LONG BLUE LEADERSHIP

Scott Kirby ’89 grew one of the world’s largest airlines by doing something many leaders struggle with: changing his mind.
“When the facts change, I change.”
SUMMARYFrom anticipating the impact of COVID before most experts to making bold bets when others pulled back, Kirby shares why adaptability, curiosity and a willingness to challenge assumptions are essential leadership traits.
SCOTT'S TOP 10 LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS
Lead with Vision, Not Just ManagementManagement ensures compliance; leadership inspires people to believe in a shared destination.
Practice “No Excuses”Whether or not a setback is fair or your fault, take responsibility for addressing it.
Build a Complementary TeamBring in people whose strengths offset your weaknesses.
Look for Intellectual Creativity.Seek people who can simplify complex situations and find better ways to do things.
Change Your Mind When the Facts ChangeDon’t cling to an old position just because you’ve already committed to it.
Take Calculated Risks — and Plan Your Off-ramps.Pursue opportunities when the potential reward outweighs the risk, while preparing alternatives if things go wrong.
Keep LearningReading across subjects and viewpoints can help you connect ideas others may miss.
Make Space to ThinkProtect time for reflection and decision-making instead of filling every day with meetings.
Listen to Understand, Not Just to Agree.Invite input, especially from more junior people, and make sure the team feels heard — even when you choose a different path.
Stay Open to Unexpected Opportunities Love Your WorkA rigid career plan can make you miss a path you might find more meaningful.
 
CHAPTERS
00:00:00 — Introduction: Scott Kirby and the “no excuses” principle
00:01:18 — Arriving at the U.S. Air Force Academy and aspiring to become a fighter pilot
00:03:13 — Childhood, family and the opportunities that shaped Kirby
00:06:40 — Leadership versus management — and building a shared vision at United
00:10:24 — Choosing a complementary executive team and practicing “no excuses”
00:15:05 — Accountability, empathy and doing the right thing
00:18:18 — Changing course when facts shift: lessons from COVID and other crises
00:22:14 — Calculated risk, off-ramps and United’s pandemic-era aircraft orders
00:26:35 — Reading widely, connecting ideas and questioning experts
00:33:11 — Applying lessons from books to suppliers and company culture
00:37:37 — United’s next vision: using technology and AI to reduce travel stress
00:43:23 — Career advice, family life and making time for what matters
00:47:06 — Listening, inviting dissent and closing remarks
 
ABOUT SCOTT
BIO
Scott Kirby ’89 is CEO of United Airlines and a longtime leader in the commercial aviation industry. He joined United in 2016 as president and was named CEO in 2020. Before joining United, Kirby served as president of American Airlines and US Airways and held leadership positions at America West Airlines. He began his career at the Pentagon after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy with degrees in computer science and operations research and later earned a master’s degree in operations research from George Washington University.
Throughout his career, Kirby has developed a leadership approach grounded in analytical thinking, accountability, adaptability and trust. He credits the U.S. Air Force Academy with instilling discipline and a “no excuses” mindset that continues to shape how he leads, while his early work alongside experienced economists at the Pentagon helped develop the problem-solving approach he carried into aviation. As United’s CEO, Kirby emphasizes listening to employees closest to the work, building teams with complementary strengths and creating an organization its employees are proud to represent.
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FULL TRANSCRIPTOUR SPEAKERSGuest, Scott Kirby ’89, CEO United Airlines  |  Host, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz ’99 
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 0:02Scott Kirby has been known to make a hard right when everyone else has turned left. But today’s lesson isn’t just about going against the grain. It’s about weighing possibilities, challenging assumptions and being ready to change your mind if the facts shift. His guiding leadership principle: no excuses. I’m Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99. Long Blue Leadership starts now. I’m joined today with Scott Kirby, USAFA Class of ’89, CEO of United Airlines. Prior to joining United, he was the president of American Airlines and U.S. Airways, which spans now a career of 30 years in the airline industry. We’re going to talk about that. His early days were at the Pentagon in operations research, working with some of the most brilliant economists, which probably shapes some of the way you do things today. But you can see he’s Team Air Force today.
Scott Kirby 0:53Exactly.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:53
We’ve got matching bombers on.
 
Scott Kirby 0:54Looking good.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:56That’s right. So we’re going to have some fun today. Thank you for being here.
Scott Kirby 0:58Glad to be here. Looking forward to it.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:00Wonderful. So this is not new to you. You were on so many interviews: Bloomberg, CNBC, Face the Nation, all of that, and you’re the expert in the room on aviation and leadership. Today, we want to take a little bit more and peel more into your personal leadership journey. So I’d like to start, Scott, in the summer of 1985. Tell me about the young man who showed up in Colorado Springs.
Scott Kirby 1:21It’s a very different person. I was 17 years old. I had decided for many years before that I wanted to be a fighter pilot, and so I came here intending to be a fighter pilot. Amazingly, the first time I ever got on an airplane was when I flew here to the Air Force Academy.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:37Oh, wow!
 
Scott Kirby 1:38I’d never set foot on an airplane before that. I do remember landing at the Colorado Springs Airport. I don’t know what they do now, but back then, there were cadets, upperclassmen, that met you off the airplane. I think they waited until they got to the bus to start screaming. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:52They were still smiling then at the airport, probably.
Scott Kirby 1:54Yeah, I don’t really, I don’t remember that. But I remember being on the bus and like, “Holy cow, what is going on?” And then getting dumped out, you know, getting dumped in here. But, and you know, the first couple weeks were a shock to the system, were hard. But, you know, it was probably within the first week or two you start to realize that the people that you’re meeting and the experiences you’re going through, just basic training and out in Jacks Valley,  are going to be— you know, maybe I didn’t realize it then, but the people that are the best friends, you know, still my best friends and, you know, I like, last weekend went to breakfast with my freshman roommate.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:35Oh, I love that.
 
Scott Kirby 2:36One of my favorite stories at United Airlines when I first showed up, I would do, I still do, in fact, I’m doing one later today — captain leadership. I go talk to all the captains when they upgrade to captain and at the back of the room was someone that I recognized. But you know, I meet so many people, and he walked up to me and he says, "Do you remember me?” And I recognized him, but I hadn’t immediately placed him. I looked down and saw Braxton, and like, “Braxton, we were at Jacks Valley together!” You know, and so you know the connections you make with people is one of the best things, you know, about here, and the experiences that you go through are so unique compared to what other people do. And you know that’s how it started for me in summer of ’85.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:13Oh my goodness, I love that. And I’m imagining, you know, coming to the Air Force Academy. You said you want to be a fighter pilot, so obviously that was something in your, you know, you’re aspiring for. As a young boy, were you always into things like, you know, going fast, you know sports? Like, what were you like as a boy?
Scott Kirby 3:29Yeah, I think— I like, I love sports. Before I decided I was going to be a fighter pilot, I thought I was going to be a professional athlete.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:38OK. Which sport? It didn’t matter?
Scott Kirby 3:41I preferred football, but I like all sports. But, you know, I realized I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete earlier than I realized I wasn’t going to be a fighter pilot.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:51Sometimes it’s good to learn things early.
 
Scott Kirby 3:52But, yeah. But I guess, I mean, I did always like— I’ve always been aggressive, I guess. You say go fast, but aggressive. And I grew up in a small town, Rowlett, Texas. I had two great parents. Like, I have the jackpot on parents. A mom, we had five brothers and sisters, but you know, she didn’t work and stayed home. And, like, her life— I remember in fourth grade, a teacher told me that she was going to call my mom because I was arguing with the teacher, and I told her, "Well, you can, but you’re the one that’s going to be in trouble,” which is what happened. My dad spent every weekend with me, you know, out hunting, fishing, golfing. The amount of time they gave was pretty incredible. And then my mom, after the kids got older, at age 40, went back to college and graduated summa cum laude law school and became a lawyer.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:42Amazing! I think that’s always like, it’s always— there’s always the right time to continue to learn and grow. Well, you know, I’ve listened to you recently on a couple of things, and you had mentioned not too long ago that America— I heard you talk about, you love our country, right? We have the best country, and its superpower is freedom, and because it unlocks human potential. Can we jump in, Scott? What’s your superpower, by the way, and how have you unlocked that?
Scott Kirby 5:07I’ll start with the country. It’s unique in the history of human experience. I’m an avid reader. I love history. That’s how I wound up wanting to be a fighter pilot. I love reading about World War II. And, you know, you just read and study or look at what’s happened around the world. In history and today, it is a unique place. It’s— nothing like it has ever existed anywhere around the globe. It’s freedom. It is the place where anyone can do anything, unlike others. And look, some people, it’s harder for some. People start with advantages and disadvantages, but it has more opportunity than anywhere else around the globe. By the way, I think of my own responsibility as giving opportunity to people, and I often tell people like, "We’ll help you get to the first rung on the ladder. From there, it’s going to be up to you.” Right. But I think we have an obligation to help people get to that first rung and give people a chance and really realize the opportunity of this country. And being here at the Academy earlier today, I was up speaking to cadets, and you know it’s inspirational. And I spent a lot of time in D.C. a lot of times with reporters. A lot of these people are sort of pessimists and negative about the country and about the future, and I’m an optimist, and I believe in the country, and I tell often tell them, and I can say it after being there again today, if you just go spend a day at one of the military academy with, you know, 4,000 young men and women who’ve raised their hand and volunteered to serve the country, you’d have faith in the future.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:38Right, you can’t help but be optimistic.
Scott Kirby 6:40Exactly.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:40Wow. So pulling on that that superpower of the country, I think about, you know, all of the lives that you have the opportunity— the ability to create opportunities for at United. What would you say is your superpower, and how do you turn that on at United?
Scott Kirby 6:53You know, I think— well, I’m talking about myself, but I think I’m a good leader and I realize that people often confuse management and leadership. They think they’re the same thing, and they are two totally different things. Management is about compliance. It’s about checklists. It’s about, “Did you show up to work on time? Did you go through the checklist?” It’s really important, by the way, especially for our pilots. It’s incredibly important. You do a lot of checklists. Air Force does a lot of checklists. It’s really important. But leadership is about how you make people feel. It’s about inspiration and vision. And, you know, I’m just one person at the 120,000-employee company, but if I can get 120,000 people believing in where we’re going and wanting to go there with me, it’s incredibly powerful. And then they take care of everything else. And so, the job of a leader is actually pretty easy. The job of a leader is to make people, to inspire people, and get them to believe in the vision and where you’re headed, and if you do that, they’re going to take care of everything else.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 7:51And that sounds wonderful. So I want to pull on how we do that because, you know, when you stepped into United, you know, the years ago, I would say you probably had to create that vision. And so when we think about a lot of our listeners and viewers that are in that context of how do I create that, where did you start? Where did you start first to build that vision and inspiration?
 
