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TESTIMONY OF
LIEUTENANT GENERAL RICHARD E. BROWN III
DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PERSONNEL
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

BEFORE THE
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TOTAL FORCE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

REGARDING
MILITARY PERSONNEL POLICY, BENEFITS, AND COMPENSATION OVERVIEW

 March 24, 2004
 

INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade, and especially the past three years, America's Airmen responded to dramatic changes in our force structure and the world security environment.  Since 1991, we reduced our active duty force by nearly 40% (from 608,000 to 375,000), while remaining engaged around the world at levels higher than any time during the Cold War.  To prevail in a dangerous and ever-changing world, we completely transformed our Air Force from a heavy, forward-based presence designed to contain the Soviet Union and allied communist governments into an agile expeditionary force, capable of rapidly responding on a global scale, with tailored forces ready to deal with any contingency.  Following the attacks of 11 September 2001, our transformation took on an even more urgent and accelerated pace to respond to the world situation and our domestic security environment.  This transformation produced outstanding initial results -- but the journey is just beginning.

Although many challenges remain before us, we believe our focus is in the right place: towards the future.  At the heart of our efforts is a plan to create an environment, and the associated tools necessary, to more deliberately develop Airmen to be the leaders of tomorrow at all levels.  This force development culture extends across our force, encompassing officers, enlisted, civilians, and Guard and Reserve members.  Our developmental change is driving major cultural changes in the Air Force, beginning with a common Airman culture that embraces diversity of thought, diversity of talent, and diversity of background and experience.  This culture emphasizes the manner in which professional Airmen relate to each other, and includes a zero tolerance approach to inappropriate behavior of all kinds.  Obviously, it encompasses a straightforward, determined approach to issues such as sexual harassment and sexual assault.  We will continue to do everything in our power to prevent such behavior, root it out when we find it, and apply appropriate justice while providing all the support we can muster to victims.  These issues, as tough and complex as they are, need to be fully embraced and understood at all levels of our force, to ensure every member of our team experiences the mutual respect, teamwork, and esprit de corps they earned and truly deserve.  Our culture is grounded in our core values as Airmen: Integrity, Service, and Excellence, forming a solid foundation for the Total Force team -- active duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilians.

We recognize the Herculean effort all members of the force put forth to defend America and her interests abroad, and in particular the stress we placed on members of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.  We are making every effort to relieve the stress on the Citizen Airmen who make-up those mission-essential forces, just as we are making every effort to relieve the stress on many of our active duty members in critical warfighting skills while we work to get down to our end strength objectives.

As we respond to the many challenges we face, it is important we take time to recognize and support the tremendous sacrifices made by Air Force family members, whose contributions to the overall Air Force team are as crucial as those of any other team members -- sometimes more so.

Finally, as Airmen, we've renewed our look at the very real demands our people must endure, as well as their long term well being.  We refocused our health and physical conditioning efforts to emphasize fitness for life, a vision, with the needed leadership behind it to recognize the inherent relationship between physical fitness, mental acuity, and battlefield survival.  Balancing all of these inter-related priorities is an important, complex task.  These priorities are extremely critical to our force, service culture, and the nation.  We must get them right: to always be ready to respond to our nation's call.

None of this would be possible without the exceptional support Air Force personnel receive from the Congress.  Over the last several years, you approved significant advances in pay, benefits, and retention incentives for the men and women who serve in all of the military services.  These initiatives made a significant difference for the readiness of your Air Force and the quality of life of our members and their families.  They improved retention and increased enlistments, essential to keeping the highly trained professionals in the ranks.  The poor retention trend we experienced in recent years has been reversed, a testimony to both your support and the patriotism of young Americans who join and continue to serve -- but we have to remain focused.  As we've experienced in the past, positive retention trends are dependent on many rapidly changing dynamics and we can't afford to take our eyes off the ball.  Thus, in the coming years we will continue to watch our retention of key warfighting career fields.  We've made much progress -- but the battle is not won.

