ACE Enablers
This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of Schneider Electric
Maj. Gen. John Klein:
Well, good morning everyone and welcome to the ACE Enablers Panel. My name is Major General John
Klein and I'm the commander at the United States Air Force Expeditionary Center. Headquartered at
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. And that's not to be confused with the Air Expeditionary Forces
Center of which one of our panelists is the former commander. So, we're very engaged with Agile
Combat Employment, and as enablers, the Expeditionary Center has a good chunk of those forces for
the Air Force. Agile Combat Employment as defined by Air Force Doctrine note 1-TAC-21 can be either a
proactive or reactive operational maneuver. It is important to understand that this maneuver relies on a
distributed posture of our forces. This posture necessitates a comprehensive evaluation of our abilities
in command and control, logistics prioritization and movement, and projection of combat power from
multiple small operating locations. This approach makes a cultural shift from viewing our operating
locations as sanctuaries, excuse me, where time was available for operations and sustainment, to
prioritizing the enduring resiliency and survivability of our forces.
The priority begins with establishing the theater with well-trained and equipped Airmen, building the
logistical infrastructure and engaging with industry partners. These collaborations are vital for
developing capabilities that address gaps, enabling us to meet our new demands of distributed
operations and Agile Combat Employment. I'd like to welcome our panelists. First to my right is United
States Air Force Lieutenant General retired and vice president of future sustainment operations for
Lockheed Martin, General Stephen Hogue. To his right, vice president and general manager of Air Force
programs and broadband communication system for L3Harris, Mr. Ron Fehlen. And to my left, vice
president and acting division general manager for the global systems and modernization division for
Northrop Grumman Defense Systems, Mr. Pat Hund. Gentlemen, I'd like to offer you each about two
minutes of opening remarks. General Hogue, we'll start with you.
Lt. Gen. Stephen L. Hoog, USAF (Ret.):
You bet. Thanks. First of all, thanks to AFA for putting on this event and thank you for hosting this forum
today. I think, as the audience knows probably better than most, the challenges that our logisticians as
sustainers face today is order of magnitude more than what it was in the past. I will offer two things to
start with. First, history, many of the problems we're faced with today in terms of time, and distance,
and communications we faced in the past. We have different solutions, we have different challenges.
But go back and look at some of the operations that General Kennedys of the world did, how we set up
for OIF OEF, we've done split ops, we've done maneuver ops, we've done these in the past. We're going
to have to do it better, faster, quicker, cheaper, but there are lessons from the past that everybody out
here as a professional should be aware of.
And the second piece is, to reinforce what you said about collaboration. Industry is there as an enabler.
We want to make the airplanes last longer, fail less, have the parts available, tech data in multiple
languages to support your allies. These are all the things industry can do, but in order to do it, we're not
respondent to an RFI like SECAF said. We need to be out there experiencing these exercises with you,
like this recent Bamboo Eagle exercise. What are the lessons? What can we take away? What can we do
better to support you as a warfighter out there making the mission happen? Thanks.
Maj. Gen. John Klein:
