 What's up? Test, test. What's going on, people? Hey, I think we're missing something. Oh, y'all bringing a week in the AV booth. Let's start that over. Can we start it over? So General Brown says something about a theme song. I need y'all to get that right. Let's start it over. I mean, this Kansas City Chiefs team, we don't, we don't, come on, man. Talk about y'all later in the booth. But hey, I've never seen the gym here so packed. You got a bunch of brand new chiefs, and so everybody decides to go to the gym this morning. Good to see everybody here. Before I begin, there was a whole lot of people who made this happen during COVID, so that 390 something of y'all could be here. So y'all give a big hand clap to all the people who made this all possible. What I also want to say is, and I'll reiterate what some of your senior mentors shared, which is like, this week is all about you. This is so that you can take time to reflect and think about it. I also want you to know that everything was designed on purpose. So day one is about readiness. Day two is about people. Day three is about culture. So this is our opportunity, and every speaker who you're talking to was designed here on purpose. We brought some of our best. We're certainly going to hear from the A1. We're going to hear from two. We'll have some discussions in the two lane. We're going to hear from our A3 general Gus who's going to be here. The A5 is here. We don't have to go out and pay a whole bunch of speakers because we have great talent within the United States Air Force and stuff that you need to know. We also have some retired chiefs who lend a whole lot of credibility to our United States Air Force, and I couldn't be more excited for them to be here as well. But every person who's speaking to you this week is on purpose for your growth. And so with that, let me see if I can work this thing out. Y'all know I don't do slides that much. So not so long ago, I was sitting in your seats. Only I grew up in the School of Hard Knocks, so I don't think we had a chief. I don't know what we had when I came up, but we didn't have this. I was in USAFE at the time, and I think there was 20 of us sitting in a room doing, I don't know what we did, but what we didn't do was this. And so not so long ago, I was sitting in your seats. Not so long ago, when I made chief, I remember being told that I was gonna go be the next group chief in the 86 Operations Group. And I didn't even really know what that meant, right? Like, you know, you're just excited to make chief, and then all of a sudden you get thrust in, and you're a group chief, and then what did my career field do to me? They divorced me. Yeah, that was a little hard. I got a phone call from my career field manager. When I made chief and they said, what's your ex, what are your plans? How many of y'all got a phone call from your crew field manager saying, what's your plans? And so again, I was in this, I was a naive chief. Like, I didn't know, I'm like, and guess what I said? Bloom World Planet? Right, like, I don't know, you know? I'm gonna go wherever the Air Force sends me, but not so long ago, I was sitting in your seats, trying to navigate and figure out life. And if you look back at my career, when I made chief, and if I had to look at it from a learning graph perspective, I might offer that that graph throughout my career was a steady incline, you know, from airman basic all the way to chief. And then when I made chief, that incline went skyrocket. And so who you are today, pales in comparison to who you're gonna be in two years from now. I want y'all to let that soak in, y'all staring at me. Who you are today pales in comparison to who you're gonna be in two years from now. So enjoy this moment while you have it and just get ready to learn. So some things that were extremely helpful to me during this growth journey is foundation. Like, why do we even serve? Why do we do what we do? Like, what's this all about? You all could be doing anything that you wanna do. We serve in an all volunteer force. Some of y'all are over 20 years. Some of y'all look a little young. But some of y'all are over 20 years and you could be doing anything that you wanna do. And some of y'all could be making way more money than what you're doing today. But these foundational documents are really what helped shape it moment. When that, when my growth chart skyrocketed, it was because I'll be honest with you. For the first time in my career as a chief I actually now had to pay attention to these foundational documents. I don't know that I even read foundational documents before I became a chief. I was busy doing what I do. Taking care of airmen, right? I would offer like, what's gonna help you succeed these things? General Brown spoke about them a little bit. I'll tell you what keeps me going. When we talk about the NDS, and oh by the way, there's another NDS that's gonna come out probably in the next few weeks due to current events. It's a little, it's slowed up, delayed a little bit. But the NDS, actually I'm just gonna go there and talk about it now. How many y'all read the 2018 version of the NDS that Secretary Matt has penned? So back, I'm gonna start to get in KP's lane a little bit. He's gonna come and talk to you all about some strategic competition. But back into that, actually let me just rewind that. Who's been in the longest? Who's been in over 20 years? Over 25. All right. A couple y'all like, hold on. Over, I'm not gonna do the over 29, 23rd, you know. It's always back there, right? Like, but normally they'd be sitting up here. Let me just share a little bit from when I joined the Air Force. Because I think chronologically, right? General Brown was talking about why we've got to accelerate change or lose. Let me just share from my seat. When I joined our Air Force almost 29 years ago, we had at that time almost 600,000 active duty members serving at that time. Y'all know how many we have today? About 334,000. You guys will get a brief from DC, but about 300, about half. Now certainly it's a little bit of a different landscape. We have a whole lot of contractors that are helping us do our business or so they say, but we have, but in any case, y'all know I just keep it real, right? So they say, but we have about half the amount of people serving in today's Air Force. Back then we were focused on one AOR, primarily the SENTCOM AOR. It's where we deployed. It's