In addition, we would like to thank the Congress for taking the initiative to approve DoD's National Security Personnel System (NSPS).  NSPS allows us to modernize our civilian personnel management system to meet the unique demands of the national security mission.  We believe NSPS is essential to the Air Force's ability to accomplish its Air and Space mission in these challenging times.  NSPS' flexibilities will allow us to attract and retain "the right people for the right jobs at the right time", expedite military to civilian conversions, and quickly meet the ever changing demands for support of the Global War on Terrorism.

The Air Force enthusiastically and energetically supports NSPS and is committed to implementing it aggressively and responsibly.   While some of NSPS' elements may be considered radical departures from current processes, it is critical that we are not diverted from moving forward on executing NSPS.  Any delay will be detrimental to our transformation efforts and our ability to move toward a more responsive posture.

This combined statement of both the Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs and the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel, develops each of the themes just mentioned in greater detail.  This statement represents our vision of the way ahead for Air Force people.

To place these issues in context, we begin by discussing the Air Force core competency directly affecting every Air Force member:  Developing Airmen.  This core competency is at the center of our strategic vision for Air Force personnel.

DEVELOPING AIRMEN -- RIGHT PEOPLE, RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

At the heart of our combat capability are the professional Airmen who voluntarily serve the Air Force and our nation.  Airmen create air and space power.  Our Airmen turn ideas, tools, tactics, techniques, and procedures into global mobility, power projection, and battlespace effects.  It is with this understanding the Air Force embraced a new Personnel Vision and Strategic Planning Construct to help transform management of "Airmen" across the Total Force (active duty, Air National Guard, and reserve; officer, enlisted, and civilian).

We're refocusing our personnel processes and delivery systems on achieving the capabilities and creating the effects which produce for our Air Force the Right People, possessing the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to perform their missions at the Right Place and Right Time.  This new vision succinctly states the role of our manpower, personnel, and training professionals:  defining mission requirements; continually refreshing the pool to maintain an effective balance of youth and vigor, age and experience; deliberately developing the skills, knowledge, and experience our combatant and support missions require; meeting the needs of our Airmen and their families to sustain the Force; and providing synchronized and integrated program management and service delivery systems.

Our strategic goals focus on the effects of the personnel mission and the specific capabilities our system offers to our Airmen and their leaders:

Define:  Implement a capabilities-based requirements system that meets surge requirements and optimizes force mix (Active duty, Air Reserve Component, civilian, and contractors) to produce a flexible and responsive force

Renew:  Maintain a diverse, agile workforce that leverages synergy between active duty, air reserve and civilian components, and private industry to meet requirements and sustain capabilities

Develop:  Synchronize training, education, and experience to continuously create innovative, flexible, and capable Airmen to successfully employ air and space power

Sustain:  Sustain required force capabilities through focused investment in Airmen and their families

Synchronize:  Implement a robust strategic planning construct, understand Air Force Human Resource investment, and link programming and legislative development to the plan

Deliver:  Transform customer service by delivering a leaner, more cost-effective, customer-focused Human Resource Service to support the Air Expeditionary Force

The four overarching goals (Define, Renew, Develop, and Sustain) will serve as our framework for the written testimony that follows, just as they serve as the underlying framework for our personnel vision.  In each of these areas we will discuss key issues facing the Air Force today, and what we are doing to look forward and ensure we are building the right force for tomorrow.  (Note: The goals "synchronize" and "deliver" focus on the specific means by which we achieve the four overarching goals).

DEFINE:

As we define the Air Force of the future, we must determine our end strength needs, we must shape the force to meet those needs, and we must relieve the current stress on our most heavily stressed career fields.  These are complex and interrelated issues. The process we use to approach this challenge is grounded in how we manage our Total Force of Air Force active duty members, Air National Guard, Air Reserve, and Air Force civilians.  It also encompasses the steps we're taking to relieve pressure on our Guard and Reserve forces.

• End Strength:

During the last several years, the Air Force brought thousands of sharp, motivated people into our ranks -- essentially, those who wanted to serve in the Air Force were welcomed.  To meet end strength, we rolled up our sleeves and increased recruiting.  The attacks of 11 September 2001 prompted incredible patriotism, surging our growth and putting us well above end strength.  We are proud of the efforts of our outstanding Air Force professionals in the war on terrorism and are delighted that so many people want to be a part of our winning team.  This very positive fact and the slowed economy reduced what would have been normal attrition.  In other words, not as many people left the Air Force in the last several years as we had anticipated.

