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380AEW Article

Air component commander leads by walking around

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Denise Johnson
  • 380th AEW Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Lt. Gen. Gary North visited the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 to see what the Airmen here are up to first-hand.

General North, 9th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Central commander, who also serves as the United States Central Command's Combined Force Air Component Commander, said it's important to know the capacity of our people and the capabilities of our airplanes and our command and control capabilities.

"You can't do that sitting in the headquarters. It's leadership by walking around," General North said. "I believe in coming out and looking the Airmen in the eye, patting them on the back and praising them for what they're doing on the ground and in the air."

The commander also said it's vital he visits with senior leaders, "... not only my counterparts, the component commanders - but the senior leaders of the nations of which we work alongside. Last year we were in 15 different nations in the region. The travel schedule is heavy, but it's so very important to get out and see our Airmen throughout the AOR."

General North's responsibilities weigh heavily on the course of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, as well as 24 other nations in Central and Southwest Asia. As the senior leader in charge of all air operations, his actions must be on target.

"Our air tasking order defines our daily schedule that must be met in the combat zone; our aircraft must take off on time; they must get to the target area on time; they must be overhead for the time allocated in the ATO master plan. If they aren't, our joint and combined warriors and their missions on the ground are at risk," General North explained. "These are our brothers and our sisters, our moms, dads, cousins and uncles. Millions of people back home depend on us to be there on time. They don't know the Sergeant Smiths, Tailors, the Johnsons or the Morris' by name, but they do know what Airmen deliver to the fight."

General North took advantage of his visit to take a look at what the 380th brings to the fight. He said visiting work centers gives him the chance to see the flexibility of Airmen who look at a problem and come up with a solution. He followed up with an overview of an innovation that Brig. Gen. H.D. Polumbo, Jr., the 380th AEW commander, brought up at a recent commander's call.

"Some of my Airmen introduced a new way to do business," General Polumbo said. "The chain of command responded by listening to the experts on the line - that's the key to good leadership - listening."

The 380th Airmen shared a plan on how to save time and gas that would put more gas over the battlefield, while getting some of the refueling aircraft back sooner for maintenance. Their plan also enabled preparation to do more with the airplanes on call. General Polumbo listened, General North listened; the wheels of change are turning.

"Many of the innovative procedures we find in the field during day-to-day combat operations are now written into our tactics manuals, our procedures manuals ...," General North said.

General Polumbo escorted General North to the flightline to get a better understanding of the wing's most recent idea to improve refueling operations. "I was pleased to be able to meet with the Airmen and the operations behind the idea General Polumbo presented," General North said. "Based on the conversations we had here, I was able to go back to my quarters last night and type up the details of that idea and push it back to the Combined Air Operations Center to our planners. They are right now writing up the operations orders or execution orders to implement some of the changes in our daily flying portion of the ATO."

Even a small change in refueling operations can have a big impact. On average, the air refueling aircraft in the AOR deliver 3.8-million pounds of jet fuel per day from its air-refueling fleet of KC-135 and KC-10 aircraft. More than a million of that is from this wing.

"Three-hundred and thirty times a day we're directing our U.S. and coalition airplanes to our tanker airplanes to refuel so they can stay overhead of our ground forces in the fight," General North explained. "Sometimes you have a tanker directly overhead of a firefight with fighters or bombers on it so they can spin right off the tanker, right back down to the fight."

Although roughly a third of the air-to-air refueling gas delivered in the AOR comes from the 380th AEW, refueling is only one of the missions to reap the benefits of innovative Airmen here.

A few months ago, Airmen from the 380th AEW flying the E-3 Sentry, or Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, came up with an idea to make their jobs more efficient when operating in combat.

Listening, once again, proved beneficial to the Air Force and its missions in SWA. The Airmen said they had a technical solution to add a new technique to expedite secure communication while in the battlefield. "They introduced the idea, saying, 'this is what we'd like to have to make us more efficient and effective,'" General North said. "We took that idea back to the program managers. (The Airmen) are currently using that new capability. They're flying with it on the airplanes now.

"That's listening to the Airmen who are doing their job; the Airmen who say, 'Sir, this is what we need to do our job better.' And our job is to go get it for them and I think we do that pretty well," he said.

The general rounded off his visit by presenting a noncommissioned officer with a combat action medal earned on her fifth combat deployment; attending a wing promotion and award ceremony; and speaking to 380th AEW personnel about current and future operations here.

"We will be in this fight for a long time; it's a fight which requires air power; it is a fight which requires the specific types of air power this wing generates; it requires disciplined, ready Airmen; and it requires Airmen's families to understand how important that is," General North said.

Leadership by walking around has worked well for the general and the 380th AEW. The contributions by both are ongoing and evident in the changes being implemented, the missions being accomplished and the ATO being fulfilled.

"This wing has an A-plus grade from my perspective," General North said. "And behind our daily ATO execution is the constant hustle of Airmen - it's a thousand moving parts that produce that combat sortie that takes off on time."

General North views those moving parts personally whenever he can. "My best ideas are from wading into our Airmen at every level, at every shop and sitting down and going, 'Talk to me, tell me what you're doing,'" he said.

General North said the senior leadership exists to make the organization run more efficiently and effectively. "The only way you can do that is by going out and seeing our Airmen in action.

"We work for the youngest Airman in the field and the youngest Airman in the field needs to know that from the three-star commander, down to that Airman's wingman, the people behind him or her are working for them. I take that job very seriously," he concluded.