Scott Kirby 8:08You know, so I came to United— I knew a lot about United without having been there. It’s funny: When I first got to United, an investor told me that, you know, 15 or 20 years earlier, when I was young in my career, people thought I was an up-and-comer, investors. And I was on an elevator with some of them. Somebody asked me, like— and I was at American West, like, small little America West. “So if you could go to any airline in the world, you know, where would you go?” And I didn’t remember this, but I said United Airlines because it has the most untapped potential. I just thought it was undermanaged, and, you know, had incredible potential, but had been poorly run. And so when I got there, I, like— I’ve the vision that, like, where we are today is just over 10 years since I’ve been there. Where we are today is, like, where I thought we would be in 10 years, and, you know, I said it to people when I first got there. What people often tell me today is, like, they could say, “I remember, like, you coming in, you telling us where we were going to go, and I thought, ‘Well that’s nice for him to say,’ and, ‘Boy, I wish that was true.’” But, like, they’d been there for a long time. They’d seen all the failed promises, and like, there’s no way that’s going to actually happen. But it actually has.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:13That’s right.
 
Scott Kirby 9:14And so, the sort of, the underlying like where the airline would be, I, you know, there’s been additions and modifications, but the general direction was the same. What I think I underappreciated was how powerful it would be to get employees believing in that future. I believed in it, you know? I didn’t— but I didn’t fully appreciate, you know, how much untapped the potential was, how much desire there was to be on the winning team, to be the best. And when they started realizing it was possible and that it was happening, and then it happened, like it’s just, it’s fun and it — and they do amazing things for customers, and, you know, they want to keep winning, and it’s, you know, it’s a flywheel that just keeps getting better and better and better. The more you win, the more you want to win, the harder you’re willing to work. And I knew that that was important, but I didn’t really understand, I think, how much untapped— I knew how much untapped potential was in the route network. I didn’t know how much untapped potential there really was in the people,  but that’s been even bigger.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:24Exponentially, when you think about that. And so I think about, you know, when you said a little bit ago that, you know, you have like the easiest job, right? Because you’re making, like, the big decisions that only you can make. But I’m curious on how do you then choose, maybe, like, your executive team around you? Because they are the ones making those decisions, I think, that are affecting that human potential. How do you do that?
Scott Kirby 10:45So, the first thing I’d say is, I’ve learned that you’ve got to have complementary skills. I have weaknesses, and I need people that complement those weaknesses. If everyone was like me, like I always have, I have lots of ideas, and “let’s do this,” and I’m sort of missing the risk gene in some ways. If everyone was like me, we’d do some amazing stuff together and then we’d probably drive off a cliff. So I need some people that are complementary. And there’s things that I hate to do, like the compliance stuff. Like, I hate it. It’s important to do. Like, we have to have an audit committee. God, I hate going to audit committee. I hope not— Michelle, please don’t listen to this. Michelle, please don’t listen to this. She knows I don’t like it. But I need people that are complementary, so that’s point one. And then I’m going to say two other things. No. 2 is I have absolute requirement that everyone on my executive team buys into “no excuses.” I think it is the most important lesson I learned as a cadet. It is perhaps the most important life lesson you can learn. Bad stuff is going to happen in your life, in your career, in business. Often not your fault. Sometimes not fair. Often not fair. It is irrelevant whether it’s your fault, whether it’s fair or not. Irrelevant. It’s your responsibility to overcome it. And if you can have that mentality, you can just do anything. And, you know, like people can come to me and say, "I have a huge problem. This is happening. I don’t even know how to fix it.” And I’m going to be with them to try to help and try to figure it out and fix it. But you cannot come to me and make excuses, you know? And my previous employer, the person that was the chief operating officer at the time, I had banned him from using the word “weather” in my presence. Just couldn’t use it because it’s just too easy of an excuse. And so one requirement is that you buy into the no excuses philosophy, and then a second thing that I, another thing that I really value that I think is probably the most rare talent, is true intellectual creativity, and by that I mean being able to look at a situation, simplify it, and say, "Can we do this better?”  But those two go together. People that can do that are also really good at looking at things and seeing them simply, instead of making things incredibly complicated. Looking at the world through a simpler lens and figuring out how to do it better, and not everyone does that. Not everyone on my team can do that. You know, I think it’s like one in 1,000 people that can do that and do it well. And you need a few. You don’t need tons of those people around, but you need a few of those people around to drive kind of creativity. But mostly, I try to build a good team. That complementary point goes back: a team that works well together. I’ll say another thing that I do that’s I think different than most is my executive team: We meet three times a week for two, we have two hours scheduled three times a week, and, you know, together. We’re not doing PowerPoints. On Mondays, we have the first 30 minutes is, like, what happened last week. Other than that, there’s no PowerPoints. We’re talking, talking about what’s going on. Meetings for me are about conversation and bringing everything up, and so we’re all on the same page. We know each other, friends. We can have debates. You know, it’s a different environment than most companies have.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 14:03I think that is, that’s fascinating, actually, because when you think about time and bringing that team together that often, you don’t see that everywhere. But it seems like it’s working out very well.
Scott Kirby 14:12It has worked well, and it started during COVID. I became the CEO writes during COVID, and it was seven days a week. And I can remember the first day that we missed a meeting. That was an existential risk. The first day that we missed a meeting, was— I had a call from our head of HR, which part of her, she’s sort of a consigliere. She’s, when I’m doing something wrong, she’s generally the one delegate to call me and tell me Scott, you got to remember. So I also know to listen to her when she calls me. But she called me and she said, “Scott, you know, Sunday is Mother’s Day.” I’m like, “Yeah, I know. I got something for Kathleen. I’m gonna call my mom.” I wasn’t getting it. “Do you think maybe we should cancel that ET meeting on Mother’s Day?” Like, “Oh, that’s a really good point. I should have thought of it. But thank you for calling me.” But anyway, that’s the first day that we canceled it. Right. OK. Now we do three days a week. Now we do three days a week.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:06I love that. Well, let’s talk about the no excuses, sir or ma’am. Right. Either way that it’s going, one of the things you always talk about is you know taking well safety first. Like there’s no question that I hear Scott Kirby, it’s safety first. But then also, like, taking care of our people and our customers. How do you walk the line of no excuses, sir or ma’am, and not also the not being empathetic because I feel like if I’m telling you no excuses, like, I also want to be thoughtful of like how we got there and grace and that sort of thing.
Scott Kirby 15:36Well, I also think about doing it, doing the right thing. So my test for you know like talking to an employee about something is, am I going to be if they don’t like a policy or something we do? Am I going to feel good about telling them why? And if I can feel good about telling them why, then I’m happy doing it. Even if they don’t like the policy, I’m happy doing it. Like one easy example, I get lots of questions from employees about changing the boarding priority for standby flight benefits. And I tell all of them, like, “Look, you probably have a good point, but it’s a zero-sum game.” If I make the flight benefits work better for a retiree, then I’m taking it away from active employees, or vice versa, whatever it is. And that’s a zero-sum game, and everyone has a good point. So I’m simply not going to change it. That kind of generally, you know, and you need to be able to explain it. And so policies, you know, I’m willing to talk to employees about anything, and I think they know that. And because of that, that’s my standard. I think the other thing is like I, you know, I’m a positive person, and I’m also, I guess, intolerant of you know whining. And if I if somebody’s complaining about something that I don’t think is a fair complaint, I’ll tell them I don’t think that’s a fair complaint. That’s right. And I’ll be straightforward with them. And so I get a lot less of it than most people. You know, over 99% of my feedback with employees and customers, employees and customers is positive, and you know I’m focused on the positive, so I’m not the kind of person that you know people are likely to come up and you know complain about you know whatever but also try to do the right thing. You know, like if I walk into a break room and it’s a crappy break room, like, somebody in the management team is going to be in trouble. Like, I don’t need somebody to tell me, like, we should have a nice break room for people. Like, I don’t need to be told that. And if you set that standard, like, and people feel like you’re doing the right thing all around, you’re just not creating an environment where most people are going to complain about the day to day because they know you’re trying to do the right thing and they see evidence of it.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:45Yes. Well, asking for all the parent listeners, does this translate to home as well? The no excuses, sir or ma’am?
Scott Kirby 17:51Oh, I try. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of excuses, but I do have seven kids, and so I have a fun home life with the kids. Although I’m more primarily the fun play with them, less the disciplinarian. Though when I am the disciplinarian, they’re more likely to listen because it’s more unusual.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:17