As a result, for the last several years we exceeded our authorized active duty end strength of 359,000.  Air Force active duty military end strength (i.e. billets) is capped at 359,300 for FY 04, 359,700 for FY 05, and 360,000 for the years FY 06 through FY09. The actual number of personnel assigned to the Air Force at the end of FY03 was 375,000 -- approximately 16,000 personnel above our currently authorized limit.  This is a temporary situation fueled by the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), and we are working towards compliance.  As we work to reduce the size of our active force by 16,000 people over the next several years, we will also work to reshape the force to correct existing skill imbalances and account for a new range of missions in the GWOT.

Because we have more people in the Air Force than the number of our currently authorized billets, it led some to ask: "Do we need to increase the size of the force to accomplish the mission especially with increased/extended mobilization?"  The answer is, first we need to ensure we're using the people we have in the most efficient and effective way.  The Air Force and DoD are constantly reviewing end strength needs and we feel we have not exhausted all potential internal sources to address stress on the force.  People costs account for a significant portion of the Department's budget -- we feel strongly that the Air Force must exhaust all other possibilities before requesting an expensive increase to military end strength.

The Guard and Reserve forces supporting our Total Force team are designed to meet the Nation's call in times of crisis, such as the current Global War on Terrorism.   Guard and Reserve activation in times of crisis is not, in and of itself, a reason to seek an increase to end strength.  As part of our review, we are taking a hard look at missions currently assigned to Active, Guard, and Reserve in light of the foreseeable future requirements for conflicts.  Our goal is to minimize the instances the Air Force needs to call on the Guard and Reserve and to minimize the length of time they are activated.

• Shaping the Force:

The Air Force is planning to implement several measures to shape the force towards our authorized end strength; knowing as we do so, we must also reduce the stress on many of our "over stressed" career fields.  This will be a multiple step process, but our guiding principles will be simple -- we want to properly size the Air Force to meet the needs of our Air Expeditionary Force construct, our in-garrison requirements and our training requirements.  We need to ensure we draw down smartly, by specialty (and by specific year groups within those specialties) where we have more people than required.  At the same time, we want to correct our skill imbalances.  Perhaps most importantly, as we shape the force, we want to be sure we avoid involuntary "draconian" measures that break faith with our people.  With these guiding principles clearly in view, we are taking a number of deliberate and very specific steps to shape the force.

In broad terms, we're addressing force shaping in two ways:  first, reducing personnel overages in most skills; and second, shaping the remaining force to meet mission requirements.  To reduce personnel, we will employ a number of voluntary tools to restructure manning levels in career specialties, while adjusting our active force size to our authorized end strength requirements.  As we progress, we will evaluate the need to modify or implement additional force shaping measures.

We are taking a hard look at where our people are.  We have Airmen serving in jobs outside the Air Force who don't deploy as part of an Air Expeditionary Force (AEF).  Some of these, such as joint positions and some defense agency positions, require uniformed people, and we benefit by having an Airman's perspective in those jobs.  Others, however, may not require an Airman or a military person at all.  These are positions we are working to reclaim into our ranks.  By taking the steps to return these airmen "to the fold", we will ensure we have more people available to support our critical warfighting skills.  In addition, we will increase the number of personnel available to support AEF rotations overseas, which in turn will reduce stress on the rest of the force.

 

Until very recently, we had not implemented all the manpower cuts at unit level we agreed too during the 1990s.  We've now made the adjustments in our books -- over 13,000 positions eliminated -- but we still need to move some of the people.  That means we have Airmen with advanced training and professional skills filling positions that no longer exist.
 

The Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel is overseeing a program that will move us toward our goal of getting our strength and skill mix right.  This program includes initiatives such as restricting reenlistment in overage career fields, voluntary transfers from Active Duty to the Guard and Reserves, shortening service commitments, limiting officer continuation for those deferred for promotion, commissioning ROTC cadets directly into the Guard and Reserves, limiting reclassification of those eliminated from technical school, rolling back separation dates, and officer and enlisted retraining.
 

If at all possible, our goal is to give every qualified Airman who wants to stay in the Air Force the opportunity to do so.  In addition, we will use every tool to shape the force we have available to avoid the extreme measures used in the early 1990s, which undermined the morale and confidence of the force.

