Building the Next Generation of Leaders
This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of Schneider Electric
Dr. Patrick Donley:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, Airmen and Guardians. It's a pleasure to see such a full house
today. I was initially tempted to think that perhaps this was for me, and then General Clark reminded
me, "No, they're all here to find out what are they going to do to us next." As the director of AFA's
Doolittle Leadership Center, it's truly my distinct pleasure to be moderating a panel on building the next
generation of leaders. As we've heard throughout this conference, the challenges facing leaders today,
resulting from great power competition, are enormous and categorically different than in the past. So
the task of equipping leaders adequately to meet these challenges must be a priority effort. I think you'll
agree that we have assembled the perfect panel for the subject matter at hand. And gentlemen, let me
start by saying thank you for agreeing to share your thoughts with us today.
Now given the brevity of this panel, I'll now provide a very brief introduction of our four panel members.
To my right, Lieutenant General Richard Clark is the superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy, a
position he's held since September of 2020. A bomber pilot by AFSC, General Clark has led at the
Squadron Wing NAF and JFCC levels, as well as being an Air Force fellow and former USAFA
Commandant of cadets. Next to his right is Lieutenant General retired BJ Shwedo. General Shwedo
retired from the Air Force after 33 years serving as an intelligence and cyber expert, culminating as the
Joint Staffs' director of Command Control Communication Cyber and Chief Information Officer. He is the
current and first director of the Air Force Academy's Institute for Future Conflict, an institute that
focuses on research and education, that examines the changing character and technologies of armed
conflict while providing future officers with the skills to be agile and adaptive throughout their careers.
On my left is commander of Air Education and Training Command, Lieutenant General Brian Robinson.
In this capacity, General Robinson is responsible for the recruitment, training and education of air and
Space Force's personnel. His command includes Air Force Recruiting Service, two numbered Air Forces
and Air University. The command operates more than 1400 aircraft, 24 wings, and 11 installation, and it
trains more than 293,000 students a year. Representing the U.S. Space Force is Major General Timothy
Sejba, Commander of Space Training and Readiness Command or STARCOM. In this capacity, he's
responsible for preparing the U.S. Space Force, and more than 8,600 Guardians, to prevail in
competition and conflict through innovative education, training, doctrine and test activities. So with the
introductions out of the way, let's get started with some questions. Leaders today faced a host of
complex strategic realities, the combination of which pose distinct challenges to leaders of every rank,
but particularly to young leaders, who are at the most tactical edge of the spear. Gentlemen, what is
your organization doing differently now to prepare Airmen, officer NCO and civilian at the tactical level
to meet these challenges more effectively? General Clark, we'll start with you.
Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark:
All right, thank you Dr. Donley, and thanks to my teammates here. It's great to be up here with you, and
thanks to you all for being here. I'm a little bit nervous, honestly, but it's good to see everyone here. And
to the question, I think for us at the Air Force Academy, it's about a few different levels of things that
we're trying to do. And I'll speak for myself, first, as the superintendent coming in the door back in 2020,
I had three priorities. The first one was our enduring priority, which is to develop leaders of character for
the Air Force and the Space Force. That will always be our number one priority, our prime directive at
the Air Force Academy. The next one, though, really gets to the point of what we're talking about here