Right. They’re like, "What’s happening?” Oh goodness. Well, I’d like to talk a little bit about you know the way that you lead, because you said a little bit earlier, you know, you have a complementary team because you’re not afraid of risk, and you, they’re calculated. Like you’ve taken a lot of data from a lot of different sources, and you’re willing to pivot rather quickly in flexibility in your decisions. How does that work with your executive team and those that have to then implement kind of that rapid changing?
Scott Kirby 18:41Yeah. Well, first, I do think you know one of my strengths is I can do a 180 in a second. It does not take me time. When the facts change, I change. And I can give a good example. COVID was a good example. I give good example.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:58Please give us an example. We love it.
Scott Kirby 18:59Well, I mean, COVID, you know, was an example where everyone, you know, thought, oh, this is going to be like SARS, you know. It’s in China, you know. It’s not going to be a big deal. And I was following it closely, but I kind of thought the same. That’s what all the experts said. I thought the same. And then I can remember waking up on a weekend morning, and the then-so-called novel coronavirus had showed up in northern Italy and killed several people. And you know I read extensively. I’m better at connecting dots than most people, and that proved you know they’d asymptomatic. So there was asymptomatic transfer because some of the people that died hadn’t been in China.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 19:34Right. Right.
Scott Kirby 19:36Asymptomatic transfer, highly contagious, deadly. OK. That was a pandemic, and if it was already killing people in Italy, it had already spread around the globe. I called our chief financial officer that, and none of the experts thought that. At least any that I saw or read. The consensus was not that. Said this is global pandemic. We got to get ahead of it. You know, one of the things we did, we went raised $2 billion unsecured at 3% interest two days before the NBA walked off the court and the world shut down. Would have been impossible. We also had a leadership, all of our top 2,000 people, in Chicago that week. And normally I’d be sitting out in the audience, and you know, and that week I had a little room, and people still tell stories about it. And I was calling different groups in, and I’m sitting at a table, and I had a little speech. “This is a global pandemic. Nobody’s figured it out yet. We’re going to get ahead of the curve. Here’s what we’re doing.” And just shocking, you know, people were just walking out shocked. They’re like, "Is he crazy? But that was, you know, an example. But I could change my mind about anything when the facts change. That does— is sometimes hard for my team because we’re going one way and like, "Oh, like, well, that was wrong. Now we’re going a different way.” And I can be all in, and then all in, all in in a different direction. I mean, we don’t do that too much. It’s usually something in the world that happens. You know, this year the war in Iran was one of those. Like, you know, the beginning I bought into the consensus that this is going to be quick and it’s going to be over, but you know, it started Feb. 28, and I think it was March 11 when I got our team together and said, "This is going to last indefinitely, I think. I hope I’m wrong. I think this is going to last indefinitely, and we’re going to plan for high, really elevated oil prices all the way through the end of 2027.” So another, you know, almost full two full years, and you know, sadly that, at least so far, has turned out to be right. But it’s the ability, it’s an ability to see the facts, you know. And all the experts said I was wrong, by the way. At that point, like I met with several expert groups, you know, and they said worst case over by the end of March. I met with the same people in April, and they said worst case end of April. Like you guys said end of March. I think you’re wrong. But anyway, the ability to quickly react to changing circumstances that goes along with no excuses. You know, you’re not putting your head in the sand. Like, when the circumstances change, neither one of those things were our fault. Right, but they had a huge potential impact. And best thing you can do is accept it. And you know, instead of trying to go through the seven stages of grief, or how many stages there are, and wait to get to acceptance, like, accept it and deal with it. And we’ve been really good at that.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 22:15So, have you always, even as, you know, a growing leader, have you always looked at things this way? Even as a kid, we’re just taking in a lot of facts and then coming to decisions or is this something you’ve developed over time?
Scott Kirby 22:26I think I was always, I always thought that way. I think no excuses helped me because it helped sort of codify not making excuses. I probably was more prone to making excuses about things, but also I also have a mathematical mind and particularly understand risk and reward. Yes, it’s another thing that most executives miss. They understand risk, but they see risk around every corner. And I tell people the biggest mistake most people make in their career is never making a big mistake because they never take a chance. And like all the big decisions, none of them are 100%. Like, if it’s 100%, somebody else has already done it. Right. And so the big decisions always have some risk associated with them. But figuring out when the risk, when the reward skews really positive, and figuring out your off ramps, you know, for those risks, and, you know, that’s you know another that that’s thing something that most people that are executives don’t do. They’re afraid to take risks. They’re afraid to make a mistake, and so they just sort of, you know, waddle in mediocrity.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 23:36I love because I’ve actually listened to you say that before, and I think you talked about having options, right? And so when you know if you take this big risk, you have options A, B, C, D. So if it doesn’t go well, at least you know your offshoot has already been planned, and so that’s how you mitigate some of that risk.
Scott Kirby 23:48Yeah, and that’s, you know, like, you know, one of the, you know, one of the biggest decisions we made during COVID, you know, after— first everyone was wrong about being, but then everyone decided, “Oh, this travel demand is never going to recover.” All the experts, like literally, like I’m not aware of a single so-called expert that didn’t think travel demand was going to be permanently impaired, most of them thought by 50 percent. So airlines are going to go out of business. They’re going to have to fly a lot less, you know, even if they survive. And literally every single global long-haul airline in the world, except United Airlines, permanently retired some of their parts of their wide-body fleet because all the experts said that; that was the consensus. And I looked at that. We looked at that. Like first, I thought it was wrong. I thought air travel demand. I thought COVID was going to be deep and last a long time, but it would travel demand would end, and travel demand would recover.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:35Did you think that because of what you’d been reading and other things that you had, or why did you think?Scott Kirby 24:39It just none of it made sense to me. Like…
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:41Human nature…
Scott Kirby 24:42Because human nature wasn’t going to change. That’s the point. We were going to figure out a way out of COVID. We were going to be on lockdown until it was safe. But all pandemics in global history had ended, and we had better science today than they had.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:53That’s right.
Scott Kirby 24:54With the Black Plague, like it was eventually going to end. And when it did, like human nature will not have changed. And, like. it just made no sense at all to me that people thought it could change. And, like, surveys are a terrible way to make decisions. Like, if you survey somebody when they’re afraid of travel: “You’re going to travel again in the future?” They say no. Like, totally irrelevant because they’re afraid right now. But they’re not going to be afraid when it’s over. So we thought, you know, that it was— I thought travel demand would recover. But also I looked at it like this is the best, literally in the history of the aviation industry, the best risk-reward there will ever be because everyone else is shrinking and turning left. And I even told our board, like, we did the biggest aircraft orders in history in the middle of COVID. But I told our board, like, we don’t have to be right. We just have to be not totally wrong because everyone else is shrinking. And it was also the kind of thing that if travel— if it was totally wrong, like, Boeing wasn’t going to cram the airplanes down our throat. We’d find a way out, so we did have off ramps. But just the reward skewed so heavily because everyone else was afraid and afraid to make— there might have even been some of them that thought travel demand would recover, but the implications to most of them were all the experts say it’s not going to recover. “If I go order airplanes, I might get fired, and I’m wrong, I might get fired.” And so they were afraid to do it. They didn’t do it, and it’s just like, those moments happen rarely, but you got to be willing to jump on them. Like, when they happen, you got to jump on, make a big bet. I’ve done a lot of gambling in my life.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:22We might have read about that too.
 
Scott Kirby 26:24That’s when you put a big, make a big bet. You know, like it’s not guaranteed, but, you know, like you got a 98% chance you’re going to win the hand. Put as much money on the table as you can get on the table. Like, get it all out there.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:36Yes, gosh, you know, I think there’s probably a lot of people that are kicking themselves now, you know, for not having looked things differently as well. When I think about some of our leaders that are joining us, and whether viewing or listening, you know, you talk about making time to be able to ingest all that data. You read for three hours a day, right? I know you’re walking, you’re doing all the things to do that. How do we help our young leaders find time when they’re still kind of working their way up the chain?Scott Kirby 26:59Yeah. So my personal calendar partly is no more than four hours of meetings a day, like—Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:07Period?Scott Kirby 27:08Period. OK. I mean, there occasionally days, but certainly averages. I probably average two to three hours of meetings a day.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:13OK. That’s unheard of everywhere else.
 