where we did what we did. Back then we had to be strong in air, land and sea. Fast forward to today, fast forward to 2018. All of a sudden Secretary Mattis penned out the National Defense Strategy and what I appreciated about that foundational document was he spoke truth to power. And I'll paraphrase it for those y'all who didn't read it, but when I read that NDS, what it said to me is, hey, America, you've been slipping. You've been so focused on this VEO fight that now all of a sudden we have near peer competitors. That was 2018. I would argue today we don't have near peer competitors. We have full-on competitors. General Brown talked about that. That's why he pushed out his Action Order C for competition. And all today you're gonna hear a whole lot about competition, but that's why we wear this uniform. As our chiefs in our Air Force, that's what we need you to understand your why of why you still wear this uniform. And I'm fully convinced and I appreciated the question to General Brown on, hey, where do you think we are? Where do you think our airmen are? I'll be honest with you. You know, when I first got into the seat of myself in Diamond One, we're traveling around, talking to hundreds of our airmen, asking about how many of y'all understand our strategic competition? How many of you understand why we've got to modernize and accelerate change so that it's just not a buzzword? Maybe five hands out of 500 will go up. I'm pleased to say that we've been getting after it the last year and a half and our intel community has been getting after it after the last year and a half and now maybe 40 hands go up. But because we haven't been focused on some of these foundational documents and the why we do what we do, we have airmen more focused on beards than they are about China. Real talk. So we got a whole lot of things we got to get after. But these are the things that I need every one of you guys to be tracking. We'll talk about some of them later. Well, we didn't compare notes. So you heard General Hecker talk about truth. You heard General Brown talk about truth. I will tell you as a chief, nothing's changed. So to my defenders and maintainers, y'all like, what's all this truth talk? They don't have a problem telling the truth. Don't change that. In fact, again, especially as a chief, nobody will tell their boss the truth. Like you will. And that doesn't change whatever level you're in. Even today, with the chief of staff being my boss, the secretary of the Air Force being my boss, even the undersecretary, who y'all are gonna have the privilege to hear from today. Like during our first immersions together, I'm like, if you wanna hear truth of what's going on in our Air Force, I need y'all to go find my door. The goodness at this level is, defenders and maintainers, is you actually learn a little bit of grace and wisdom and how you share that truth. And when, right? Sometimes you just don't need to. But anyway, you'll learn that. The other thing I'll leave and share and then we'll move on to another slide is surround yourself by truth tellers. Especially now. So when I look at my teammates, my tribe, the Air Force Senior Enlisted Leader Council, the other MAGCOM chiefs, sometimes they tell the truth too damn much. But you've got to surround yourself by truth tellers. Greater is the sum than that person by themself. And so surround yourself. And I know this sounds like basic. I mean, man, y'all heard it from General Hecker, you heard it from General Brown, you're hearing it from me like, for some reason this gets a little bit tougher for people. They just don't want to share bad news. No, again, have the grace and the wisdom and know how. Some guiding principles. If you go into my office, you'll see a framed picture that I have. Right there, my dad, a retired warrant officer is re-enlisting me. And the plaque underneath it says, I'm sorry, he's enlisted me in the Air Force. And the plaque underneath it says, never forget where you came from. How many y'all are like, I don't know how in the hell I'm sitting in this auditorium today? See, some of y'all aren't telling the truth. But anyway, like how am I sitting, some of your supervisors are like, how in the world did this person make chief? Hey, y'all need to remember that. Stay grounded and never forget where you came from. You didn't just arrive. I loved where, I can't remember who said, hey, your name is chief. One of y'all said that. Somebody said, hey, your name is chief, right? How many y'all started getting called chief before you even became chief? I was tickled sitting here thinking about it because some of y'all got so excited that you're still a senior. I'll never forget. Some of the seniors called me up and said, hey, Joe, like as soon as they got promoted, I'm like, hey, you're not there yet. So but, but, but that was cute. But that was cute. They got excited, right? That was cute. You're not there yet. Guiding principles, never forget where you came from. The second one for all of our defenders in here who know, like that's Liz Jacobson. I keep her picture there to, so that I'm always reminded of my why. Like we serve for those who can't serve. And so for those who paid the ultimate price, you are going to have some challenging days. Like that's just life. You have to have some guiding principles on what's your why. And then the third picture, anybody know what that is? It's a little hard to see. That's a barn center. Where's a barn center folks at? So that's a barn center. And underneath it says, never quit learning. Again, who you are today pales in comparison to who you're gonna be in two years from now, three years from now, four years from now. Never quit learning. It's gonna be a steep curve. So as I got into the seat, a year and a half ago, General Brown in the seat a week longer than I have. Again, I stayed true to those foundational principles in my career, but I also stayed true to the things that I've always been focused on, which is people, readiness and culture. And they nest up quite well with where General Brown is focused on with his four action orders. When it comes to the people piece, he said it best, right? Like it doesn't matter how many B-21s we have, what our new ISR platform is, none of those things matter if we don't have the people. And the people are truly our most competitive advantage. So I will spend the majority of my time as your chief master on the Air Force in