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Air & Space Power Journal - Summer 2007

Inventory Management of Officers with
Advanced Academic Degrees

The Case for a New Approach

Lt Col Raymond W. Staats, PhD, USAF
Lt Col Marty Reynolds, USAF
Maj Aaron D. Troxell, USAF

Each year hundreds of military officers receive advanced academic degrees (AAD), sponsored and funded by the Air Force. Because graduate education is costly in terms of both funding and man-hours, we must take care to ensure the relevance of these degrees to each officer’s professional development. However, the existing system that we use to select officers for graduate education does not meet this intent. The Graduate Education Management System (GEMS), the current “bottom-up” billet-based requirements process, focuses on resource management and utilization rather than on education, professional development of officers, and health of the career field.¹ Succinctly put, the GEMS does not employ a strategic vision to ensure that the graduate education of officers provides an appropriate set of war-fighting capabilities. Rather, the system is primarily designed to project and fill AAD-coded billets with officers possessing the specified degree and to provide an auditable tracking system for utilizing these officers. This article demonstrates the incompatibility of such an approach with the concepts of Total Force development as well as capabilities-based planning and proposes an alternative—the Advanced Academic Degree Inventory Management (AADIM) model.

Background and Issues

The GEMS generates unit-level AAD requirements, validates and certifies billets, and projects vacancies annually, doing so at the lowest level, where it is ostensibly easiest to identify the need for AAD education. The validated list then goes to the Air Force’s career-field monitors, responsible for reviewing, certifying, and prioritizing their functional area’s list of AAD billets. They act as points of contact for organizational and unit functional managers as well as for the Air Force Education Requirements Board, which approves educational quotas within available funding levels and places the remaining requirements on a prioritized alternate list. The Air Force Personnel Center advertises the available AAD opportunities and matches approved officers with a graduate-degree program. Selected personnel attend the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) or other graduate institutions to obtain an AAD with a follow-on assignment dictated by the educational discipline. Officers serve a subsequent three-year payback tour in a validated AAD-coded billet, concurrent with a mandatory active duty service commitment.² The Air Force intended that the GEMS fulfill the Department of Defense’s (DOD) requirement of fully accounting for the utilization of graduate-education resources; this system, along with a stringent validation process, serves as the foundation of the system’s billet-based approach.³

However, in 1992 an audit by the Air Force Audit Agency found that officers were serving in AAD-coded follow-on assignments an average of one and one-quarter years versus the mandatory three years, and that AAD-coded position incumbency rates were only 40–50 percent.⁴ The audit apparently did not consider the fact that officers found themselves at a competitive disadvantage by having to forgo career progression and broadening opportunities to remain in an AAD-coded billet for three years. Such a career risk has acted as a disincentive for officers to pursue fully funded graduate education. Local commanders clearly understood this problem and compensated by reassigning officers at the expense of leaving the AAD billet vacant until the projected arrival of the next AAD officer. To address this systemic problem, the report made the stunning recommendation of cutting the number of graduate students by 58 percent for fiscal years 1995–98.⁵ Although in line with resource utilization, this recommendation does not acknowledge an important aspect of an AAD—professional development and career-field health. Today the unchanged GEMS remains the primary process for managing professional graduate education. In fact, the Report on Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT): Study for Senate and House Armed Services Committees, submitted as required by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2001, recommended continuing the present system to manage advanced education.⁶

In November 2002, a “Chief’s Sight Picture” called for taking officer development in a new direction, both educationally and professionally.⁷ Although initiatives for Total Force development now address assignments, placement in professional military education, and selection of squadron commanders, it still does not cover the critical aspects of professional development related to obtaining specialized graduate education.

The GEMS does not include any consideration of long-term requirements or the aggregate educational health of various Air Force specialty codes (AFSC). Lt Col Raymond Staats and Maj Derek Abeyta provide a case study with respect to the space-and-missile career field, finding that, over the last 10 years, GEMS processes have significantly contributed to the near-extinction of space—related AAD billets, as well as graduate-level space education within the Air Force officer corps.⁸ The Space Commission made clear in its final report that it considered this an unacceptable situation.⁹

Education as a
Strategic Capability

Developing officers with enduring competencies is the key to a strong, responsive, and skilled military force. Similar to offering combatant commanders a range of effects-based capabilities, having educated officers capitalizes on our most flexible, adaptive, and important capability—Airmen. Education is an integral part of officer development and an indispensable ingredient in initiatives concerning Total Force development. In their recent letter to all United States Air Force officers, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen T. Michael Moseley stated, “In a smaller, leaner and more expeditionary-focused Air Force, it is essential that our Airmen have the knowledge and competency to accomplish our mission,” emphasizing that “one of the most effective ways to develop this knowledge is through advanced education.”¹¹ As the world becomes more complex, globally interconnected, and dependent on rapidly changing technology, not only must our officers possess advanced education but also each career field must have the correct mix of AADs so that commanders have the right personnel for the right situation.

