that decades of wearing high socks and boots could eventually wear the hair right off your legs. And I’m not talking about almost no hair. I’m talking about totally hairless, smooth as silk, shiny, make your wife jealous hairlessness.   Sadly, it’s not a very well researched condition and the government has failed to adequately fund the necessary studies.  Of course, the failure of the nation to acknowledge HAS is mostly due to sexism.  Men’s health is mostly ignored and since to female fliers HAS is considered to be a benefit, there is very little pressure to find a cure.

So, you ask, how can I help?  I will be accepting donations to start a grass roots effort to pressure congress to help the hairless anklers deal with the debilitating emotional stress of HAS.  I’m even hoping to get the new healthcare bill to include coverage for ankle hair replacement procedures with either Rogaine or transplants.  Maybe we can even formerly acknowledge the existence of PTHASS (Post Traumatic Hairless Ankle Stress Syndrome).  So, please help any way you can.  Talk about it, start support groups, come out of the closet with your condition and don’t be afraid show those lilly-white hairless ankles.

If it weren’t for peeves I’d have no pets at all.

Empire building has become a finally honed skill in the Air Force.  Although I’m sure it exists in other services and organizations, every “A” seems to be working tirelessly to expand its influence into every other “A”.  What’s really frustrating is the number of additional duties required of each squadron which, in actuality, translates into “my” people doing “your” people’s job.

Several years ago while preparing for an inspection and updating scores of additional duty appointment letters I came up with this new “additional duty” and sent the following email to all commanders and senior ARTs on base:

“All,

During a recent aircraft mishap several duty passengers were injured while egressing an aircraft.  As a result of the subsequent SIB, HAF has identified a lack of knowledge amongst Air Force personnel on safety in and around Air Force aircraft.  In an effort to mitigate these risks the following program is being implemented effective 1 Dec 12.

1)  All squadrons will appoint both a primary and secondary AEM (Aircraft Egress Monitor).  Appointment letter format to follow.  The monitors are responsible for ensuring that all unit members who are subject to potentially flying as a passenger on an Air Force aircraft be trained in egress, basic aircraft firefighting skills, and rudimentary aircraft systems.

2) This will be accomplished initially with hands on training.   Subsequent yearly CBT refresher training, which is in development, must be accomplished on a SIPR capable computer.

3) Members will receive the majority of training on the geographically closest passenger capable aircraft to their unit, however, the intent is to eventually train on all cargo aircraft in the Air Force inventory.

4) Initial training is a 5 day block which should be done on annual tour status for the ARC but following year refresher CBTs should take no longer than 12-16 hours.

5) AEM training will require a 2 week training course accomplished at an FTU and must be accomplished within 90 days of appointment.

Beginning 1 Mar 13 those not completing this training will not be allowed to participate until it is complete.  Failure to complete the training for a year will result in a referral OPR and possible UCMJ action.  I know this sounds like a huge training burden, but the health and safety of our members is our highest priority.

More to follow.”

Amazingly, or more accurately, sadly, many folks thought that it was a real program.  I received numerous calls asking where they could get the training and when we would be getting transient aircraft in to train on.  I think it says speaks volumes about our system when our people are so numbed by irrelevance that outrageous proposals are considered plausible.

Thanks for some great comments last week.  My favorite was from a CMSgt who decided to retire early and said that it was because: “it’s tough to sell the company to our airman and senior airman, when our Senior Leaders are selling our souls to active duty!!”

I’ll be on leave next week so I’m sending this out early. Have a great weekend.

We like to think that our Air Force culture is pretty homogeneous.  That we all think alike, that because of our shared experiences, we share values and goals. But if you drill down a little, peel away the layers, you discover that there are very distinct “subcultures”.  Operators are different from aerialporters are different from loggies, are different from security forces and they are all different from maintainers.  Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with maintainers.  Some of my best friends are maintainers.  It’s just that they’re motivated by something much different than the rest of us.