• Stressed Career Fields:

The events of 9/11 and subsequent increases in deployments to support a variety of operations around the globe resulted in a significant increase in our operations tempo and sharply accelerated the existing stress on the force.  Complicating this problem is the fact that the additional stress is unequally distributed across the various Air Force skill sets.  Nevertheless, the Air Force is working to level the stress across the force to an acceptable rate, albeit higher than pre- 9/11 stress levels.

The Department of Defense initiated 20,000 military to civilian conversions beginning in FY 04.  The Air Force share was 4,300 of these.   The Air Force was also working on realigning our military authorizations into stressed career fields that better address post 9/11 workloads.  We addressed reducing and balancing stress with numerous manpower and personnel initiatives.  Beginning in FY03, we redirected 1,110 initial accession/training students to our most stressed specialties.  In FY04, we expanded our efforts with actions including:  redirecting an additional 1,060 initial accession/training students to stressed specialties; identifying 1,400 authorizations to redirect to Security Forces; adding over 900 civilian authorizations to stressed areas to free up military members for warfighting duties; and moving another 900 billets from less stressed to most stressed AFSCs.  For FY05, we project the realignment of an additional 900 billets from less stressed to most stressed AFSCs -- along with adding 1,600 military billets to these specialties through a combination of mil-civ replacements and other programmatic actions.   We are also finalizing requirements for additional training and accession adjustments.  Finally, we've already begun to address FY06 by dedicating another 400 military positions for stress in our initial calculations.

Significant technology solution purchases made during FY 03 are also offsetting manpower requirements.  A Security Forces $352M technology purchase reduced unfunded Security Forces manpower requirements by 3,000 (with 1,600 of these in the active duty) beginning in FY 04.   Additional significant efforts are underway to further relieve and balance stress.   We continue to work with Defense Agencies to reduce our total number of military positions in these functions, replacing them with civilians where appropriate.  Collectively, these efforts are enabling the Air Force to meet the Secretary of Defense's vision of moving forces "from the bureaucracy to the battlefield."

• Total Force Management - Active, Guard, Reserve and Civilian:

Today we are also shaping what our Total Force will look like in the future.  As we carefully review what each component brings to the fight, we work to ensure the best capabilities are retained and nurtured.   Just as in combat overseas, we continue to pursue seamless ARC and active duty integration at home, leveraging the capabilities and characteristics of each component, while allowing each to retain their cultural identity.  We continue to explore a variety of organizational initiatives to integrate our Active, Guard, and Reserve forces.  These efforts are intended to expand mission flexibility, create efficiencies in our Total Force, and prepare for the future.  Today's Future Total Force team includes a number of integrated or associate units either programmed or already hard at work.  The creation of the "integrated" unit, the 116th Air Control Wing at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, elevated integration to the next level. With an initial deployment of over 730 personnel and significant operational achievements in OIF, we're now examining opportunities to integrate Active, Guard, and Reserve units elsewhere in order to produce even more measurable benefits, savings, and efficiencies.  The reasons for this type of integration are compelling.  Integrating Active, Guard, and Reserve forces to optimize the contributions of each component will help us maximize our warfighting capabilities.  Reservists and Guardsmen bring with them capabilities they acquired in civilian jobs, leveraging the experience of ARC personnel.  As an added benefit, integration relieves PERSTEMPO on the active duty force.  Because ARC members do not move as often, they also provide much needed corporate knowledge, stability, and continuity.  Finally, integration enhances the retention of Airmen who decide to leave active service.  Because the Guard and Reserve are involved in many Air Force missions, we recapture the investment we've made by retaining separating active duty members as members of the ARC.

• Relieving Pressure on the Guard and Reserve:

We are reviewing our Guard and Reserve manpower to minimize involuntary mobilization of ARC forces for day-to-day, steady state operations, while ensuring this crucial part of the force is prepared to respond in times of crisis.  Since 9/11, we've mobilized more than 64,900 Air Force Guard and Reserve personnel in over 100 units, and many more individual mobilization augmenteeees.  Today, 20 percent of our Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) packages are comprised of Citizen Airmen.  In addition, members of the Guard or Reserve conduct 89 percent of Operation NOBLE EAGLE missions.  We recognize these demands placed significant stress on our ARC forces, and we are taking steps to relieve the pressure.