Analysis of current AAD compositions shows that many career fields have officers with an inappropriate range of AAD capabilities. For example, although 99 percent of lieutenant colonels in the space-and-missile career field (AFSC 13S) have AADs, only 13 percent of them are considered technical degrees.¹² As such, the 13S career field lacks critical competencies, thereby necessarily limiting a combatant commander’s range of space-and-missile-related capabilities.

The importance of AADs is not unique to the military. A recent Internet-based survey of Fortune 500 government-contractor firms found that 83 percent of senior managers have AADs (fig. 1).¹³ More importantly, the mix of degrees within these organizations shows a deliberate selection and development process focused on both management and technical competence, designed to complement each company’s vital needs. Twenty-eight percent of these executives have technical degrees, and the range of degrees reflects long-term planning to acquire educational expertise. Not only are advanced educational profiles for many Air Force career fields significantly out of balance, but also no mechanism currently exists to correct this problem. It is important to note that the Air Force cannot directly hire senior leadership, as can the corporate arena. We must develop and educate military leadership from within the existing personnel pool—a career-length endeavor that demands strategic foresight and long-range planning.

Figure 1. Fortune 500 government-contractor advanced-education profile for senior executives

The GEMS makes the fatal mistake of assuming the feasibility of aggregating a Total Force strategy from disjointed field-level inputs. For example, within the current GEMS construct, only 2 percent of 13S career-field billets are marked as validated positions requiring technical education.¹⁴ The AADIM model, in contrast, offers a capabilities-based strategic approach that can implement initiatives and direction for Total Force development.

The Advanced Academic
Degree Inventory
Management Construct

AADIM seeks to give career fields a flexible and responsive approach to overseeing professional development and educational health through “top-down” AAD management. It emphasizes selection and career-field management rather than tracking and resource utilization. A capability (inventory)-based system, AADIM focuses on deliberate strategic requirements instead of narrowly and often arbitrarily selected billets.

The force-development management structure established by AFI 36-2640 encompasses all of the organizations vital to the AADIM approach (fig. 2). By expanding its oversight into AADs, the Force Development Council (FDC) can establish an AAD Total Force strategy as well as create overarching guidance for graduate education, thus integrating these concerns with all other force-development issues. DTs already have responsibility for reviewing the health and diversity of the force and for ensuring the consideration of functional and operational perspectives. Advanced education is a natural fit. Within the AADIM construct, the FDC develops AAD aggregation requirements, communicates the value of graduate education as both enabler and capability for each task force’s concept of operations (CONOPS), articulates AAD requirements within the Air Force CONOPS, identifies future needs for advanced education, and integrates advanced education into the Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment process. This guidance then flows to each DT for incorporation into planning and guidance specific to each career field. This top-down approach to AAD management uses the FDC’s coherent Total Force strategy to thoughtfully manage the overall health and professional development of career fields.

Figure 2. Force-development management structure. (Adapted from AFI 36-2640, Total Force Development [Active Duty Officer], vol. 1, 23 Jaunuary 2004, 22, http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/36/afi36-2640v1/afi36-2640v1.pdf.

AADIM gives Air Force leadership an avenue to inject future needs quickly. Instead of waiting for unit-level requests to surface through the GEMS, AADIM starts with the FDC’s vision to establish cutting-edge requirements and selection guidance. For example, as new cyber-warfare tactics, techniques, and procedures emerge, combatant commanders must currently draw from existing personnel pools for the necessary capabilities to fight the latest cyber threats. However, the GEMS sets educational quotas for a new AAD requirement only if a unit-level organization begins the process by submitting an updated request. In most cases, this new strategic need will not materialize from the unit level. Using AADIM, the FDC would set the strategic requirement for cyber-warfare officers. Without this oversight and senior-level input, the new requirement would take excessive time to implement.