When I first became an OG, one of the first classes I attended was something called SLMC.  It stands for Senior Leaders Maintenance Course.  Now, you’re probably asking the same question that I asked at the time:  Is there a SLOC (Senior Leaders Operators Course), SLLC (Senior Leaders Logistics Course), or SLSC (Senior Leaders Services Course)?  The answer is, of course, no.  For some reason the powers that be decided that everyone needed to be taught why maintainers are the way that they are.  Puzzling, until you attend the course.

The short answer is that maintainers, more than any other specialty, are totally driven by metrics.  They have an entire book of things by which they are measured. MC rates with NMC and PMC components, FSE, MSE, LDR, Commit Rate, USE, TNMCS, CANN Rate, DOP Rate, Air Abort Rate, RSP fill rate, IER, SER, BR, DDR, TRCT, R/R Rate, CWT, SOTMQTP/TD, I could go on.  Suffice it to say that, in the maintainer world, metrics drive everything.  So, what do the rest of us do with this information?  Well, knowledge is power.  And knowing what motivates someone gives us insight on how best to frame our relationship with them.

There I was, 2003, back in Germany.  We had been there with 15 crews and 10 airplanes for four months and had been kicking butt.  We had 9-10 airplanes tasked almost every day with a nearly 100% launch reliability rate.  On the other side of the field, the active duty squadron was plodding along with their tired E-models, but then they weren’t really pushing things either.  Too many, holidays, German holidays, and “Goal” days to enjoy to be too concerned with flying airplanes. Besides, we Delta guys had nothing better to do.

We had been running a stage operation through an unnamed Eastern European for two weeks and the active duty guys had actually had to go TDY for almost two weeks so when the stage ended, the active duty squadron commander came to me with an interesting request.  “My guys have been working really hard for the last two weeks”, he said “and I’d like to give them a break for a week so they can spend some time with their families.  Could Delta do all of the flying for a week?”  Interesting question.  We had been deployed 4 months.  We had been away from our families.  We were told to expect to be deployed for a year.  And they needed a week off to tour Europe with their families.  The answer was easy; “No problem, enjoy yourselves, we’ll handle it.”

So for the next week, we had a commit rate of 100%.  We flew every mission, from the spaghetti run to earthquake relief in Africa.  My sanity was questioned, but there’s always a method to my (and Tim Costa’s) madness.

The following week we attended the weekly Operations and Maintenance meeting chaired by the active duty, one-star, wing commander.  The maintainers presented their metrics via powerpoint and we all tried to stay awake until we got to the Launch Reliability slide.  Traditionally, long term trend, the number had been a steady state rate of about 78%.  It went up and down a little, but it pretty much stayed in the high 70s.  So when the slide came up and showed the previous weeks number at 99.7% (a Louisville crew stayed too long at breakfast) the WG/CC nearly jumped out of his seat.  “That’s phenomenal!  Have done any analysis to determine why things went so well last week?  We need to continue this trend and keep up this amazing rate.  How did you do it?”  The active duty guys across the table didn’t say a word. They looked at each other, fidgeted in their seats, pretended to take notes, but no one said a word for a painfully long time.  Finally, the O-7 asked.  “Hasn’t anyone figured this out?  Doesn’t anyone want to take credit?”  At that point, all eyes turned sheepishly to Tim and I, and the General’s followed.  “Why’s everyone looking at you guys?” he asked.  Tim and I then calmly explained the request that the AD C-130 commander had made.  We said that we were total force team players and we knew that our active duty brethren needed time off to recover from their 2 week ordeal and that we had done all of the flying for the past week.  “So”, the wing commander asked turning to the other side of the table, “when you present these launch reliability numbers every week, do you just combine the active duty numbers with the reserve numbers?”. The response was a less than enthusiastic, “Yes sir”.  “Well, from now on, I want to see the numbers broken out by “E” vs “H2””.  The General gave us a knowing smile and the meeting ended.

