New AFRC commander shares 'transformation' thoughts with public affairs Airmen

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  • By Tech. Sgt. Jason Schaap
  • 931st ARG Public Affairs
AURORA, Colo. --  A month and a day after taking charge of Air Force Reserve Command, Lt. Gen. Charles E. Stenner Jr. met with Reserve public affairs Airmen July 26 to talk about where the command is and where it is going.
 
The general was the first speaker at the AFRC Public Affairs Conference 2008 in Aurora, Colo.

"We are certainly in a period of transition," the general said at the beginning of his remarks, setting the tone not just for his time to talk but for the entirety of the conference.

Four days prior, the man leading the transition, Acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley, presented Senate Armed Forces Committee members his vision for the Air Force if confirmed as the sitting Secretary. If confirmed, his position would still be vulnerable to change when the country's next president takes office in January 2009.

In essence, the man leading the transition is in transition, facing more transition. "He's in a peculiar situation," General Stenner said.

Still, the general emphasized, Acting Secretary Donley and his Air Force leaders are pushing ahead in the wake of a tumultuous time for the Air Force.

"He wants to reestablish our credibility," General Stenner said. "He wants to do that by putting discipline into (Air Force) processes."

Number one on the current Air Force priority list is "fixing the nuclear enterprise." Number two is replacing the Air Force's elderly fleet of KC-135 Stratotankers. The general warned that acquiring new tankers has become a complex issue at the Pentagon with no quick fix.

"The mother of the pilot of the last KC-135 is 9 years old today," he said.

High on General Stenner's personal priority list is force development. "I see it as the umbrella for everything we do," he told the collection of Reserve communicators. "(Your) first audience is the folks working for us."

Career development plans that officers have recently been asked to submit are expected to soon be followed by development plans for enlisted members. All Airmen need to think about where they want their career ladder to go, General Stenner said, and make it known.

"It's best athlete right now," he said, referring to the search for the command's top performers. "Once we know what people want to do, we can identify future leaders and get them in key positions."

Manpower is another "huge" issue for the Air Force right now. The trickledown effect of about 14,000 Airmen displaced by the Defense Department's most recent base alignment and closure will have recruiters working "double hard next year" to meet goals, the general said. Old jobs are gone, but many new jobs are on the way.

"We are in a transformation" he said. "There are a lot of new missions. We are making big changes."

The general concluded his discussion taking questions. One of the first questions was related to the many changes associated with the Air Force's addition of Cyber Command.

Lt. Col. Ann Knabe, a traditional Reservist from Pope AFB, N.C., well known in the AFRC public affairs community, asked the general if integrating widely-popular Internet sites like MySpace and YouTube into the recruiting and public affairs tool bags was part of the Air Force's cyber plan.

Chief Master Sergeant Ronnie Nelson from the Secretary of the Air Force's Office of Public Affairs is part of a panel currently discussing the issue and helped answer Colonel Knabe's question.
"We have to be in social media," Chief Nelson said. "We're looking at it right now. It's coming."

Maj. Robert Cousebaker, from Travis AFB, Calif., also well known in the PA community, expressed to General Stenner how hard it is to train traditional Reservists given the seemingly "infinite" number of training requirements handed down to AFRC units.

The 90-minute, all-inclusive, training plan developed at a recent meeting of top Air Force generals, and advertised to Airmen AFRC-wide, "didn't get done," the general responded. Manpower and Personnel leaders at Headquarters Air Force are looking into it, he added. A solution is on the way.