In FY05, we plan to redistribute forces in a number of mission areas among the Reserve and Active components to balance the burden on the Reserves.  These missions include our Air and Space Operations Centers, remotely piloted aircraft systems, Combat Search and Rescue, Security Forces, and a number of high demand global mobility systems.  We are working to increase Guard and Reserve volunteerism by addressing equity of benefits and tour-length predictability, while addressing civilian employer issues.

An essential element in our efforts to promote volunteerism is to provide predictability via the AEF rotation schedule.  Not only are ARC members integrated into a predictable Total Force AEF schedule, but units are also afforded flexibility through internal Guard and Reserve rotations for AEF support in the case of high-demand/low density specialties.  For example, in executing the COMMANDO SOLO Special Operations mission, the Pennsylvania Air National Guard's 193d Special Operations Wing uses predictable 45-day rotations.  In this way, even with a high operational tempo, members are afforded a high degree of predictability, easing pressure on them, their families, and their employers.

There is no doubt in the Global War on Terror, the United States Air Force relied on the critical mission skills our Guard and Reserve warriors bring to the fight.  Simply put, we could not have accomplished the mission without them.  But we also recognize, in the long-term, we must make every effort to relieve the pressure on our ARC forces.  Just as we must take steps to ensure the long-term health of our active duty forces, so too must we ensure the long-term health, combat capability, and career viability of our citizen soldiers in the Air Guard and Reserve.  We are committed to doing so.

RENEW

Our focus on renewing our force will examine the issues of recruiting, retention, and diversity, and their overall effect on the health of our force.

• Recruiting:

To renew our force, we target our recruitment to ensure a diverse force with the talent and drive to be the best Airmen in the world's greatest Air Force.  We will recruit those with the skills most critical for our continued success.  In FY03, our goal was 5,226 officers and 37,000 enlisted; we exceeded our goal in both categories, accessing 5,419 officers and 37,144 enlisted.  For FY04, we plan to access 5,795 officers and as many as 37,000 enlisted.  We are considering whether to reduce our recruiting goal below 37,000 enlisted this year to complement our overall force shaping goals.  In FY05, we plan to reduce new accessions from 37,000 to 35,600.  In FY06, accession targets were revised still lower to 34,600.

These measured decrements in our recruiting goals are part of our very deliberate effort to bring down the overall size of the force (to meet our end strength objectives) without jeopardizing the long-term health of the force by drastically slashing the number of our new accessions.  As we learned after the post-Cold War draw down when we slashed the number of accessions and associated training (we cut pilot training, for example, from 1,500 per year to 500 per year), the unintended consequence was the creation of personnel deficits in our inventory of trained personnel, with long term structural shortages of particular year groups that will be with us for up to 20 years.  This time, in our efforts to solve a short-term issue, we're determined not to create a long-term problem of even greater significance.  This is one of the cornerstones of our approach to renewing the force in the environment of the early 21^st century.

We also closely monitor recruitment for the Air Reserve Component (ARC).  Historically, the ARC -- comprised of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve -- access close to 25 percent of eligible, separating active duty Air Force members with no break in service between their active duty and ARC service.

Although we are currently meeting our recruiting goals and maintaining high standards for accessions, we need to keep our focus.  Your continued support of our recruiting and marketing programs goes a long way to keeping the Air Force competitive in an uncertain job market.  We are mindful of our experience of a decade ago.  In a period when recruiting and retention looked positive, we allowed our recruiting investments to lag behind the growing challenges of the market place and found ourselves chasing a "sine wave."  In the past several years, we reversed course and made the investments needed to tune our recruiting engine.  We need to sustain that engine now with proper care and maintenance.  Additionally, these investments contribute to improved esprit de corps within our force, and further our efforts to retain the right people and shape our force for the future.