Scott Kirby 27:15And because my job is not to work hard, it’s to think hard. And I’m thinking United 24 hours a day. Like, I literally, last night, I’ve been thinking about JFK. We’re going to get slots back in JFK, and I’m trying to get more. And like, I had, like, dreamt about JFK, and woke up this morning like, “Wait, did we get another 50 slots in JFK, or did I dream that?”
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:36That’s good though.
 
Scott Kirby 27:37It took me a few— but I’m thinking about it all the time. And the point of, you know, one of the things that I’m curious about stuff, and so I read, and I read extensively fiction, nonfiction, periodical, you know, the newspaper, but magazines. I don’t get my news from the internet. Like I don’t read the news on the internet. I can talk about why that’s a bad way to view it. I also I also don’t get it from AI. Like I don’t want watered down summaries. But when you do that, you read so extensively, you can connect dots that other people don’t see, because you’ve got this broad, you know, base of just random knowledge from just reading all kinds of stuff. Like, I had happened, you know, over the Christmas break in 2019, right before COVID, just happened to have read a book about the history of global pandemics and how they had shaped societies. It really wasn’t about pandemics, but it went all the way back, you know, to like 3,000 years ago — a pandemic that I didn’t even know had happened in China and how it shaped, you know, the Ming Dynasty that was to follow, and, you know, how the Black Death, you know, and how all these had shaped society and… Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:44All the opportunities that, yeah…
Scott Kirby 28:45Yeah, and the changes that had happened, and so, like, just like— and it wasn’t specifically about the, you know, and also about how people had reacted to it, and like a year before I’d read a history of vaccines and how vaccines and, like, how lifesaving changing they’ve been. But guess what, throughout history, every single new vaccine has a whole group of anti-vaxxers, of people that are opposed to the vaccine, 100% of the time. And then, like, 20 years later, they’re all OK with it. But every— because it’s new, right? It’s new. It’s human nature. It’s new. So a lot of people knew it’s bad. And but I’ve read stuff like that, and when you’ve read stuff like that, it just puts you in a position to see things that other people don’t see. And by the way, also be careful of experts. You know, especially in business. Experts — I now codified this in my own head. Experts live within two standard deviations, meaning everything in the world happens— you know, 95% of the time, they’re pretty good. The tails, when the extreme happens, they force fit it back into what they’re used to, and they’ve all only lived in two standard deviations, and so they force fed it back into the average, and so they and all the interesting stuff happens at the tails. All the big things happen in the tails, and the experts almost always will miss it. So be really careful of experts, especially in those two plus standard deviations.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:05That’s right, and I’m really glad you walked me through that because I was a social science major. I did not walk the same analytical line through the Academy, so I appreciate you doing that. But I’m, so I’m thinking about how do you choose what you’re reading? Like you just happen to pick those up, and it was happenstance, or, like, is there something that catches you?Scott Kirby 30:18Yeah, that’s hard finding the best stuff. So my reading habits, I read— I started as a cadet. I read The Wall Street Journal cover to cover.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:25You’ve done this since you were a cadet?
Scott Kirby 30:27Yeah. Oh, I’ve started— I’ve enjoyed like three hours a day when I was a kid.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:30Oh my god!
 
Scott Kirby 30:30I wasn’t allowed to watch— 30 minutes of TV was all I was allowed to watch when I was a kid, so I’ve read extensively my whole life. But as a cadet, I started reading The Wall Street Journal cover to cover. Ten or 15 years ago, I started reading The New York Times. I don’t read it cover to cover, but probably 10 to 12 articles. Get both sides of articles. Yeah, and I read the opinion pages in both. You know, I tend to agree with the with The Wall Street Journalmore, but I prefer to read stuff that I don’t agree with, particularly on opinion pieces.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:58It gives you some thoughts.
 