action order A in the people piece, because that matters. And I will tell you that when I think about the people piece, when I think about talent, when I think about the airmen that we need in 2030, I don't think short game. Like, man, we have to start thinking long game. Our competitors have been thinking long game. In fact, China's thinking long game where they talk about their 100 year marathon. How many of y'all know that they believe they're in a 100 year marathon? They talk about it. And they're actually pretty. What I love about China, are there any Intel folks in here? I'll keep all this a whole lot Intel folks. I'll keep all this on class open source. But what I love about China, they actually share their long game strategy with us. They actually share with us their Belt Road Initiative. And they actually have put a stake in the ground and every chief needs to know this. They put a stake in the ground and they've said in the year 2049 that they will take their rightful stand as a world dominant power because they're tired of living in a century of humiliation. If you don't know that, you need to. It gets back to understanding the way your competition thinks. And if you talk to most of your Intel analysts, what they'll tell you is they're actually about 15 to 20 years ahead of time. Do the math. 2029, if we're talking 20 years. So everything that we're focused when it comes to people, we're focused on the long game. And that's just basic talent management stuff. What does fitness need to look like? How do we assess fitness in the United States Air Force? What does it need to look like in 2030? And how do we start to backward plan? What's promotions look like? What's evaluations look like? How do we do assignments in 2030? And is what we're doing today what it needs to look like? On all things I would offer, it's a no. I don't think that all things are hard broken either. But I don't think that a lot of the stuff we do is optimal. And so to that end, oh, you're gonna see change. General Brown talks about change. You're gonna see more change. I venture in the next four years and I've seen in my entire 29 year career and it's about time. Because we cannot expect that we're gonna have the right people, the right airmen in 2030 if we don't get after these changes. And so we've got a lot to do. Readiness, culture, we'll talk about those things later. Here's what I need from you. I need you to help us develop the force. I need the folks, I need the force to actually be more concerned about strategic competition than they are about Beards. That happens with you all. What I don't need is every E4 to be steeped in China. Like I don't need that. But I do need them to have a foundational truth of what's going on in life. And you'll get a whole lot of that this week. But I need your help growing the force. Like it's just not gonna happen half-hazardly. I need your help. We pushed out the Enlisted Force Development Action Plan and hopefully you guys have all seen that. Hopefully you all have printed it out and it's sitting there right by your desk. Let me just share a little bit of history on that one. So when we first got in the seat and I'm sitting there with Dival 1 and I'm sitting in the office and we were reading some doctrine because that's what you do in the Pentagon. So we should read us something and it referred to the Enlisted Force Development Strategy. And remember I'm focused on the long game. So I was like, how are we developing airmen in 2030? Like what's our strategy? Like let me see the strategy. And oh, by the way, this is a shame that I'm sitting in the office for the first time and I haven't read our strategy. We do an RFI, we don't have one. We're like, okay, so we got this. So we do some talent management, get some people in the right positions. You're gonna hear from some of those folks but we get some people in the right positions. And so for the past year and a half we've been focused on what is our deliberate strategy, not half hazard on how we're gonna grow the force that we need to be the air force that our nation needs. But we have this strategy. So a few months ago last fall, we finally briefed this strategy to General Brown. And we're like, okay, sir, here's how we're gonna get after making sure that our force, that's half the size that we were before, strategic competitors, here's how we're gonna be what we need to be. And General Brown says, hey, love it, Chief. But guess what? We're not gonna call it a strategy. Strategy doesn't mean a damn thing if you don't apply action. And so that right then and there we change it from enlisting force development strategy to enlisting force development action plan. It has 28 objectives that I need you guys to be tracking. Much of it is what our staff is gonna hold ourselves to. But some of it is which all are gonna do. And that first objective, make sure that every airman understands the threat that's going on. We've got to get that into our heads. And if you don't know what it is, then you've gotta make sure that you have that foundational truth so that you can do what we need. So first one, help us grow the force. Second one, help us instill some trust in our institution. Probably one of the most surprising things that I've experienced as a Chief Master in the Air Force is how many people reach out to my office. It's shocking. Like, I mean, it could be a full-time job. I'm not even kidding you. Actually, it is a full-time job. It is a full-time job. It is a full-time job. All the number of people who email, message, we even get cute phone calls that reach out to the, like, and so why in the world? What's interesting is, me and my husband were talking about this one day. I was like, how do all these people feel comfortable? Like, reaching out to the office of the Chief Master, and y'all know I'm married to an Army guy, by the way. 27 years, retired as a First Sergeant, you know? And he's like, I don't know what's going on with y'all Air Force people. He's like, he was like, never in my 27 years did I ever think I should email the Sergeant Major of the Army. I was like, I know. And oh, by the way, don't say, hey, is this young stuff? Most of people who email us are Master Sargeants. Like, reach out to us on Facebook. And oh, by the way, I have a great PA who you guys are also gonna meet. So Chief Master in the Air Force is not on Facebook. Like, that's my PA. But why would they reach out