Steven Alsup
When new commanders/directors come into an organization, one of the first things they do is hold a commander’s/director’s call to introduce themselves to members of the organization.
When Steve Alsup took over as the director of the 448th Supply Chain Management Wing, a year ago, sequestration had placed restrictions on travel preventing him from meeting face-to-face with the men and women of his far flung command.
While he could have held Director’s Calls for the units here at Tinker, he elected not to do so.
“I didn’t want to treat the folks here at Tinker any differently than our team members at Hill Air Force Base or Robins Air Force Base,” Mr. Alsup said. “I chose not to do a Director’s Call here until I could do it for the entire organization.”
When travel restrictions loosened up, Mr. Alsup held a Director’s Call at Robins AFB, Ga., on Feb. 10, Tinker AFB on March 26 and is scheduled to visit Hill AFB, Utah, on April 10.
Hosting Director’s Calls provided an opportunity for Alsup to brief Wing members on what is happening in the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, Air Force Sustainment Center and how it impacts them.
On the Air Force level, the main points he covered were sequester and furlough issues and military and civilian force shaping. Mr. Alsup feels that political theater drove sequester and furlough events last year, but that there will be some changes this year.
“We have some agreements out in Washington, D.C., on some more stable budgetary lines for the entire Department of Defense,” he said. “It’s still cuts to our budget but it is at a less radical rate of cuts then what we were at.”
According to Mr. Alsup, the DOD is contracting, and is on a downward cycle.
“We haven’t been on a cycle like this for 10-12 years since we’ve been engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan which were upward cycles … as we disengage fully from two war zones, our nation expects us to contract,” he said.
The Air Force is contracting and has priorities of recapitalizing its force structure, F-35, new bombers and new tankers.
“We are still technically in sequester that hasn’t gone away,” Mr. Alsup said. “I don’t see any reason why we should be concerned about furloughs or government shut downs for the foreseeable future.”
The 448th is a very civilian-centric organization. Out of the roughly 2,900 civilians, military and contractors supporting the organization, there are only about 50 military across all three operating locations. Even those 50 are facing force shaping.
“On the civilian side,” said Mr. Alsup, “I have not actually heard anything about the big “R” word; RIF (Reduction in Force), but they are doing some very selective and targeted VERA/VSIPs. They may do one more of those this year. I honestly don’t see it affecting the sort of folks who work in the 448th, they are looking at acquisition experience and other areas but they are very targeted.”
Another area Mr. Alsup touched on is the Air Force Sustainment Center’s “Road to a Billion,” a cost savings initiative from last year. He noted that the command had almost reached the goal and decided to continue the initiative as “The Road to a Billion and Beyond.” AFSC as a whole got to $935.2 million in savings last year. More than half of those savings, some $535.2 million, came from the 448th SCMW.
“These savings are the result of what you and our partners at Hill and Robins do for AFSC,” Mr. Alsup said. “We spend a lot of money, we save a lot of money, we avoid a lot of costs for AFSC.”
AFSC commander, Lt. Gen. Bruce Litchfield briefed this to Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, and to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Walsh as part of his Cost Effective Readiness initiative, Mr. Alsup said.
“General Litchfield was scheduled to brief for five minutes to General Walsh, but the chief was so interested in what was being said the discussion lasted 45 minutes. AFSC and General Litchfield are really driving an Air Force level discussion on what is cost effective readiness.”
By far the greatest reaction from those attending the Director’s Call was when he talked about his passion for boating.
“Langley was my dream place to live,” Mr. Alsup said. “Literally, out of my office window I could see my boat in the parking lot a hundred yards away from my office. I’d get off work and do a little fishing at night and come home with … not always some fish, but that wasn’t the point. I was out on the boat.”
He then told the audience he was in mourning.
“I had a 22-foot Sea Ray I had to sell because I just wasn’t getting to use it very often,” he said. “I went down to Lake Thunderbird a couple of times but that red water just freaked me out.”
Mr. Alsup decided it would be better to let another boating enthusiast have the boat then to have it rotting beside his house. The boat was picked up last weekend so it has been a quiet emotional time around his house.
When someone in the audience called out, “We’ll take you out,” Mr. Alsup was quick to say, “I’m ready. You have a sailboat; I’ve got a toy sailboat.”
His “toy” is a 15-foot Day Sailor. He’s hoping to become a two-boat family again with the addition of a Bass boat later this year.
“I consider the kayaks and the rafts and all those as boats. If it gets on water it’s good, I’m out there, I’m doing it,” he said. “I just love doing things with water.”
(Written by Ron Mullan, Tinker Public Affairs)