Scott Kirby 30:59And sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they have really good points, but I want to understand both sides. Like, it’s part of the problem with reading on the internet. All you’re doing is reading stuff you already think. Like, well, that’s a waste of time. Like, you already think it. So I don’t do that. But the harder thing is finding books to read, because I read about two a week. So I get them from all— I get recommendations from people. I got, you know, I actually found now, one friend, a guy named Scott Wallace that lives in Dallas, he’s the only person I know that reads more than me and he’s the best book recommender I’ve ever met. Yeah, very similar, and he reads a lot. Like, he gives me great book recommendations.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:35So what is what are you reading right now, or I should say today?
Scott Kirby 31:39So, I usually am reading two books at once. I’m usually reading a fiction and a nonfiction. So, right now I’m reading a book called Fire Agent. I don’t remember where— I think I got it maybe from either The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. That’s one place I get them. But by the way, if I also find an author I like, I read everything that they’ve written until I get to a point where I sometimes I don’t like them, but you know, read something that’s great. But that’s one example. So I think I got it from one of those, Fire Agent. It’s pretty good. It’s not great, but it’s pretty good. About two thirds of the way through it. And then I’m reading the Eagle and the Lion, which is a more ancient history of Iran, really. But it goes all the way back to the Roman and the Sassanians, you know, and, you know, sort of, they were on opposite ends, but you know, to cultures and civilizations that you know were strong for a long time. How that— I started reading a lot about Iran. I’d already done a lot after the war in Iran started, but this is just— And then because I did that, other people recommended to me. This is pretty good. OK, but it goes even further back, and you know, it’s actually amazing to read about Persia, Iran, and, you know, the incredible— like it’s Iran and China, you know? Probably the two most, the longest, sort of ,I would call continuous civilizations. You know, incredible history. You know, incredible educated work for— you know, group. You know, sad what’s happened there, but it’s an amazing history to read and understand more about. Amazing people to understand.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:12I just think about you taking this, and do you— Is this part of the United culture? Do, you know, encourage, or is this something that’s required of certain leaders reading?Scott Kirby 33:21So, in a small way. I do. So I read a book that I loved called Apple in China.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:30OK. Apple in China?
Scott Kirby 33:31Apple in China. OK. And the book is— I’m going to take something different away from it. The main premise of the book is sort of about Apple and all that they did in China.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:40Got it.
Scott Kirby 33:40That China is a high palace manufacturer because of Apple. Right. So it’s sort of negative about Apple, and but that’s not the point of the book that I liked as much. It’s how Apple, who I respect immensely, like that’s the company I respect the most of any other company. And one, they’re great at building simple things for customers, and not just simplicity. I said that earlier. I think they’re awesome at it; they’re better than anyone’s ever been. But the second is from this book and how they manage their supply chain. This is really, you know, I think Tim Cook’s specialty. You know, they were— they didn’t just order something; they didn’t just order an airplane like we do from Boeing and wait for it to show up and then complain about it when it’s late. They were in there with them. If there were a problem, they were— it was their responsibility. They were building it, and I just thought it was awesome. And so I made everyone in our leadership ranks in supply chain and technology. I got them copy that book, made them read it, and we’re doing that now with some of our suppliers. There’s been big engine problems with engines that are all around the industry. There’s some 900 aircraft around the globe that are on the ground because of lack of engines, and we’re in with some of our vendors in a way that no one else— I don’t think anyone else ever been on the ground with them, and it was a little hard at first because they think you’re in there to…
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 34:57Right, why are you in my…
Scott Kirby 34:57…Criticizing, you know? But we’ve made huge progress. A guy named Ankit Gupta has led that for us, and he’s been great, and we’ve started it, you know— and when you can have those deep partnerships, it works better. We, you know, with Starlink, like, you know, they want to do it on both sides. Yes, it’s amazing working with SpaceX and with Starlink on what we’ve been able to do and, like, just real time do stuff. And, but anyway, the Apple in China was sort of for me the motivation for doing— I didn’t read it because I thought… I didn’t think it had anything to do with United Airlines. Just a book that someone recommended to me. I don’t know why I read it, but I read it and it was great. And then this year, my friend Scott Wallace actually recommended this book, Unreasonable Hospitality, which is the story of a guy that with partners that built a restaurant that became the No. 1restaurant in New York, in the world, and it’s his story, and it’s an interesting, engaging story. But it’s about, you know, building the culture and how much all the little things matter to customers. And so I have bought that book for all of my officers, sort of officer rank, top 60 or 70 people at the company, and they all have to read that book. So I occasionally do that with people, but you know those are two examples of I’ve read something, and I’ll also often forward articles you know to people that, you know, “Oh, this is really cool and maybe it has applications for us,” or I just want to learn more about it. Sometimes it’s just learn more about this just because it’s interesting. Like, I have no idea if it has applications to United or not, but it’s interesting, and I want to learn more about it.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 36:29So I think that’s fascinating how you, from the Apple in China, actually took that and brought it into practice. Because I imagine that where you’re seeing that show up is in pride. Like, I can’t imagine how prideful I’d be. Like, I had a hand in fixing this, and it’s better because I was part of it. I think that’s, I mean, a huge…
Scott Kirby 36:47Yeah, that’s part of it. Like, I mean, when I say I have the easiest job of anyone at United, which I really do, because I only have one responsibility to create an airliner, employees are proud of. And they’re different, that means different things to different people. But everybody wants to be on the winning team. You know, for that group, you know, if you’re, that’s a good example. Like if you’re getting beat up by other people at the company that we have all these aircraft on the ground because of engine problems. You know, you can say, "Well, this is the vendor’s fault,” or you could say, "Well, this happened, and here’s what I’m doing to fix it. Like nobody in the airline industry has ever done this before and look how well it’s working. And there’s pride in that. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:19We need some United no excuses, sir.
Scott Kirby 37:22At one point in my career I had a sign that said, "No Excuses, Sir," a little plaque, and they made me take it down. I guess I could do it now, but I don’t. I’ll say it enough that everyone knows it.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:36That’s right. That’s right. We’ve adopted it. So you’re constantly taking the information. What are you doing then, I guess, to — maybe this is not the right question — to be better, but you have this growth mindset. What’s next in your vision for United? Like, what’s the next big thing that you are really focused on?
Scott Kirby 37:52So I’ve started with a vision for United to be the best airline in the history of aviation. And, you know, I think we’re not the best at everything, but I think in totality, when you consider, you know, our network, but then you consider the technology, which is by far the best in any airline industry, the service, the reliability, the product that we have on the plane, but in totality we are the best. But I now want us to become one of the best, my most loved consumer brands around the world, and that’s hard for an airline to do because all the stress of travel and you’re part of the stress. Like, even at your best, if you’re perfect, if you’re— which we’re never going to be perfect. Even if we’re perfect, something like 15% of our flights are going to be delayed because of — delayed or canceled — because of weather and air traffic control. And so, how do we say — that’s not an excuse — but how do we say we’re going to overcome that challenge? We’re going to like it’s unsafe, so we’re not going to fly when it’s unsafe, but how do we overcome that? And I think the revolution that we’re going to be able to have is using AI for technology to really communicate with customers in a completely clear, plain-English, transparent way. We’ve started experimenting with it, doing things like sending people pictures of radar maps. You know, “There’s a clear sky in Chicago right now, but your plane has to fly through this line of thunderstorms to the west of Chicago that you can’t see, but it’s at an altitude that it’s unsafe, and so we can’t fly until a thunderstorm passes.” And if we do that, like the NPS scores for those flights are 80 points better than would if we just say it’s weather.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 39:23Really? Well, I mean, that makes sense to me.
Scott Kirby 39:26Yeah, because now you understand. Otherwise, you think the airlines... And we’re going to roll out — it may be this week, soon — an option for customers today. You know, we other interrupted airlines will say like maybe weather. You got you’re flying back through Denver tomorrow to Bismarck, and there’s forecast for thunderstorms, so check your flight. You know you may want to consider other options. We’re now going to send you something that has on the if you want it on the home screen of the United. You know on the app. Yes. Like here’s three other options. Here’s a couple of flights that are earlier. Here’s a couple flight you know that are later. Here’s you could stand by for you could switch to this one. This one’s already full. But here’s how many people are ahead of you. If you want to stand by for that flight, you can, and we’re ultimately going to, like, be able to put in like here’s the weather forecast for this time of day versus this time of day. This is just there may be weather tomorrow. We’re not certain, but we’re just going to give you information. And I think we can take if we can take that will take the stress out. People understand if you don’t. They get the weather, like they get it. They can’t stand the uncertainty, you know. Or, you know, we don’t, I don’t think we do this, at least not very often. But, like, I’ve flown on other airlines, and like you walk up to the gate, and it says the gate says boarding in one minute, and there’s not a plane at the gate. You’re like, right? What is wrong? Yeah, that’s right. That’s OK.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 40:46Did our gate move?
Scott Kirby 40:48And so I think getting good at that. So I’ve started telling our team, I, you know, today, your vacation for most people probably begins when you land at your destination airport. I want it to begin when you arrive at your departure airport.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:04That’s right. Like the beginning of that travel experience.
Scott Kirby 41:06Yeah, I want to be, I want United to be good enough that you consider that part of your vacation trip. And you know, another example: We’re going to get to where we can let you— I’ll, I, we talk about premium all the time in the airline business, and I rarely do. I think of travel through the lens of a parent traveling alone with a couple of young kids.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:26This is the nose to tail kind of, right?
Scott Kirby 41:29Nose to tail, yeah. And how do we make it easy if you’re— and I’ve done that. And I get help. And you know, didn’t always get a lot of help in my career, but I get a lot of help. It’s still hard. How do you make it easy to travel with parents, you know, with a parent with young children? You know, this telling them what’s going on is an example. You know we call it every flight has a story. It’s really important. Other examples are things like, you know, the app. You know, we get off an airplane, like, we’ll text you and say we’ll hold your— you have a tight connection, but we’re holding the connection for you. We hold, you know, a few hundred flights every day. We save about 2,000 customer connections every day. Somebody upstairs or over at the Academy had to stop me and like, “You guys, I was going to miss it. The times the flight was late in Munich, and you were-I missed a flight. You held it for me. Like I ran, and you held it for me. I couldn’t believe it.” Like I get those stories all the time. But we’re gonna— we have a goal. We’ve started an experiment with this in Newark right now, where if you’re coming in on an inbound flight and you’re not gonna have time to get food, you can order food and get it delivered to the gate. You can pick it up, walk down to the airplane, even if you’re in coach. Just— and there’s all kinds of ideas like that. And AI is so good at programming. There’s some things that — I don’t know if we’re going to talk about it — there’s some things that AI is ridiculous that, what people think it’s good for, you should not use it for, but AI is incredible at some things and programming and being able to do this kind of stuff, we can do it, and we can do it, you know, quickly in a way that we would have never been able to do it before. It unlocks possibilities that were not, that were impossible before. And we’re going to do that, and I think we’re going to revolutionize what travel feels like on United because we’re going to be able to use technology to take the stress out of travel.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:07That is huge because literally that’s huge. The transparency, taking the stress out. I think I’m excited to see when that happens. I don’t think it’ll be that far out in the future.
Scott Kirby 43:17It’s going to be faster than you would think possible because what you can do with AI programming is pretty incredible.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:23So when I’m thinking about those that are— you’ve had you know years of learning this on the fly and making decisions. If someone is new and they’re up and coming in their leadership, what would some advice you might give to them today?
Scott Kirby 43:36So a couple of career pieces of career advice. I would say, No. 1, don’t have a goal. You know, I started life wanting to be a pressure athlete. Realized that wasn’t going to work. Then I wanted to be a pilot. I came here to be a pilot. Realized I wasn’t going to be a fighter pilot, so I switched. Every big decision in my life was some opportunity that came completely out of left field, completely unexpected, and I made a 90-degree turn on a dime. But if I’d had a plan, I’d have had blinders on and would have missed all of those opportunities. So No. 1, don’t have a plan. No. 2, do something that you love. If you’re watching the clock, you’re not going to be good at it. You know, the last time I had a job in my life was when I was 15 years old and flipping burgers at Sonic. I hated it. It was a job. I was watching the clock. Everything else, like I love what I’m doing. I just said I dream of, I dreamt about it. JFK. Right. Fifty flights today in JFK. I dreamt about it last night because that’s what I’m thinking about, and I love it. And if you like what you do, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, then you’re just going to be better at it. And so don’t have a plan and do things that you love.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 44:49Love those. And how do you work in this really important piece that’s called our family? Like, where— how do you navigate, you know, 20 hours of dreaming about the thing that’s not work that you love and the people you love, your family?
Scott Kirby 45:03So usually people ask about that work-life balance. I have seven kids. My day, like I sleep eight and a half hours a night. I read three hours a day. I work out every day. When I’m at home, which is about half the time, half the time on the road, half time at home. Most days, I take the kids to school, to breakfast at school. Our schools, they’re all four, the four that are home are all in the same school now. They have this awesome cafeteria that you can go and eat. Breakfast with kids, I take them every day. I put them to bed at night. Well, it’s called a routine. I get them riled up, and my wife comes behind and complains and puts them to bed, and actually gets them to bed. But I spend lots of time with them. I go out every day. We go out play sports. Great yard and play sports. I spend lots of time. I’m able to do that because I’m really efficient at time management, I don’t waste time in my personal life or my professional life. I’ve talked about meetings. I have a bunch of weird quirks, like I don’t hang my belt up because that’s extra time. I leave it. In fact, my wife, when she we first got married, used to hang my belt up, and I would forget to put a belt on because I didn’t see it. Like my whole bunch of little things, like I don’t, you know, just naturally efficient and don’t waste time. But part of that is I get asked this a lot in groups, and then after saying all that, I say, "How many of you are on social media?” Basically, everybody stands. And I say I would hypothesize that none of you have a work-life balance problem. You may have a social media problem, but if you have time to be on social media. You do not have a work-life balance problem. I also don’t watch TV. Like, a bunch of things that people are doing. Like, you got to choose your time, and I put work and family ahead of social media and TV.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 46:35I like that. Yes, great lessons. So, is there anything today that I didn’t ask that you would hope that we’ve covered?
Scott Kirby 46:41No, this has been fun.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 46:42This has been a lot of fun. Well, Scott, this has been amazing. I already knew that I was gonna learn something, but some of these great nuggets— I think some of my favorites have been you know really just like you said, don’t have a plan, but really be open to seeing what’s coming your way. I think being really open to data and seeking it, not trusting just one thing of information that you’re getting.
 