to my office? Why would they reach out? Trust. Somehow they feel more trust reaching out. Maybe it's, you know, the anonymity, I don't know. Somehow they feel more trust reaching out that way. Or maybe it's just the way it is with the no information domain that we're in. I don't know, but somehow they feel more trust to reach out to my office. That should never be the case. Your airmen, your wingmen should never feel more comfortable reaching out to my office or their office more than they feel like reaching out to their own supervisor. Or their wingmen to their right and left. So we need some help talking about that trust piece. We need some help in that trust in the chain of command. And we all own that. So I need your help in that. And the third thing that I need your help in is reminding people to control what they can control. Again, it gets back to, I don't need every E4 steeped into what's going on in China. But I do need them to have that foundational piece. And I need us to trust our chains of command. Trust our most senior leaders that they're doing those things and control what you can control. When I go and I talk to your wing commanders and group commanders and the group chiefs at their courses, I come out every month here at Air University to talk to them. I remind those wing commanders, do only what you can do and delegate the rest to the chiefs. Do only what you can do that it requires a chief to do and delegate the rest. Empower your folks and somehow we're gonna have to re-teach that empowerment piece. I don't know when it changed, but I'll tell you when I joined our Air Force, my first supervisor was a senior airman, Brian Hurley. He ran 74 fighter squadron ops. Was empowered as a senior airman to do that. Then somehow in the late 90s, early 2000s, we started to become risk averse and that became a buzzword. And now you can look around and you see chiefs doing what E7 should be doing and senior NCOs doing what their NCOs should be doing and NCOs doing what their airmen. No, we've got to reverse that back. We have got to teach empowerment again. We have to let our folks go, like let them go. They're gonna make mistakes. I'll host stuff up, we did, but we've got to empower and we've got to again control what we can control. Man, time's gonna go so fast. How many of y'all feel like your career's already gone by so fast? So I'll tell you when it comes to what's winning for us, whether it's what's winning, sitting in this seat, what's winning as I end my Air Force career at some point because all of us are gonna take this uniform off. Like what's winning? I have a picture of my family here, largely in part because winning for us is that the family's gonna be there when we take this uniform off, like period. But two, I share this picture because you know, I think it was General Brown who talked about a fishbowl. You're in a fishbowl now. Like all eyes are always on you. You're forever chief in the commissary. You're forever chief. You just wanna go get some whatever you wanna get. You're in a fishbowl. So we got this picture taken probably 2016 timeframe. We were new there at Second Air Force and we were on the beaches of Biloxi. How many of y'all been to the beaches of Biloxi? So we're there and I don't know about y'all, but like family pictures to the Bass family is like an emotional significant event. Like nobody likes to take pictures in my family but me. Like nobody gets excited about taking family pictures. So we only do them about once every two years. It's a big deal. Like we had to get a photographer. The photographer's gotta be there. They tell us where to show up, when the lighting's good on the beach. So we get our pictures. I happen to share that picture with a bunch of our personal friends and teammates that are on social media. And everybody comes back and they're like, oh, how amazing. Oh, what a beautiful family. Heart, heart, love you guys. You look amazing, right? What that picture doesn't show is reality. So like probably about one hour before that picture, I'm at work, like I'm in a meeting and the meeting's lasting long. And I'm like, all right, man, like I gotta, we're supposed to be here at this place. Photographer's coming. The sun's going down. Like so what it doesn't show us a chaos is I leave work and I throw out, you know, on the clothes and the family's in the car and I have two kids. I don't know about y'all but they're always fighting with each other. I'm like, everybody finds something blue and we get in the car and I look over at my husband and what do retired people do? They're always on the golf course so he's bearded out. And so, and I look at him, I'm like freaking, I have three kids in here. And so nobody's happy. Nobody's happy. We get to the photo shoot and I'm like, what do you need us to do? She's like, how about you just walk down the beach? And I'm like, all right. And I literally look at my family at that time and I said, everybody hold hands and act like you love each other. And that was, like that was the picture. Real life. Like we're still folks, you know, so you are in a fishbowl but life happens. Don't forget to make sure you're winning. So with that, I have some other things that I'll share with you before I open it up to questions and answers. But let me just, you know, share, here's a few other tips or general Brown calls them leadership nuggets that I have for you guys. One of them is balance. Sometimes as leaders, we can be the biggest hypocrites when it comes to balance. We tell our troops to balance. We tell those around us to balance, but we don't balance. Like I actually am a big believer in the calf pillars. Sometime when I came in the Air Force, I had a briefing about comprehensive airman fitness and it showed the pillars and the roof that was out of line. If one of the pillars was off, like you have got to find balance. If you weren't disciplined before, like I would ask you, discipline your schedule because you don't get more time in it. You'll have to figure out what your battle rhythm is. I'll tell you, I love to sleep. And I love the snooze button. But what I learned is if I hit that snooze button as much as I love to hit it, I hose myself for the rest of the day. And who really gets hosed is our airman because I'm on react mode. So I discipline myself to wake up at about 4.30 every day and it sucks. But 4.30 every day and get my PT in because for years and years and