As the Air Force’s transformation efforts continue, AAD officer capabilities should become better integrated into the CONOPS and Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment processes. Whether on a rapidly changing battlefield or during the life cycle of a critical acquisition program, a correctly educated officer corps greatly enhances prospects for success. In their remarks to the Defense Subcommittee hearing on the Air Force budget for fiscal year 2005, former secretary of the Air Force James Roche and former chief of staff of the Air Force Gen John Jumper noted that “the [six] CONOPS [that support capabilities-based planning and the joint vision of combat operations] help analyze the span of joint tasks we may be asked to perform and define the effects we can produce. Most important, they help us identify the capabilities an expeditionary force will need to accomplish its mission, creating a framework that enables us to shape our portfolio.”¹⁵ We must also consider the relevant portfolio of AAD education to ensure that the knowledge base exists to execute these tasks successfully.

For example, a cursory evaluation of the types of AADs necessary to support the global-mobility CONOPS forms the basis for determining an appropriate forcewide mix of officer AADs (fig. 3). When expanded to all CONOPS, AADs become an enabling capability that enhances our war-fighting ability as well as improves the planning, programming, budgeting, requirements, and acquisition processes. This top-level strategic vision then flows to the DTs, which ascertain each career field’s contribution.

Figure 3. National AADs required within the global-mobility CONOPS

Recall that, for each functional career field, DTs manage and oversee officers’ professional development, including education. DTs—centralized teams with representatives from a cross section of the Air Force who help manage both the career field they represent and the development of individual officers—serve as the primary advocates for future assignments and career progression. Instead of relying strictly on unit requirements to drive AAD selection, AADIM leverages DT functionality by incorporating the FDC’s Total Force strategy, officer preferences, existing health of the career field, and unit-level requirements to provide both individual AAD and career-field education vectors. Already involved with officer assignment and matching of professional military education, DTs would extend their advocacy and guidance to AAD selection. Through the DTs, AADIM provides specific planning to fulfill the FDC’s Total Force AAD strategy. The DTs are uniquely positioned to analyze desired AAD capabilities, career-field needs, and current personnel inventories for the purpose of generating actionable goals. Using an end-state target, DTs can vector suitable officers to obtain AADs in a manner that simultaneously meets the career field’s goals and enhances officers’ professional development.

Within AADIM, career-field-specific “ideal AAD profiles” (fig. 4)—developed, reviewed, and updated by each DT—express these end-state goals. A time-phased, cumulative-growth function, each ideal profile shows the percentage of officers that should possess an AAD. One can decompose the aggregate profile to show the force percentages desired for each academic discipline. Each career field’s ideal profile reflects the specific needs as reconciled between FDC strategy and unit-level requirements. Using FDC’s Total Force strategy, DTs can create and review specialized ideal profiles that include a great deal of unique information about their career field.

Note that educational profiles will not—indeed, should not—remain the same across the various career fields. For example, S&E officers typically require advanced degrees early during career progression—reflected in the notional profile for technical degrees (see fig. 4). This situation contrasts the profile of rated officers, whose early career expectations focus on operational duty. In this case, advanced education tends to defer more towards the midcareer point and consists of a broader range of both technical and nontechnical degrees. Such an educational profile, also notionally shown for the technical subset of degrees in figure 4, therefore assumes a different shape than that of S&E officers.

Figure 4. Notional idea educational profile for science and engineering (S&E) officers and rated officers

The foregoing profiles are not contradictory. They both reflect respective career-field imperatives and contribute to the Total Force strategy defined by the FDC; that is, such educational profiles document each DT’s deliberate planning for AAD education. Note that AADIM does not focus exclusively on fully funded AADs. In fact, fiscal constraints will nearly always prevent adequate funding for meeting desired educational end states through resident education.

Ideal profiles encompass the total number of AADs received by the officer corps, irrespective of the educational method. Personnel may obtain these degrees through resident programs, internships, tuition assistance, distance learning, or as part of developmental education. Particularly for technical career fields, education opportunities at AFIT (in residence), the AFIT Civilian Institution, and the Naval Postgraduate School are highly valued. Career-field CONOPS and career-development guides, such as those published for scientists and engineers, should emphasize career-field-related advanced education, with the caveat that these resident-education options are limited, given fiscal and operational constraints.¹⁶ Naturally, officers want to qualify for and apply for such programs, especially given the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force’s renewed emphasis on education by linking advanced degrees and the promotion process.¹⁷ This is clearly a “win-win” philosophy for professional officers and Air Force strategy alike.

This approach is not limited to individual vectors only. One strength of an inventory-management methodology lies with career-field vectors, broadcast via the Air Force Portal or published in updates to career-development guides. In cases in which fully funded AADs cannot remedy a specific degree shortage, DTs can provide career-field vectors recommending fields of study for their officers to consider, based on capabilities assessments and the FDC’s Total Force strategy.