Scott Kirby 47:04Don’t trust people’s conclusions.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 47:05Oh, there you go.
Scott Kirby 47:06Listen, look at the facts and look at why they got to that conclusion. Like that’s one thing I say. My wife, you know, she hasn’t been a long time, but I’ve been accused before by people of being not a good listener. Like I say to them is, I’m a great listener. I’m a terrible agreeer. I listen and I ask why, and if I don’t, if your arguments don’t resonate with me, then I don’t agree. But I listen intently, listen intently to the why, instead of the conclusion, and form your own judgment about what the conclusion should be.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 47:43Amazing. I have one last question. If you could go back and tell young Scott anything now that you know what you know today, what would you tell him?
Scott Kirby 47:50I would go back and talk to myself about how to deal with people. You heard me talk a lot today about how people feel and inspiring people, but when I was young, I thought I knew the answer. I often think I knew the answer. Know the answer today, but when I was younger, I would just like be dismissive of others and like this is what we’re going to do. Let’s move on. And why are we wasting time? And I’ve realized it’s so much more powerful to get other people to have, my goal is to get other people to have ideas. When I have an idea, my goal is to get someone else to have it, to bring people along, and to bring people along in the whole conversation. And I’ve realized that not only is that better for the culture, it’s way better for the decision making because there’s a lot of things I hadn’t thought about. Confident as I was, and there are often actually a lot of times that it moderates or even changes my decision to get that kind of feedback from people, and the further you go in the career, the more important it gets. Because the hardest thing as a CEO is to get people to tell you things when they think you disagree. And so you have to get that to be effective. And just people are afraid to do it, and so part of that is trying to keep your opinion to yourself but also finding ways to elicit feedback from people. And, you know, one of the things I do in complicated decisions is get up everyone in the room, and I, as we talked about, I go around the room and ask each, starting with the most junior people in the room, so that they’re not intimidated. But as you said. What do you think we should do, and why? And it’s often a 50/50 decision at the end. But when you do that, one, I make better decisions because of doing that. But the team dynamics are so much better. And even the people that I wind up going the other way with, you say at the end, like, this is not a— I don’t know if I’m right. This is not a clear. Like there’s good points on both sides. I don’t know what the right answer is, but we got to decide, and we’re going to do this. And if it’s wrong, we’ll switch. But everyone feels heard.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 49:53That’s right.
Scott Kirby 49:54And bought in. It’s just such a better way to manage. And I did not do that when I was young.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 49:58Well, that’s a good lesson in itself, especially because now you’re, you know, you’re more junior, or those that are growing into some of these leadership roles have found their voice earlier, right? And to share it, yeah. So I think that’s wonderful. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. Today’s conversation with Scott was enlightening in so many ways. I think we can all walk away saying together, no excuses, is something that will bring into our leadership toolbox. But some of the other things that really stood out to me is how he forges the teams around him, making sure that they’re complementing his skills. Right, so looking at where are his weaknesses and how do we fill that with other experts around the room, finding those that can connect the dots with information and being willing to ingest a lot of information. I also really appreciated how he talked about setting a vision and being inspirational, and by bringing people along with those decisions, it that potential completely unlocks. So I think that’s a really worthwhile leadership trait. And then finally, one that really kind of hit the heartstrings, of course, and it kind of ties to not having a plan because it really is about discovering what you love. So by being willing to explore what opportunities are coming your way without having a plan, you might just find you’re in exactly what you should be doing because you love it so much. If someone you know is on their leadership journey and could benefit from some of the lessons learned from Scott Kirby and others, be sure to share this episode with them. You can find all of our episodes at usafa.org/longblueleadership. I’m Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99. Thanks for joining us on Long Blue Leadership. Until next time.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 51:42There’s another side to Scott’s story in the September issue of Checkpoints magazine. In a feature about Air Force Academy graduates leading in high-stakes industries, Scott talks about risk, expected value, crisis and the thinking behind some of the biggest decisions he’s made at United Airlines. This conversation goes somewhere different. Here, we’re exploring the leadership behind those decisions: accountability, adaptability, trust, self-awareness and what leaders owe the people who depend on them. Together, the Checkpoints story and this episode offer two different views of the same leader: how Scott Kirby thinks when the stakes are high, and how he leads the people responsible for carrying those decisions forward.
Outro 52:23This Long Blue Leadership conversation was recorded Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026. Long Blue Leadership is a production of the Long Blue Line podcast network and presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation.
 
KEYWORDS
Scott Kirby, United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby leadership, leadership principles, no excuses leadership, Air Force Academy, Long Blue Leadership, aviation leadership, airline industry leadership, leadership vs management, executive team building, crisis management, decision-making under pressure, calculated risk-taking, COVID-19 airline strategy, United Airlines innovation, AI in air travel, airline customer experience, continuous learning, career advice for leaders.
 
The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation
 
 
 

America’s next giant leap will require more than rockets. It will require leaders.
SUMMARY
Long Blue Leadership Now welcomes NASA Deputy Administrator Col. (Ret.) Matt Anderson ’97, who shares the vision behind the proposed United States Space Academy and its potential role in preparing astronauts, engineers, scientists, operators and innovators for the challenges ahead. From the moon to Mars and beyond, Deputy Administrator Anderson shares how America can build the talent pipeline needed to lead in space for decades to come.
CHAPTERS
00:00:00 – Opening & Guest IntroductionCol. Walkewicz introduces Long Blue Leadership Now, frames the conversation, and presents Col. Anderson’s background and new role with the presidential commission on the U.S. Space Academy.
00:01:16 – Academy Roots & Early AspirationsCol. Anderson reflects on coming to the U.S. Air Force Academy, family influence and his original plan to be a doctor.
00:02:23 – First F‑16 Ride & Career PivotCol. Anderson’s formative F‑16 flight at Luke Air Force Base, getting sick and deciding to pursue pilot training instead of medicine.
00:03:07 – Executive Order: What Was Just Created?Explanation of the executive order, why it says “federal academy” not “service academy,” and the historical parallel to the creation of the Air Force Academy.
00:05:09 – Three Pillars of Space & Commercial BoomCol. Anderson breaks down national security space, civil space (NASA), and commercial space, with examples like Starlink and launch/observation/communications.
00:07:48 – Opportunity & Access: Who Gets to Serve?How the Space Academy may open doors for talented Americans who can’t serve in uniform (e.g., medical disqualifiers) but want to contribute through NASA and civil service.
00:09:35 – What a U.S. Space Academy Adds Beyond Existing AcademiesContrast with current service academies, focus on broader roles (astronauts, civil servants, scientists, entrepreneurs, operators, warfighters) and parallels to Merchant Marine Academy and Coast Guard Academy.
00:11:42 – New Majors for a Space FutureWhy fields like astrobiology, heliophysics and nuclear engineering are critical; the Nancy Grace Roman and Hubble space telescopes; AI-driven data analysis and preparing for lunar/Mars missions.
00:15:30 – The 120‑Day Commission & 2028 TargetThe nine mandated lines of effort, the tight 120‑day (target 90‑day) timeline, the December deadline and the goal of having the first class arrive in summer 2028.
00:17:35 – Core Values, Civic Mindset & Space LeadershipHow core values and civic-minded service will be baked into the Space Academy, aligning with but distinct from traditional military academies.
00:20:23 – Governance, Commission Members & NASA’s RoleWho’s around the table (NASA, DoW leadership, White House staff), Col. Anderson’s “quarterback” role and NASA’s central responsibility as the civilian-led space agency.
00:22:42 – Matt’s Leadership Edge & Vision for 50 Years OutCol. Anderson’s unique blend of biology, aeronautics and space experience; mental toughness for extreme environments; and how Space Academy grads will shape a competitive future in space vs. China and others
00:35:34 – Growing NASA’s Risk Culture & Closing ReflectionsOffsite in Bozeman (skydiving, fighter flights), teaching leaders to understand astronaut risk, daily leadership habits, core values, work ethic, guidance for young leaders, public input and closing thanks.
 