years, what do you do? You wake up late and then you say you're going PT when? And it doesn't happen. So discipline yourself to make sure you get those things and balance and take care of you. You can't be who you need to be if you don't take care of you. Man as a chief, as a senior leader, some of my first sergeants in here appreciate this. Shifting gears as a leader is tough. You might be in the fourth gear and all of a sudden you go to reverse. I can remember times where I was getting ready to go to the base theater and congratulate airman and give out awards. And 30 seconds before we're walking up on the stage, we get a phone call from Presidio Monterey that says, hey, an airman jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Like how do you process that stuff? Shifting gears is extremely tough. And because of that, I would ask that you keep a good tribe around you. Like you need to have good people. Small tribe, but a good tribe. And so keep a good tribe around you. Go to the money meetings. How many of y'all have access to your boss's calendar? If you don't, you need to. How many of y'all, when you see your boss go into the money meetings, you don't go? Y'all are lying. Listen to me. So some of y'all aren't telling the truth. Here's, so for those of y'all, like learn from me. Here I am a group chief and I would see my boss's calendar and my boss would go to these FM meetings. And I'm like, well, I'm not going to that. Like, you know, that's boring, right? Like, so I never, I mean, this is real talk. Maybe y'all are better than me then. Like I never went to a budget meeting until I was a command chief. They're way better than me. Like never went to it. When my boss would go to the budget meeting, what I do? I'm going to see troops. Like I'm going to do what it, so I didn't understand colors of money. I wasn't in the room to help make a difference and advise my boss on, oh, some fallout money just happened. So here's what we really need to buy that wouldn't have made the cut. You're not in the room. You gotta be at the budget meetings, man. That's why you guys have a briefing from our A-8. By the way, Chief Ross, first senior enlisted leader in the A-8 who's going to brief you guys, I couldn't be more excited because previously we've never had an enlisted member in the A-8. Can you believe that? When I had my immersion with the A-8, they're like, yeah. Like enlisted folks never come to the engine room. Enlisted folks, you know, like you're the first chief master on the Air Force who ever got an immersion with us. And I was like, that's because I like money. Like, and oh, by the way, I realized what General Brown said, like everything is about the budget. I need chiefs in here. I need 389 chiefs in here to understand a foundation about the budget. Because just maybe if you do, you'll be able to communicate for all things. Communicate when things go south. Communicate when things are good. Let me tell you, things aren't that great when it comes to budget. There is so much we want to do for our United States Air Force. So much we want to do. But anyway, go to the money meetings. We'll talk a little bit about budget later. It gets really depressing. Mentor all, sponsor few. Y'all know what that means. Like, again, mentor all, sponsor few. General Brown talked about, what are we a two out in the Air Force? And man, I love that question when I heard it. We have too many airmen who don't know how to share what the Air Force brings to the table. Which is why you're gonna hear from Jay France later this week. We have too many, I've been in too many courses where airmen can't effectively share what they bring to the table. And I don't care what kind of airmen you are. I don't care if you're medical, services, personnel. I don't care. You need to be able to be steeped and understand what the Air Force brings to the table. Like, that's gotta be part of who you do. You have to understand where we're headed. You have to have some foundational knowledge of why we wear this uniform and why your service today, why the service of our airmen matters more than it ever did. And with that, hey, I wanna open it up for real talk. So what's on your minds? And don't be shy like y'all were initially with the boss, especially today. I mean, I do see it online. Y'all have a whole lot of questions and opinions, but then it gets quiet normally when I'm here. What's on your minds, y'all? Good morning. Senior Burge from Bowling Air Force Base. So I wanna talk about, ask about DEI real quick. I'm very passionate about the DEI stuff. I'm involved in several initiatives, but I've been getting really discouraged over the last couple of years because I feel like we're stuck in the same loop of conversation. People tend to lose sight that the Air Force definition of diversity doesn't only focus on race, ethnicity, and gender, but that's the only conversation happening. So how and when do we take that conversation to the next level to build the airmen and the capability that we need to get after our objectives? Yeah, Catherine, I think that's a great question. What I would offer is, I think we have to look at diversity wholly different and not that, and we can't look at diversity as a moral imperative. Well, I would agree that it is a moral imperative. It's more of a war fighting imperative, but I think what we all have to understand is what you just said, right? Diversity is three things. Diversity is diversity in demographics, certainly. You know, the details about you, gender, race, sexual orientation, all those things, but diversity is also diversity of experiences, and we all have a whole lot of different experiences, and diversity is also of the cognitive piece. We were all brought up differently. We all have a different level of education, like in when you value those three different diversities and you're trying to create success for your organization, then diversity looks something differently depending on the organization and what you're looking for, and you're not so much focused on the demographic piece. We have a new ODI office, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and I couldn't be more excited that we pulled it from where it was sitting previously on the air staff where it was buried underneath the two letter, and now it actually works for the secretary of the Air Force, and they have some momentum. And so let's see if the efforts they have are getting after