• Retention:

The Air Force is a retention-based force.  Because our Airmen's skill sets are not easily replaced, we expend considerable effort to retain our people, especially those in high technology fields and those in whom we invested significant education and training. In 2003, we reaped the benefits of an aggressive retention program, aided by a renewed focus and investment on education and individual development, enlistment and retention bonuses, targeted military pay raises, and quality of life improvements.  While we are still grappling with skewed retention numbers affected by STOP LOSS in 2002, we are nevertheless seeing very positive signs overall.  Our officer retention rates for FY03 and so far in FY04 are above previous years.  For the enlisted force, our retention is healthy, but we must continue to actively manage our force.  Our current first term retention rate is 67%, well above our goal of 55%.  For second term, we are on the mark with 75%, and we're retaining 98% of our career Airmen, exceeding our 95% goal.

Part of our ability to succeed in our recruiting and retention efforts stems directly from our ability to offer bonuses and incentives to groups where we traditionally need extra help.  Our retention efforts mirror our comments about recruiting:  Our efforts right now are paying dividends for the Air Force and we must sustain this trend for the future.  We fully recognize our ability to offer bonuses is a valuable and scarce resource, which is why we've ensured active senior leadership management in these programs, including semi-annual reviews to determine which career specialties, and which year groups within those specialties, are eligible for bonuses.

• Diversity:

In this new era, successful military operations demand much greater agility, adaptability, and versatility to achieve and sustain success.  This requires a force comprised of the best our nation has to offer, from every segment of society, trained and ready to go.  The capabilities we derive from diversity are vital to mission excellence and at the core of our strategy to maximize our combat capabilities.  Our focus is building a force consisting of men and women with keener international insight, foreign language proficiency, and wide-ranging cultural acumen.  Diversity of life experiences, education, culture, and background are essential to help us achieve the asymmetric advantage we need to defend America's interests wherever threatened.  Our strength comes from the collective application of our diverse talents, and is a critical component of the air and space dominance we enjoy today.  We must enthusiastically reach out to all segments of society to ensure the Air Force offers a welcoming career to the Nation's best and brightest, regardless of their background.  By doing so, we attract people from all segments of society and tap into the limitless talents resident in our diverse population.

DEVELOP

Over the past year, the Air Force implemented a new force development construct to get the right people in the right job at the right time with the right skills, knowledge, and experience.  Force development combines focused assignments, along with education and training opportunities, to prepare our people to meet mission needs.  Rather than allow chance or happenstance to guide an Airman's experience, we will take a deliberate approach to develop officers, enlisted, and civilians throughout our Total Force.  Through targeted education, training and mission-related experience, we will develop professional Airmen into joint force warriors with the skills needed across the tactical, operational and strategic levels of conflict.  Their mission will be to accomplish the joint mission, motivate teams, mentor subordinates, and train their successors.

One of the first steps in implementing our development efforts was the creation of individualized development plans.  These plans are a critical communication tool capturing the member's "career" development ideas, including desired career path choices, assignment and developmental education preferences.  These plans are routed through the chain of command, to include their most senior commanders, for endorsement.  The newly created Development Team (DT), comprised of senior leaders from the functional community, carefully reviews each individualized career plan, along with commander's comments, and Senior Rater input.  Targeting Air Force requirements, the teams place a developmental "vector" into the plan as input for our assignment teams, and immediate feedback to the member and commander regarding their expressed development plans.  Assignment Teams match members to assignments using DT vectors; thus, "developing" our people to meet Air Force requirements.

This year we also saw a continued focus on Developmental Education (DE) with continued expansion to include not only traditional Professional Military Education (PME), but also advanced academic degree programs, specialty schools, fellowships, education with industry, and internships.  Our development teams are using the individualized development plans, along with the member's record and Air Force requirements, to make educational recommendations to the Developmental Education Designation Board.  This board designates the right school for the right member at the right time.  Intermediate Developmental Education and Senior Developmental Education prepare members for a Developmental Assignment (DA) following the respective schools.  This two-dimensional process facilitates the transition from one level of responsibility to the next.   All developmental education assignments are made with the emphasis on the best utilization the member's background, functional skills, and valuable time.

One of our most recent development efforts has been broadening the focus to include our enlisted corps.  Beginning with the next promotion cycle, we will stand up a new top-level course of enlisted professional military education designed specifically for those selected to serve as Chief Master Sergeants.  The course will focus on leadership in the operational and strategic environments, and constitute a substantial leap forward in the development of our Chiefs.