These career-field vectors serve as the basis of managing long-term educational health. Recently completed AADIM studies examine the development of user-friendly Microsoft Excel–based tools to create ideal profiles, forecast future inventories, and propose appropriate education quotas for advanced education, both fully funded and otherwise.¹⁸

Drawing on current personnel data taken from the Military Personnel Data System and AADIM-model forecasts, AADIM provides a list of actionable recommendations to improve shortages and manage the mix of AADs based on a DT’s implementation policies, such as planning-time horizon and maximum educational-release rates.

Take for example a sample AADIM analysis of AADs for an arbitrarily selected career field (figs. 5 and 6). Figure 5 compares the ideal profile to officer AAD data drawn from the Military Personnel Data System. The example depicts a relatively “healthy” current educational status, in that the aggregate number of educated officers approaches the desired levels. However, further analysis reveals a potential future concern: education for officers in the first three groups lies below expectations, and disproportionately large numbers of educated officers are nearing retirement eligibility. Figure 6 depicts AADIM spreadsheet modeling of the capability to calculate and propose future education quotas, given any desired “get-well” time horizon (e.g., eight, nine, or 10 years), to achieve a career-field education status that mirrors the ideal profile.¹⁹ The model also partitions the recommended quotas by career phase point (not shown in fig. 6).

Figure 6. Sample AADIM annual quota recommendation. (Reprinted from Capt Andrew D. Jastzembski and Lt Col Raymond W. Staats, “Inventory Management for Air Force Advanced Academic Degree Officers” [briefing charts presented at the 73rd Military Operations Research Society Symposium, West Point, NY, June 2005], 23.)

When fully funded education is not feasible, DTs can use the foregoing analyses for both career-field and individual AAD vectors to correct shortages and achieve the desired mix of degrees. But this powerful analysis tool does not currently exist. However, the medium for such feedback already exists via the ODP, once we add fields applicable to educational preferences, qualifications, and vectors to this tool.

Recommendations

The following proposals will move us towards integrating advanced education into Total Force development.

Remove the Graduate Education Management System from Air Force Instruction (AFI)
36-2302, Professional Development (Advanced Academic Degrees and Professional
Continuing Education), 11 July 2001

The GEMS does not satisfy the objectives of Total Force development initiatives because it does not consider long-term career-field health, makes no provision for including DTs in the selection process, and effectively conducts AAD processes as training concerns rather than as professional education. Even as a training and utilization concern, the GEMS has proved less than successful, a fact documented long ago by the Air Force Audit Agency.²⁰ We need an entirely new approach—so much so that revisions to the current instruction are insufficient. Such an effort will be subject to the anchoring effect, described by Robert Clemen and Terence Reilly as the tendency to use the status quo as the baseline for planning decisions, often reverting to this point rather than pursuing opportunities perceived as radical departures from established practice.²¹ Attempting to reform the current system is not enough; it needs to be replaced. To fully remove the Air Force from a failing GEMS, we should rescind the applicable portions of AFI 36-2302 in favor of the AADIM approach.

Revise Department of Defense Directive (DODD) 1322.10,
Policy on Graduate Education for Military Officers,
26 August 2004

The GEMS draws much of its inspiration from several key paragraphs in DODD 1322.10, which requires periodic reviews of graduate education programs to ensure the funding of appropriate academic disciplines and proper utilization of officers receiving funded education. The mechanism involves identifying, validating, and listing—by billet—those duties requiring advanced education for optimal incumbent performance and comparing this list biennially against a list of officers having received corresponding advanced degrees.²²

This listing requirement is the basis for the ineffective system encompassed by AFI 36-2302. Although the AADIM construct can comply with these requirements, they impose a bureaucratic layer that adds no value, given the strategic oversight inherent via the FDC and the DTs. Indeed, these requirements hinder compliance found elsewhere in DODD 1322.10, in particular, paragraph 4.2, which states that “the Military Services shall have the authority to provide graduate education to their military officers in sufficient numbers and disciplines to accomplish the missions of the Military Services.”²³ An examination of current and historic AAD billet-incumbency rates makes clear that the GEMS cannot achieve strategic educational goals. AADIM implements the spirit of this directive as a CONOPS enabler, with AADs recognized as an integral military capability. Further, as put forth in the preceding recommendation, such a revision to DODD 1322.10 removes AADIM from any anchoring to the GEMS legacy. Finally, revision supports current DOD guidance to develop competency-based management tools for all military education.²⁴

Note that although payback is essential as a return on educational investment, it is already assured by active duty service commitments as required under Title 10 US Code, section 2005: “The Secretary providing advanced education assistance to any person, that such person . . . shall agree . . . to serve on active duty for a period specified in the agreement.”²⁵ Personnel meet this fundamental requirement irrespective of whether the GEMS or AADIM serves as the implementing construct.