ABOUT MATT ANDERSON
BIO
Col. (Ret.) Matt Anderson is the 16th deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The president of the United States nominated him for the position on Jan. 13, 2026, and he was confirmed by the Senate on May 18, 2026. 
Col. Anderson grew up on U.S. Air Force bases around the world as the second of three sons of Paul and Patricia Anderson. Paul served as a chaplain in the Air Force and Patricia served as a schoolteacher. 
After graduating from high school in New Jersey, Col. Anderson attended the U.S. Air Force Academy where he earned a Bachelor of Science in biology and served as the team captain of its nationally ranked Division I soccer team. He later earned a Master of Science in aeronautical science and a Master of Arts in leadership and counseling.
Col. Anderson is a decorated Air Force command pilot in multiple aircraft with more than 5,000 flight hours, including more than 650 in combat. He commanded the U.S. Department of War’s only nuclear airlift squadron and served as a senior United States Air Force fellow at the George C. Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany. Throughout his 24-year Air Force career, he served on several senior DoW staffs and commanded at multiple levels before retiring in 2021.  
Since retiring from military service, Col. Anderson has served as the chief operating officer and chief growth officer at the Space Force Association and as a vice president at CACI International. 
Originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado, Col. Anderson and his wife, Christine, are proud parents of two daughters, Kayla and Lauren.  
Outside of work, he is an avid snow skier, golfer and hiker, and he is currently pursuing his A-license in skydiving. 
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 0:04This is Long Blue Leadership Now — timely conversations with our leaders that are shaping what happens next. I’m Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ‘99, and I’m joined by Matt Anderson, Class of 1997, NASA’s deputy administrator, and our new executive director of the Presidential Commission of the United States Space Academy. We’re here today because on Aug. 28, the president of the United States signed an executive order creating the commission, beginning the process of establishing a new federal academy focused on developing America’s next space leaders. As you can imagine, this announcement has generated a lot of interest and plenty of questions, and we’re going to talk about that today. Matt Anderson is a retired colonel from our Air Force, serving 24 years as a command pilot and leader. He logged over 5,000 hours, over 650 of those in combat. His career spans time in U.S. Transportation Command, Northern Command and Space Command. After retiring from active duty, Matt went on to lead as an expert in the aerospace industry as well as the Space Force Association. From there, he became NASA’s 16th deputy administrator, and he’s with us here today. Matt, thank you for being here.The Hon. Col. (Ret.) Matt Anderson 1:16Man, I’m honored to be here. Thank you for having me. This is awesome. I appreciate it.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:19Oh my goodness, and it’s so timely, and I’m sure everyone’s ready for us to jump right in. But before we talk about an academy that will exist in the future, let’s start with the one that formed us right here at the Air Force Academy. So, Matt, you’re ’97 graduate. Let’s hear it.
Col. Matt Anderson 1:31Keep it revvin’. Keep it revvin’.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:33Keep it revvin’. Yes, soccer team captain. You know, biology major. Did you see yourself in NASA today? Like, did you already know this was going to happen?Col. Matt Anderson 1:42No, definitely not. No, definitely did not. I just kind of followed my passions like a lot of us did. And my dad was an Air Force officer for years and graduated from New Jersey at the time, McGuire Air Force Base, and was looking at schools out there, and then came on a recruiting trip, like many of us did for sports or other reasons, out to beautiful Colorado Springs. And I showed up — I’m like, “Man, I hope I get into this place because this is where I want to go.”Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:08Oh, that’s amazing. So you had a little bit of kind of background. You wanted to come here. You know, when you went to the Academy, did it really kind of start to formulate some possibilities in your mind at that time, or was it just the path that your career took you, you know, post-Academy?
Col. Matt Anderson 2:23Yeah, it sure did. When I was in high school, I was like, “I want to be a doctor.” Whenever we got to dissect things in class in high school and middle school, I was like, “That’s what I want to do.” So, came to the Air Force Academy. I was like, “I’m going to be a biology major because that’s the path to being a doctor.” And then spring break of my freshman year, went to Luke Air Force Base and got an F-16 ride.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:41Ah, and it changed.
Col. Matt Anderson 2:42Yeah, to be honest, I threw up all over the place. And I went with one of my classmates who is now a major general, Rick Goodman, the J3 down at Central Command. We both threw up, and he ends up being a fighter pilot, a Thunderbird pilot. Now he’s a two-star general. We both got sick. It was awesome and miserable at the same time. I left spring break, going, “The doctor thing is going to have to wait. I’m going to go to pilot training,” and was lucky enough to do that.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:06Well, what an amazing career! When I talked about your career earlier, kind of how it spanned so many different facets. I think it really puts you in a unique position to be able to tackle this. And so maybe we should just jump right in. You know, we talked about this executive order. Can you share a little bit more? What does it actually establish? Let’s just kind of, you know, bring that forward for everybody.Col. Matt Anderson 3:25Yeah, executive orders aren’t new with administrations. It’s a way to look at what the nation needs, and this one is exactly what you said. It’s an executive order to establish a commission, and the commission is to look at the possibility and what it would take to establish a new federal academy. And the executive order used those exact words. It said a federal academy, not a service academy. So I think people, if they have questions, I really encourage them to go out and read the executive order. It’s very well written. The first paragraph kind of lays out the why and what it’s trying to do, and it specifically left out the words service academy. So while the president envisions it, and he talked about it in his speech, I think it was fantastic. His view of our service academies is so high. He just talks about the beauty of the land, the architecture, everything about it, and he goes, “I envision the new space academy to be on par or better than those.” And the reality is we haven’t established a new academy— this is the longest gap in our history that we’ve had between academies, if you look at it. And those academies were created throughout history for different reasons and we find ourselves in a space right now that, I think, ironically— if you look back, in 1947, the Air Force breaks away from the Army and they call it the Army Air Corps. And the nation is in what? The Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:35That’s right.
Col. Matt Anderson 4:36And we’re like, “We have got to establish this new air domain, its own service. It’s going to be so important.” So Air Force breaks away from the Army. Was there controversy back then? Of course there was. Of course there was controversy. But what happened seven years after that? In 1954, legislation was passed to establish the United States Air Force Academy.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:54Here we are.
Col. Matt Anderson 4:56Seven years afterwards, and that was done in April of ’54. So you’re like, OK, it takes a while for you get a commission, legislation, appropriations. But back then, 15 months later, the first class of the Air Force Academy entered class. Summer ’55. So now you look where we’re at today. Almost seven years ago, the Space Force broke away from the Air Force. So the same exact timeline back in the ’40s, and seven years later, now we’re looking at a legislation to establish the newest academy. So it’s very similar timelines for very similar reasons. There’s a need for it. There’s a global need for a space academy. Now, is it different with this EO that we’re seeing today? Yeah, it’s not a Space Force Academy. It’s the United States Space Academy. So when you look at the EO, it talks about what do we need to continue to have American leadership in space, and we did not have rockets launching every other day even 10 years ago. So today we’ve got American rockets launching from American soil literally every other day, and this commercial— so when we think about space, we think about national security space. There’s kind of like three pillars: national security space. So people think Space Force, National Reconnaissance Office, the intelligence community. That’s national security space. Then you have civil space, so civilian space. That’s NASA. That’s what we do. And there’s very clear title— just like we have Title 10 and Title 50 and Title 51 for NASA. There’s U.S. code that says you will do this, you will do this.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:21Very clear.
Col. Matt Anderson 6:22It’s very clear. So folks are concerned about blurring lines between civilian space and national security space, and you know we’re following the law. We have very clear lines there. But that third one is what has really been booming lately. And if you talk to junior high kids and kids in high school, it’s commercial space. Commercial space, and we have lots of Academy grads that are leading in commercial space. So when I say commercial space, what does that mean? Because people have different definitions. In other words, how do you make money as a company without a government customer? So if NASA is not paying for your stuff, if the Space Force isn’t paying for your stuff, can you make money just like every other company in the United States? Can you make money on your own? Are there other customers that will pay for those services? And the reality is, there is today. If you think about launch, so launching rockets for Starlink was a good example. So launch, observation and communication. Those are the three categories right now where we see lots of money being made, and what we hope to do is unlock another economy, like an orbital economy, a lunar economy on the moon. And when we look forward, these academies have always been throughout history— we have to look forward. You know, Wayne Gretzky always had a very famous quote. He says, "I don’t skate to where the puck is now. I skate to where it’s going to be.” And that’s why he was the greatest hockey player ever. That’s what this academy’s doing. This is looking at the future. We’re not trying to solve today. We’re trying to keep ahead of the world and continue American leadership in space, so we’re fired up. If you can’t tell…
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 7:48Well, I was actually just going to say— so first off, that was a fantastic explanation. I think it was really helpful for you to share the different pillars of space, just to kind of for us to wrap our heads around it. And what I was going to ask you next— I could tell that you’re excited. Like, what most excites you about this?Col. Matt Anderson 8:03The thing that excites me, and the executive order actually addresses it is, this is going to open up new opportunities for Americans and for people to serve in a different capacity. We all know— I have a daughter who could not go to the Air Force Academy because she has a cashew and pistachio allergy. I’ve got friends that maybe have other diagnoses where they want to be patriots, they want to serve their nation, but military service for whatever reason— medically they’re not able to do it. This is an option to serve as a civilian in NASA or another civil servant position in our in our country that is related to space. And if, as the executive order says, if they choose to go into a national security role like the Space Force or the NRO or something like that, the executive order asks us to look at that. What would that look like? But it is clearly— it is a NASA civilian-led organization. NASA that’s leading this executive order, so that’s kind of how we see the plan. But I’m most excited— there’s a lot of kids in high school and junior high that are watching this excitement. They’re watching Starship take off and land with a chopstick catching it, and boosters coming down on a Falcon Heavy right next to each other. They’re like, “I want to be part of that.”Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:06And now they can.