it, and then if you have some ideas, we'd love to hear them. All right, we'll go right here. Good morning, Chief. Senior West from Hill Air Force Base. So, you talked truth, and I know it's been a platform that's reached your level of visibility, but, and no offense to the calm people in the room, but... Why'd I know this was about to be a calm question? Because we talk about mission versus airmen, and we talk about focusing on our airmen and don't sit behind your desk. But to the point of the author who wrote, fix our computers, and I know that's made it to your level, I just wanna hear from you directly. Where are we at with that? Because last week, for example, literally to the author's point, it took a good two hours for me to get logged into my computer, and as leaders, knowing that the majority of our administrative duties are focused on those platforms, Adobe Outlook, and not being able to get into, knock those types of tasks out in order to then turn our focus to taking care of our airmen. Where do you see us focusing those efforts to eliminate some of those issues so that we can get back to focusing on what is really important? Hey, where's our calm folks at, by the way? All right, so I don't speak calm. I'm an ops girl, but I'm gonna share that we are, like it is clear, it is evident by your senior leaders, we are not where we need to be from an IT cyber perspective, and that all falls back to budget and prioritization and risk. Long story short, and I'll share the long story piece in a minute, but I will tell you that I have a whole lot of faith in our staff CIO, Chief Information Officer. She has a strong strategy on how we are going to get the United States Air Force because it's not just the Air Force, it's the entire DOD, it's the entire whole of government. We have a strong strategy on how we're gonna get after this, but what do we need? You need the money. So yes, we're gonna get out of it. Some of it though, when I reached out to her, by the way, over the weekend, when that released and my PA sent me this and it got embarrassing and all our airmen got real clever and started doing memes, right? Like I actually have her on speed dial, so I sent her some of the memes. I said, we're memes now. This is the embarrassing, right? Like what do you say? And she actually, we laughed. She's like, hey, some of them are true, some of them are not. Some of them are, you just need to get better hardware and the hardware is already there. Like you need to reach out to your comm squadron because there's a whole lot of hardware out there. And as soon as you do, like some of your problems go away. Real talk, like the money piece. I'm the only enlisted member who gets to sit in Corona and be there with our four stars and our three stars, talking about where their force is going in life. And I'll tell you a little bit about the first day. The first day is kind of like today, except for you go into threat briefings for the most part and you start off in the unclass level, you go to unclass, to secret, to TS, to sap, to sap, to sap, to sap. And our Intel folks know that the higher in classification you go, the worse it gets. So it's depressing as hell. On day two, when you think it can't get any more depressing, on day two we go to budget. And it really is depressing. Jeremiah's going to press you all in a little bit. But it goes to that. But what I want to share with you from the IT infrastructure piece is, man I can appreciate what our three and four stars have to do because they have to make some really tough decisions for the enterprise. And the tough decisions they are is, how do we modernize and make sure that we're the air force that our nation is going to need in 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, with the war gaming that they know that we're doing. How can we do that on a budget? Who gives us our budget? Congress. Like, I mean, how do we do that when we never get the budget that we need? And the IT piece that we're talking about is foundational. Like, the IT piece is foundation. We have never been resourcing the foundation of the things that we need as a force appropriately because we just don't have the budget. So it's painful decisions. I'm confident we're going to get there. All right, back there. Morning, Chief Senior Wessing from Ramstein Air Base. So that senior stole a little bit of my thunder. As a cyber operator, you introduce yourself as IT and the very next thing you hear is comm sucks. Yeah. Over the course of the past two years, we've done COVID and the Air Force made DOD writ large, made huge investments in teleworking. And I would argue that that's probably one of the success stories of COVID. In your opinion, as is SimSaf, what does the future of work look like given that we've proved that we can do a lot from the house? Yeah. If there's almost anything I can't do as a senior enlisted leader from the house, what does the future of work look like and do we need to be tethered to brick and mortar and office chairs to get after it? Yeah. Thanks. Like, right to your point, I think we've already given the authorities to commanders to be able to make the best decisions for their people and their workforce. There are some career fields that are never gonna be able to telework. It's hard to telework if you're a maintainer. It's hard to telework if you're a defender, right? And then while I appreciate telework, like I appreciate telework with the best of them, although I feel like I work more when I telework. I don't know about y'all. I feel like I work more. The reality is what you're not getting teleworking scares me. And that's the second and third order impacts the lack of eyeball to eyeball leadership, that lack of connection. We can't underestimate that value. So we've given the authorities now today to commanders to be able to decide who in their workforce needs to telework. I would offer COVID also revealed to us some jobs that we probably just need to get rid of. So time will tell. We need all leaders to get back to what our slide talked about, tell the truth. It's not personal. But if for the smallest we've ever been, man, we need every person to do their piece and commanders will have to make decisions on what's best for their workforce. Oh, okay, back there. Y'all help me figure this out. We'll do like around Robin, okay? And good morning. Since after that senior require A26 at the Pentagon. Oh, what? So I'm