The Total Force development construct provides an ideal implementation vehicle for AADIM. The FDC structure established by AFI 36-2640 allows treatment of advanced education as a strategic capability. AADIM fits well within the FDC construct and enhances existing Total Force development initiatives through the DTs and tools such as the ODP. AADIM also molds into the current Air Staff/A1 “Continuum of Learning” initiative.²⁶ AADIM provides for a standardized approach to graduate education across career fields, using DTs as the focal point and the FDC as the coordinating and strategy-setting body.

We should create new educational data fields for the ODP that include officers’ desires and DT vectoring for advanced degrees. Doing so will place the appropriate focus on education for officers and will support the Air Force’s renewed emphasis on graduate-education opportunities as a part of career development. As concepts such as specialty-relevant distance learning develop, reviewers and DTs will have the means to articulate a broader range of vector options for graduate education.

We should reexamine unit requirements for advanced education, currently identified locally and validated functionally, to align with policies for strategic education. Furthermore, we should include education as part of each officer’s “menu of competencies,” which recognizes the inappropriateness of strictly identifying officer education by one of more than 3,500 academic codes currently found within the GEMS.²⁷ The knowledge and skills acquired from a particular academic degree overlap substantially with those for many other degrees. For example, two degrees offered at AFIT—operations research (coded 0YEY) and operations analysis (coded 0YEA)—are very closely related, distinguished only by the degree of expertise in the general field (in this case, operations research demands more theoretical depth). However, an 0YEY officer does not receive “payback credit” for serving in an 0YEA billet, which the current GEMS considers as having a nonqualified incumbent. The AADIM construct, capable of recognizing required duty competencies, alleviates this issue.

Conclusion

Achieving Total Force development’s vision for graduate education to support CONOPS with AAD capabilities relies on healthy career fields—not resource utilization and tracking. The AADIM approach represents the right step towards formulating a coherent strategy for the development of graduate education. It incorporates an FDC Total Force strategy with the experiences and guidance of DTs while placing selection of personnel for graduate education in step with the initiatives of Total Force development. The educational health of career fields and the professional development of individuals become primary focuses rather than afterthoughts. AADIM separates the idea of selection from tracking and utilization, thereby ensuring that the validation process does not replace smart policy. Viewing graduate education for what it is meant to be—lifelong education and a strategic capability—highlights the need for a change to the existing inadequate system.

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1. Air Force Instruction (AFI) 36-2302, Professional Development (Advanced Academic Degrees and Professional Continuing Education), 11 July 2001, 3, http://www.e-publishing .af.mil/pubfiles/af/36/afi36-2302/afi36-2302.pdf.

2. Ibid., 3–5.

3. Department of Defense Directive (DODD) 1322.10, Policy on Graduate Education for Military Officers, 26 August 2004, 8, http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/ 132210_082604/132210p.pdf.

4. J. R. Crawford, auditor general, Report of Audit, Management of Education and Training Programs (Project 92051002) (Washington, DC: Air Force Audit Agency, 1992), 1.

5. Ibid.

6. United States Air Force Legislative Liaison, Report on Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT): Study for Senate and House Armed Services Committees (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, 25 February 2002), 23, http://www.afit-aog.org/ReportOverview.html (online source unpaginated).

7. Gen John Jumper, “Chief’s Sight Picture: Total Force Development,” 6 November 2002, 1.

8. Lt Col Raymond W. Staats and Maj Derek A. Abeyta, “Technical Education for Air Force Space Professionals,” Air and Space Power Journal 19, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 51–60, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj05/win05/win05.pdf.

9. Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organizations: Executive Summary (Washington, DC: The Commission, 11 January 2001), 10, http://www.fas.org/spp/military/commission/executive_summary.pdf.

10. Air Force Instruction (AFI) 36-2640, Total Force Development (Active Duty Officer), vol. 1, 23 January 2004, 9, http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/36/afi36-2640v1/afi36-2640v1.pdf.

11. “SECAF/CSAF Letter to Airmen: Advanced Education,” [12 April 2006], Air Force Link, http://www.af.mil/library/viewpoints/jvp.asp?id=230.

