JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- Gen. Ken Wilsbach, Pacific Air Forces commander, hosted leaders from PACAF’s area of responsibility during the fall commander’s conference Oct. 19-22.
Due to on-going COVID-19 risk mitigation measures, PACAF held the semi-annual event virtually to continue to allow senior leaders to share their viewpoints and lessons learned.
“This was a unique situation, but we took the opportunity to facilitate a conversation on the successes and challenges we face in the world’s largest theater,” said Wilsbach. “The virtual setting allowed us at PACAF to have authentic dialog with our command teams and spouses while staying safe during these unprecedented times.”
Eighty commanders, enlisted leaders and spouses attended 15 sessions that covered key focus areas such as diversity, readiness and innovation.
“This conference allowed our leaders to come together and listen to new ideas and fresh perspectives relating to our mission of delivering unrivaled air, space and cyberspace capabilities in this theater,” said Wilsbach. “Our success depends on being able to quickly adapt to changes across our force. Engagements like this allows leaders to discuss our collective and individual efforts to ensure our Airmen are ready, diverse, innovative, and when called upon, lethal.”
In addition, commander and enlisted leader spouses discussed the importance of mental health, wellness, resiliency and other topics affecting Air Force families.
“Our ability to perform the mission is directly related to how well we take care of our people and their families. Strong communities allow us to personally connect with each other, which helps our Airmen and spouses maintain a resilient force,” said Cindy Wilsbach, Gen. Wilsbach’s spouse. “COVID-19 has challenged that status-quo, but the Air Force has great resources available for our families thanks to the creativity of Airmen throughout the region who have adapted to current challenges.”
While COVID-19 continues to be a concern, PACAF Airmen and their families have continued to showcase their resilience to the changing environment—all while taking care of themselves, their fellow wingmen and getting the mission accomplished.
“Hearing the concerns of our military families gives us the opportunity to address problems that impact people,” said Doniel Wolfe, PACAF’s Command Chief’s spouse. “These issues are amplified by the impacts of the pandemic and I look forward to helping resolve them with the team of great people in PACAF.”
The group of senior leaders also attended two guest speaker sessions. Malcolm Gladwell, a New York Times best-selling author, spoke about his experiences exploring diversity, inclusion and bias in society. And Christian Brose, Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril Industries, sparked conversation about adapting to change, strategic competition and innovation.
“We have great technology and weapon systems, but our strength and asymmetric advantage are our Airmen and families and their ability to innovate and adapt to get the mission accomplished,” said Chief Master Sgt. David Wolfe, PACAF command chief. “Having our officer, enlisted and family leaders together allowed us to explore and talk about issues and ideas to improve the command.”
To close the conference, Wilsbach remarked on the importance of strong leadership.
“The key to this is leadership and communicating to everyone around you how much you care, and to take care of the things that you can take care of. That’s the bottom line,” said Wilsbach. “We need to ensure every member of our team feels valuable and treat them with dignity and respect always, and to ensure the entire team has that same mindset.”