in cell, full transparency, brought up maintenance. So we're gonna get some real talk here. What is your vision for enlisted talent marketplace as we try to essentially develop our airmen and effectively manage their talent as we put them in the right positions in these, in our jobs. Because as of right now, our current assignment system, we just put them at a base, right? And if you look at the exit surveys, the main reason airmen are getting out is because of misutilization, assignment processes, things like that. And Intel, we've already gone to using enlisted talent marketplace for assignment cycles and not just equal plus ads. Is that your vision moving forward for all of the enlisted airmen? Or are we looking at only using that for equal plus ads? Nope. Hey, so I have two priorities that if I had money today, here's where they would go to today. I have more priorities, but the top two that I've shared with the team broadly is the first one is I need every senior NCO in talent marketplace. Like I need every senior NCO and I think we'll get there this year, right? I wanted every enlisted person in talent marketplace. Our officers are currently doing it, but at scale, that's something bigger than we could bite off on for. Lots of reasons. So I said, okay, great, let's get our, and I don't know that we need every senior airman to be matched in and handled from an assignment piece the way I need our senior NCO. So my goal is by the end of this year that we're all in talent marketplace. Y'all ask Chief Meckel Roy when she's here talking at AFPC. But anyway, so that'll be one of the other goal for money is, and I don't ask for much, y'all. Like I don't. But I'm like, it is 22, like 2022. If we can't get to digital WAPS testing, we are a sad state. Like don't hold me to it. Don't tweet that out, because we may not get to it. But why? Because of the money. So I'm on speed dial with Jeremiah. I'm like, hey bro, find me the money. But here's the challenge. When we find the money for stuff like that, guess what's happening? Something else in getting funded. Y'all need to know, I mean like, this is real talk that you all need to know. And oh by the way, it's not the man taking your money. Like again, this is why I think it's important for at this level, you know, because I didn't go to the money meetings, I didn't know. So when sequestration happened, who was I mad at? I was mad at the folks who was leaving our Air Force. Like so yes, I think we're gonna get there. The other good news story I'm gonna tell you is we actually had an enlisted assignment working group huddling. They sent me the executive summary, which was 35 pages. I don't know how that's 35 pages, but I'm actually having the out brief by them. We had a group of airmen led by a NAF command chief, who's a defender by the way, lead the charge on this enlisted assignment working group. We haven't looked at assignments holistically since 1991. Like holistically. And oh by the way, if you don't know me by now, like I love free. Anything that's free, and it helps get after action order A and people, I'm down with. Like I will look at everything that's free. And what I know for certain is we have a whole lot of assignment policies that we can change for free that just don't make sense. And so we're gonna move out on those things first. We're gonna get some low bills in, and then we'll push some money into talent marketplace, but we're evolving our enlisted assignments. And the officers will benefit too, because we're gonna change some of those things. All right. Good morning chief. I'm Sergeant Parrish from Joint Base San Antonio. My question is a policy related question in regards to I would say readiness and medical as well. So it comes down to what opportunities currently exist that you may be aware of when it comes to allowing service members the option to have their own privatized health insurance in addition to tri-care. And if we're not looking at that, why not? I'm gonna call a friend on that one. Let us get back to you on that. Can somebody take a note on that one? What I do think for certain when I talk about why are we limited in some of the benefits when it comes to medical healthcare benefits, it's because from a tri-care perspective, or from an insurance perspective, tri-care doesn't pay enough. So nobody wants tri-care. So we are sharing those concerns with DHA who's elevating and doing that. But let me, let's phone a friend and then we'll get back to you on that. All right, we're gonna start speed dating right now because I see D1 standing up. Good morning, Senior Master Sergeant Ida Lees Lagu from Langley Air Force Base. My question is, we have an increasing number of airmen who are arriving to their first duty station. And then we quickly find that they're struggling through some mental health, some adjustment issues to the Air Force. And they've gone through tech school for so long that by the time they get to their first base, they've already surpassed the 180 day initial entry airmen timeframe. Have we considered either having a mental health assessment while the members are in tech school or extending the 180 day mark from when they arrive to their first duty station as opposed to when they enter the Air Force? I'm looking over at AUTC. I don't know, is ET around? I don't know that he can, I don't know that I can say for certain that we haven't looked. What I will tell you is, we've actually looked at getting even more left of that, which is providing a mental health, a solid mental health assessment like in MEPS. They get one to some degree, but it's very cursory. And when I talk to most of our mental health folks, they're like, hey, we're buried, especially in our tech training organizations. They're like, we're buried, like we needed to do this a long time ago. And so the discussions that I've had with our service SELs, cause MEPS is not like owned by us. It's a joint piece. Certainly, the Army has a whole lot of say, what I'm trying to get them to reason is like, they presented me, I think a $15, like every person can take this mental health assessment. I'm like, we need to pay the $15 for everybody. I don't care how many people it is, because we will reap the benefits if we do it ahead of time instead of after the time. So we are looking at that. Yeah, all right, real quick. Chief senior Aaron from Kadina. You talked about empowerment and that we need to get airmen doing airmen