12. Military Personnel Data System Database Report (Randolph AFB, TX: Air Force Personnel Center, 4 April 2006).

13. Briefing to AFIT/CC, Lt Col Raymond W. Staats, “Advanced Academic Degree Inventory Management,” draft, 25 April 2006, 4.

14. Staats and Abeyta, “Technical Education,” 56.

15. Senate, Defense Subcommittee Hearing on the FY05 Air Force Budget: Testimony of the Honorable James G. Roche, Secreary of the Air Force, and General John P. Jumper, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, 108th Cong., 2d sess., 24 March 2004, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/ 2004_hr/040324-roche-jumper.htm.

16. See Secretary of the Air Force/Science, Technology, and Engineering Directorate (SAF/AQR), Concept of Operations for Scientists and Engineers (Washington, DC: SAF/AQR, September 2001); and idem, Career Development Guide for Scientists and Engineers (Washington, DC: SAF/AQR, May 2003).

18. Capt Andrew D. Jastrzembski, “Advanced Academic Degree Inventory Management Model” (master’s thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, March 2005), iv; Capt Andrew D. Jastrzembski and Lt Col Raymond W. Staats, “Inventory Management for Air Force Advanced Academic Degree Officers” (briefing charts presented at the 73rd Military Operations Research Society Symposium, West Point, NY, June 2005), 8; and Maj George M. Reynolds and Maj Aaron D. Troxell, Inventory Management of Advanced Academic Degree Officers: Advocacy and Spreadsheet Modeling, Graduate Research Project (Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: Department of Operational Sciences, Air Force Institute of Technology, May 2006), iv.

19. Reynolds and Troxell, Inventory Management, appendix B.

20. Crawford, Report of Audit, 1.

21. Robert T. Clemen and Terence Reilly, Making Hard Decisions with DecisionTools, 2d rev. ed. (Pacific Grove, CA: Duxbury, 2001), 314.

22. DODD 1322.10, Policy on Graduate Education, par. 1.

25. Title 10, United States Code, subtitle A, pt. 3, chap. 101, sec. 2005, par. (a)(1), “Advanced Education Assistance: Active Duty Agreement; Reimbursement Requirements,” 18 March 2004.

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Contributor

	Lt Col Raymond W. Staats (BA, Syracuse University; MS, Air Force Institute of Technology; PhD, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) is vice-commandant of the Community College of the Air Force, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He previously served as an assistant professor of operations research and chief of the Operations Research Division within the Department of Operational Sciences, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. He has served as a Defense Satellite Communications System III crew commander and instructor with the 3d Space Operations Squadron, as well as executive officer for the 50th Operations Group, Schriever AFB, Colorado; Delta II launch-crew commander with the 1st Space Launch Squadron and chief of the Delta II Standardization and Evaluation Section, 45th Operations Group, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida; and ICBM test operations officer with the 576th Flight Test Squadron and chief of plans and programs at the 381st Training Group, Vandenberg AFB, California. A graduate of Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, and Air War College, Colonel Staats has previously published in Air and Space Power Journal.
	Lt Col Marty Reynolds (USAFA; BS, Pennsylvania State University; MBA, Gonzaga University; MA, George Washington University; MOA [Master of Operations Analysis], Air Force Institute of Technology) is the director, Commander’s Action Group and Analysis, Assessment, and Lessons Learned (A9), Twelfth Air Force (Air Forces Southern), Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. He previously served as chief of staff, 355th Wing, and assistant director of operations, 41st Electronic Combat Squadron, Davis-Monthan AFB, and as staff weather officer, tanker airlift control center, Scott AFB, Illinois. An EC-130 instructor pilot, he flew combat missions in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Colonel Reynolds is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and the Air Force Institute of Technology (intermediate developmental education).
	Maj Aaron D. Troxell (USAFA; MS, Wright State University; MOA [Master of Operations Analysis], Air Force Institute of Technology) is chief, Unit Compliance Inspections Branch for the inspector general, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. He has program-management experience in the B-1B and KC-135 program offices. The major also has held various group and squadron flying assignments, including commander, Current Operations Flight, 22d Operations Squadron, McConnell AFB, Kansas. He has deployed in support of Operations Southern Watch, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom. Additionally, he served as an operations officer for Operation Iraqi Freedom, directing 20 KC-135s and 32 crews as well as the execution of 1,300 wartime sorties. A graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College, Major Troxell is a senior pilot who has logged over 2,500 hours in tanker aircraft with experience in combat and special-operations support.

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Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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