Another segment of warriors requiring special attention is our cadre of space professionals -- those that design, build, and operate our space systems.  As military dependence on space grows, the Air Force continues to develop this cadre to meet our Nation's needs.  Our Space Professional Strategy is the roadmap for developing that cadre.  Air Force space professionals will develop more in-depth expertise in operational and technical space specialties through tailored assignments, education, and training.  This roadmap will result in a team of scientists, engineers, program managers, and operators skilled and knowledgeable in developing, acquiring, applying, sustaining, and integrating space capabilities.

The bottom line of our Force Development effort is to provide an effects and competency based development process by connecting the depth of expertise in the individual's primary career field (Air Force Specialty Code) with the necessary education, training, and experiences to produce more capable and diversified leaders.

Every aspect of the Total Force Development construct develops professional Airmen who instinctively leverage their respective strengths as a team.  The success of this effort depends on continued cultivation and institutional understanding of and interest in Force Development, promoting an understanding of the competency requirements of leaders, and funding for the associated development initiatives.

SUSTAIN

Under this final area of our strategic goals, we will focus on two issues of great importance to the health of our force:  Quality of Life for our Air Force members (to include their families) and Physical Fitness.

• Air Force Quality of Life Program:

A cornerstone of the Air Force's efforts to sustain the force centers on the "Air Force Quality of Life Program".  In the Air Force we define Quality of Life (QoL) as a system of networks - formal and informal - leveraged by leadership to provide superior support and services to our Total Force members and their families.  We assess Air Force QoL based on the level of satisfaction of our service members in eight areas:  compensation and benefits, workplace environment, operations and personnel tempo, health care, housing, community and family programs and educational programs.

The most recent Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) QoL Survey was a good news story for Air Force QoL initiatives.  The survey validated the current Air Force perspectives on QoL priorities.  The overall response rate to the survey was 45%, the highest in the past five survey administrations.  Air Force senior leaders use the QoL survey data to establish working priorities, develop or update Air Force policy, build justification for new legislative initiatives and budget plans and establish new road maps to improve Air Force QoL.

The Community Action Information Board and Integrated Delivery System processes made great progress in providing families access to the services they need vice trying to fit their needs around an existing menu of programs.  The Air Force, in conjunction with DoD and the other Services are launching "One Source" -- a service that provides families with 24/7 access to information through a website and a 1-800 call-in number.  The 1-800 number is staffed with highly trained personnel who can rapidly assess the needs of those who call and match them to the services they need.

One additional highlight of our quality of life focus is housing investment.  Through military construction and housing privatization, we are providing quality homes faster than ever before.  Over the next three years, the Air Force will renovate or replace more than 40,000 homes through privatization.  At the same time, we will renovate or replace an additional 20,000 homes through military construction.  With the elimination of out-of-pocket housing expenses, our Air Force members and their families now have three great options -- local community housing, traditional military family housing, and privatized housing.

• Physical Fitness:

The final area we will examine concerns our new vision for the physical health and fitness of our force.  The reasons for this emphasis are a reflection of our change in culture and the realities of the world situation.  Today's demanding missions require Air Force personnel to deploy for long periods of time away from family, sometimes to austere conditions to work long hours in extreme temperatures.  With those demands comes a renewed focus on the health and fitness of our Air Force.  We instituted new standards and regulations requiring leadership at every level to take responsibility for a fitness standard that prepares our Airmen for the rigors of the mission.

The increased recognition of the fitness impact on readiness drives an emphasis on fitness center repair and construction.  We will continue to aggressively provide the necessary resources to support and maintain all areas of fitness, including construction, equipment and training.  These facilities, coupled with the focus of unit leaders, will give our Airmen the means to maintain and improve their health and fitness, ensuring our force is "fit to fight" now, and in the future.

CONCLUSION
 

The Air Force team is moving into the 21^st century assured of only three things:  challenges will be great, resources given to us by the American people -- to include their sons and daughters -- are resources that require our best possible stewardship, and most importantly -- superior leadership will be indispensable.  We are committed to providing the nation with the best-trained, best led, personnel on the planet.  It's that simple -- and that important.

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