work and NCOs doing NCOs work. So my question is, and I talked through experience of what I've experienced in my career is, chiefs worrying about that first term airmen and spending a lot of time with them versus spending time with the senior NCOs and developing them to be chiefs. So my question to you is, what mentorship would you give us as new chiefs on how we make sure we spend the time with those senior NCOs versus with that first term airmen? I say just do it, right? When I was a group chief, I had to focus on again and that's why I talk about, you don't get more time in the world. Like, so when I was a group chief, I'm like, what am I going to in the limited time that I have, who will I pour my time into? It wasn't the airmen. I'm like, let me make sure that I'm spending time with these squadron, at that time, we called them squadron superintendents, now they're senior enlisted. Let me spend time with this group. Let me make sure that I know, even beyond the squadron senior enlisted leaders that I understand are strong E-8s so that when needed, right? We're pouring that time. We just have to do it. Again, I don't need chiefs that are doing what it, that doesn't mean that you're not going to come and have an opportunity to connect with folks. Like, that's just human nature. But man, if your chief is doing what your staff sergeants are doing, like, that's just wrong. So we just gotta do it. By the way, man, I love seeing you, chief. Erin, like, this talks about the small Air Force we're in. She came up to me and she said, I don't know if you remember, I used to coach your daughter. So I'm like, yeah, well, she's like, what happened to your daughter? I said, she's a senior in college. She said, wow, I feel old. I'm like, yeah, that's it. Are we done? I thought there was one more. One more, okay. I'll take it, chief. See, I'm starting to raise her from CR over at Joint Base McGuire. So when I look at the EPR system, knowing that there's been a bunch of changes in the past, changes coming in the futures, the officers are following some of that model. When I look at our model, it seems unbalanced in the year. We've got annual awards right on top of staff sergeant EPRs, airman EPRs, the biggest workload happening right around the time in which we are supposed to be balancing out family and work. Has there ever been a conversation about trying to shift some of that in order to be able to balance that out? Yeah, there's always a conversation about it. In fact, there was a conversation about it this week and I shot a note to Chief Crowder who again is gonna brief you later this week with one of the students in the chief leadership course now sent me an email spinning off of a conversation and a question that she had had. Like, here's what it would look like if we adjusted our scots and here's how we get after this. And so of course I took that and I said, huh, here's a thought. I want the folks in A1P at the Pentagon to just like marinate on this and tell me what you say if we adjusted scots. So then of course the answer is like, hey, yeah, we're gonna look into it, but scots are aligned to testing cycles, right? So then, where's a personelist by the way? I don't speak personalities either, but so then they're like, hey, but it's aligned to testing cycle. And I'm like, and? Right, like so here's what I asked them to do. Like just again, we have to think unconstrained and this gets after design implementation. Like think differently about this. If we're gonna roll out a new digital WAPS system, that's probably the best time that if we're gonna ever realign scots and testing cycles, do it at that time. So we need to take a holistic look at our enlisted evaluation system, which we are. And that's probably one of the things that we've gotta look after. There's a whole lot of things that we're focused on. I will be with you guys all week. You're gonna have those three senior mentors, part of your Air Force Senior Enlisted Leader Council, that will be mentoring you each different day. I'll be here, I'm glad to share some things on my mind and then I'll close it up on Thursday prior to you guys getting broken off to your MagComs. There is a lot of things we're getting after. And as I've shared before, there's probably not one thing that matters to you or matters to your families that my team's not looking at. I have this thing called things to get after list. And this stuff isn't just made up. This is stuff that myself and your MagComs chiefs are like, what can we realistically do to move the ball and start to evolve for the Air Force that we need to prepare for? What are the things that we can actually do? There's a whole lot of stuff and I wanna be able to share those things with you because I don't want you to leave here and you don't know. But I guarantee you, if it's important to you, we got a working group that is meeting up, talking about it. PME, Enlisted Assignments, Promotions, Evaluations. I'm actually okay pushing something out and it's maybe the 80% solution. I'm okay with that because we gotta move. Like we can't wait until something's perfect. We have to be really thoughtful in what the second and third order effects are because we don't wanna hose ourselves. We rolled out and changed promotion points, right? Where we are adding points for experience. I don't know if that's a ticket. I'm excited to see the data that comes back from that. What I knew is we had to do something because we were promoting people with no experience faster than we were promoting people with two to three to four years experience and it was almost criminal to me. So we're gonna roll things out and we're gonna press levers and we need your support and we need to make sure that you help us with that trust in the system. We have a lot of things to get after y'all and we're gonna do it. Because like draconian policies from the 90s and 2000s are not what's gonna help us win in 2030 and we've got to. So with that, hey man, it's an honor to serve with you guys. It's an honor to serve as the chief master in the Air Force. It's an honor to serve with General Brown who actually lets us be us. He values the hill out of his enlisted corps and he values the heck out of you as chiefs. And so thanks for what you all do every single day. I look forward to chatting with you throughout the week and look forward to hearing the next briefer that comes up. Whoop, awesome. Thanks y'all. Woo!