If you know what someones goal is, what it is that they’re trying to do, then helping them down that path will pay huge dividends to your working relationship.  I’m not saying that you should use it to leverage someone for future considerations, I’m saying understand everyone’s mission and where yours and theirs intersect make the best of the opportunity for the greater good.  Or, just take every opportunity to educate active duty, it’s a job that will never be complete.

Happy Father’s Day!!  I’ll always miss mine.

Anniversaries can evoke lots of feelings and not necessarily good

ones! I recently crossed the 34 year threshold of military service and it

has caused me to reflect on how the Air Force has changed over the last

3+ decades.

As a young ROTC cadet in the mid-70’s, I clearly remember my

instructors warning me that one of the greatest dangers to the military is

careerism. At the time I was only vaguely familiar, let alone concerned,

with the concept. Sadly, I now am all too familiar with the process but

happily, I think the Reserve has managed to avoid the path that our

active duty brethren have staggered down. I think it’s worth discussing

what careerism is and how to walk the fine line between promoting

oneself and supporting the mission by promoting the best person.

Unlike active duty, we have the ability to promote someone to his

highest level of competence (and, hopefully, job satisfaction) and let him

serve a long career becoming an expert in that field. We can also

encourage and facilitate a truly gifted leader to reach as high as he wants

or can. Our greatest challenge is in communicating the possibilities and

limitations to individuals along the way. Here is where it’s critical for

supervisors to, for lack of a better word, mentor their people. I almost hate the

word because it compartmentalizes a concept that is, and should be,

flexible and situational, not rigid and programmatic.

If I’ve learned anything, I’ve learned that folks are motivated by

different things. It sounds incredibly obvious, but I’ve seen way too many

leaders with a monolithic style of dealing with every situation and every

person. An effective leader gets to know what motivates his people and

the only way to do that is to get to know them. The most effective

mentoring happens while you’re talking about tractors, or football, or

music, or kids or whatever THEY get excited about. That’s when you

learn about hopes and dreams and goals and frustrations and doubts and

fears and limitations. That’s when we can encourage and discourage career

decisions based on where they are and who they are.

Promotion for promotion sake is what we need to, no MUST, avoid.

When you ask someone why they want to move to a different position and

their first reason is; “so I can get a stripe,” warning bells should go off!

We all know someone, probably lots of someones, who left a job they love

for a promotion and then lived in misery but couldn’t go back.

We also need to recognize and respect special circumstances. Pressuring

someone to take a job that, although it’s the perfect opportunity, would result

in unmanageable family stress is irresponsible.  Again, nearly all potentially

disastrous situations can be avoided by getting to know people on a deeper level

than “How are you?” while passing in the hall.

We also need to let members know how important it is to participate in

their own career progress. What I mean is; they can help us to position them for

opportunities by letting us know what good things they’re doing. For example, I

have an “I love me” wall in my office at home. My graduation certificates,

diplomas, awards, and a plethora of other artifacts, worthless to anyone but me.

It all hangs on the wall by my desk, a future curse to my wife and kids after I’m

gone. If everyone kept a folder of “I love me” stuff in their desk it would

be much easier for your supervisor to write your OPR/EPR/Appraisal at the end of

the rating period and it would REALLY reflect what you’ve done.

Finally, and here’s the touchy one, outliving everyone else in the section

doesn’t mean you’re the next in line.  We can only succeed if we objectively pick

the right person for the job.  There is no right of entitlement in the military

and if the new guy is the right guy then he’s “the guy”!  The best choice I ever

made in selecting a squadron commander was picking someone from outside the wing

who had the right leadership style and skill set for the organization.  It

ruffled feathers, but in the end the squadron emerged better, faster, stronger.

(My hat’s off to Col Bly!)

Our greatest asset is our people and the only way to fully exploit that

asset is to encourage it, nurture it, and even occasionally cajole it.

In these times of tight budgets and economic uncertainty we need to make sure we

put the right people in the right place at the right level.