Your cheese has been moved and your iceberg has melted - now what?

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Oscar Vaughn
  • 60th Services Squadron commander
There's not a person reading this article that has not being affected by change in some fashion. If you're presently serving our country as either a DoD military or civilian, it seems like changes are coming at a furious pace. NSPS, VPP, AFSO-21, Lean initiatives.

The list seems endless, as do the acronyms. If you're a retiree, it seems like we're always changing the hours of the fitness center or the library.

Senior leaders and supervisors at Travis, and throughout our service, have a special challenge. We must not only ensure these changes are implemented for our people and our organizations, we must implement them and still allow our mission and our people to flourish.

Let's be honest. These are extraordinary times for our country and our Air Force. In addition to an incredibly high ops tempo, we are under tremendous fiscal constraints affecting everything we do, from how we use precious resources to how we conduct permanent change of station moves.

Frankly, it can be a little overwhelming. However, to posture our Air Force and our nation's defense for the future, we must make changes now. Changes in the way we procure, acquire and use the tools we need to do live up to Gen. Duncan McNabb's,
"Unrivaled Global Reach for America Always" vision.

We must perform today and still be able to plan for and perform tomorrow. It sounds like a very daunting task, but history says we can do it and do it well.
Each day, 47,000 Airmen from our Global Mobility force deliver approximately 58 offloads, 2,500 passengers and 1,000 short tons to locations around the world, usually in harm's way.

There are approximately 230 tanker sorties flown daily in support of those missions.

That's one departure every two minutes - every day, 365 days a year, in all types of weather and on any runway surface you can possibly imagine.

Sustaining that type of continuous excellence, and doing it safely, takes the skill, knowledge, and dedication of many incredibly talented military and civilian personnel, many of whom are your loved ones.

As we transition our beloved service to a more efficient, leaner fighting force for the long war ahead, it's easy to lose sight of the fact these tough changes we're doing now will make us stronger for the future.

To continue being the most dominate Air Force in the world will require skill, patience and a little humor to see us through to the other side.

To paraphrase Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne, we must become a more responsive, directed organization during this time of significant change. In addition to finding new and better ways to perform our core missions, we must be able to work with our sister services to forge a more resilient warfighting team of the future.

Another challenge for us is to do what we do and still remember those left behind: our family and loved ones.

It's hard being the one left to maintain the integrity of the home. Their mission is just as important as any we perform, and every change, even the little ones, also affects them.

How do we make sense of all of this? The Air Force has been on a "change kick" since my first days in the service. However, each change, whether it was Total Quality Management or Management by Walking Around, or even a new uniform every other year, helped us become a better Air Force.

For me, level-headed leaders took time to make sure those working for them were properly informed and educated on the changes at hand and how to best prepare for the future. I can't think of one person on this base who has not had at least one NSPS class.
In fact, I heard it was a requirement for some retirees to get their medication from the pharmacy, but I can't verify that.

In my squadron, we are doing all the necessary steps. Educating our folks on what lies ahead, arming them with information to help them make better decisions, starting AFSO 21 sessions and creating Lean initiatives and Rapid Improvement Events. But we are also talking and listening to each other, trying to make sense of all that is happening.

The challenges for our squadron are much like those for other organizations, but maybe to a greater degree. In addition to all the mandated changes, we are currently developing a plan to help our personnel weather the pending merger of the Services, Manpower and Personnel career fields.

Though our primary mission is to serve the Travis community, we must also be mindful of using best business practices to sustain the operations and services our customers have come to know and expect.

To some extent, every organization in the Air Force is undergoing the same transformation.

Put another way, yes, cheese is being moved from one feeding station to another, and if you listen to some former politicians, every iceberg in the world is melting.

However, this Air Force, and the people who make it great, can and will weather this storm, and we will all be better for it.

Ask any mouse or penguin.