Col. Matt Anderson 9:07They can. This is an opportunity where it’s different than a civilian institution. You can go to the U.S. Space Academy and, hey, you have a guaranteed job at NASA when you graduate. That’s worth something.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:18Got me excited.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 9:19That’s worth something. And they’re like, “Oh, I want to be an astronaut one day. Well, maybe the way I work my way to be an astronaut is I work in NASA.” That’s not a crazy concept to work in NASA, understand the organization, get trained in undergrad, and then one day maybe be an astronaut.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:35So maybe this is a question that tees from that pretty well. What then would this federal academy do that our current, you know, service academies aren’t doing? The Air Force Academy specifically, right? We do create Space Force officers that do have, I think, to your point, a focus on that. What will this actually solve?Col. Matt Anderson 9:55Yeah, I think it solves a lot of challenges. So when you think about a military academy, so right now about 10% of Air Force Academy graduates go into Space Force. So that’s about 100, right? If you think about a federal space academy, and the Executive Order talks about this, it says, "Hey, we want to develop a number of career fields,” if you will. Astronauts. It mentions astronauts, civil servants, scientists. OK, talks about engineers. It says entrepreneurs, operators, warfighters. There’s like seven that it mentions, but it’s not limiting it to those. But we don’t think of the Air Force Academy as producing entrepreneurs.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:31Right. Well, we do a lot, but yeah.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 10:33We produce some, but that’s not the purpose. That’s not designed for— leaders of character, serving your military, serving your country, warfighters. That’s what we’re chartered with at the Air Force Academy, but so there’s a little different flavor there. And if you think about what is a U.S. Space Academy, what would our majors look like? Take a look at the Merchant Marine Academy. Take a look at the Coast Guard Academy. Merchant Marine Academy is a pretty similar model. You know, civilian-led organization. They have an interesting slant to theirs with the Reserve commission, so you don’t have to go active duty. You could spend that maybe eight years in the reserves. Or about 30% of them go active duty. They choose to do so. But for us, if you’re feeding the organization, just like the Air Force Academy gets to feed the Air Force and Space Force, you get to you get to direct what that curriculum is. It’s your fault if you produce a bad product for your organization, the Air Force or Space Force. NASA, you know, we have a big part of what NASA does is science. There’s human spaceflight. There’s research and technology development, like aeronautics, think X planes, and all the cool things that NASA has worked on before. You know, if we think about the war with Iran right now, stealth technology, F-22 thrust vectoring engines, all those things were born in NASA. Yes, those technologies were born in NASA. So if you want to work on those things, so when we think about the majors, like what kind of majors would a space academy have? They should feed what NASA and the civilian workforce needs. So we don’t have astrobiology at the Air Force Academy. What is what is heliophysics? You know, these are things that we want our graduates from the U.S. Space Academy to know about because, for example, just recently we launched the greatest space telescope we’ve ever launched in our history. It’s called the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, and it went on a Falcon 9 out of Florida. And oh, sorry, a Falcon Heavy. And so the Falcon Heavy is three Falcon 9s put together. So it’s a massive rocket, and this is the one that goes up, and the two boosters about eight minutes later come back down and land in formation with two sonic booms. It’s a crowd pleaser. It’s incredible. But the bottom line is, it had the most incredible telescope on it. And folks are like, “Well, what does that matter?” So, 36 years ago, the Hubble was launched, and everybody’s like, "Ooh, we get to unlock the secrets of the universe, find new galaxies.” And it did. But that was 36 years ago. So, what does Nancy Grace Roman do? So, Nancy Grace Roman can do in one month that would take Hubble 100 years.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 12:52Oh my goodness!
Col. Matt Anderson 12:53So that’s the leap in technology that we’ve got. One month of work on Hubble — or Roman — is 100 years of Hubble. So that’s coming back. That’s unlocking galaxies we’ve never seen before. Studying how planets and energy interact with each other to really unlock the secrets of universe. How do we get here? Is there life out there? So astrobiology is that major that will take all this data from Roman, and they’re like, "Well, what? I still didn’t understand this Roman thing.” So for our audience, I know I needed some examples—
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 13:22This is helpful. That was my next question, thank you.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 13:24Let’s say you’re at Falcon Stadium for a night game.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 13:27OK, we’re there. Yes.
Col. Matt Anderson 13:28Football game, and a tiny little firefly is right in front of the biggest lights at Falcon Stadium. And then you go past I-25 a mile away and you try to take a picture of that firefly with the lights behind it. There’s no way. Nancy Grace Roman can do that in space. A mile away, firefly with light behind it. It can block out the lights, focus on that. And then it’s a terabyte of data per day coming back to Earth. That’s a lot. In fact, it’s so big, we don’t even have anything that can display it right now. Like, they’re trying to describe to people what this game-changing technology is like. If you know, if like, “Hey, is it the size of Mount Rushmore?” Like, no, that’s too small. So some people have seen El Capitan, where you can free climb. So this is like 4K TVs all over the mountain of El Capitan. That’s the size of one picture, and that’s the galaxy. So long story short, astrobiology is a major that we think the U.S. Space Academy should have because we’re getting a terabyte a day. That’s not—like humans can’t even process that much information. So, you need artificial intelligence to do that. You need astrobiologists to study that. That’s not something the Air Force Academy is producing. This is very specific— nuclear engineering. We think that in order to get to Mars and return doesn’t really do any good if you get to Mars. You need nuclear power and propulsion. We don’t have nuclear engineering at the Air Force Academy. Naval Academy does because it’s very important for their mission for submarines and aircraft carriers. We think the next best thing for space travel and exploring the universe is nuclear power propulsion. So, as you know, we’re building a moon base. We’re going there in 2028. We’re going to land on the moon again, but we’re not just going for flags and footprints to see, like we did in the late ’60s, early ’70s. We’re going with massive spacecraft, and we’re going to the south pole of the moon. We can talk about why that’s important later. But we’re bringing a lot of equipment. In 2027 we’re bringing rovers and landers every single month in 2027. So we’re showing up on the moon with robots and rovers and so forth. But this just needs a different skill set. It needs a completely different skill set. We need quantity of highly trained people. And when that information comes back from Roman, you need people to know what it means. This is U.S. Space Academy, creating these scientists, these engineers, these operators, and we’re pretty fired up for it.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:45Well, it seems like you’ve already been thinking about this. And so in 120 days, what are you actually then providing back? And really, what’s your approach? I mean, it seems like you’ve already identified, you know, some of the lanes and the capabilities that are needed. Can you tell us more?Col. Matt Anderson 15:58Sure thing. I mean, I’ll use an Air Force Academy example. So, when you go to the Academy, what do you grade it on? Your military performance average, your GPA, your physical performance, and then we have character baked in there. So there’s kind of four things you need to think about the Air Force Academy. Well, the executive order gave us nine things. “You will look at these nine things, and you will report back in 120 days.” And it’s everything from governance, curriculum to location, which is a highly interesting topic around the country. But it says these are nine things, you’ve got 120 days, which ironically is the day after Christmas. It’s Dec. 26, so we’re trying to make that a little earlier because, who does this go to? It goes to the president. Ultimately, he’ll make the decision, and it will inform the process. So right now, this is fact gathering. Now we are aggressive on that. In fact, we have a shot clock going on how many days we have left, and this is a lot to unpack in 120 days. We’re trying to get it quicker to 90 days, actually because just like back in 1954, this is going to require some  legislation, some appropriations and so forth. So if we want students in the summer of 2028, which is, if we use the Air Force example from 1955, that’s what we’re targeting: students in class summer of ’28. They need to be able to apply next year. You have two sons at the Air Force Academy.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:07Yes I do.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 17:08You know that process. It’s not easy. It’s not fast. It’s not easy.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:11That’s correct.
Col. Matt Anderson 17:12So if they’re going to apply in 2027 to be in class summer ’28, we got work to do.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:16Well, thanks for getting us in the shot clock time period. We appreciate that. You know, when we talk about the technical competencies, I’m curious if you’re thinking as well when you do this research and this study on some of, like, the core competencies or the core values — Is that something that you’re thinking of baking in as well as in the way that we have our service academy? Col. Matt Anderson 17:35Core values will definitely be baked into the U.S. service academy. You look at all the service academies; it’s there. Civic-minded was mentioned in the executive order. It’s a civic minded— that’s exactly what we want. We can’t guarantee that product out of civilian universities. You can guarantee academic standards have been met and they give you a diploma, but we want that mindset coming into NASA, coming into our civil servant workforce, and we just can see a difference. You know, when you are mission-focused curriculum where core values are baked in, integrity is baked into you, we want that part of— there’s no reason that can’t be part of the U.S. service academy, and it will be.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:10I love that. So when I think about the space professional that’s going to come out, that’s going to come out of the space academy— I’m sure you’ve seen on socials a lot of ideas of what we could call our graduates. Not talking about that, but more specifically, do you think that the space academy is more focused on providing like space education for what is needed, or are you looking at creating space leaders that understand how to integrate the entire enterprise? I’m curious if that’s something…Col. Matt Anderson 18:34Yes and yes. We want— I mean, I think a lot of us. I majored in biology at the Air Force Academy, and arguably, what it taught me was a scientific way of thinking and approaching problems. But did I ever use biology, genetics, botany in my career? No. I mean, you ask a lot of Air Force Academy graduates; they never use their actual major, which differs from the civilian population, right? I think the space academy, you’re going to get to use your major more. If you think about, like, I used some other science examples, right? But there are engineering ones, and we talk about testing rockets, things like that. You’re going to get to use your major, and we need that technical expertise to continue American leadership in space. So I think we’re going to use the skills there, and we get to design the majors and everything to directly feed what we want. So you’re going to have some sort of service commitment. You know, the commission is going to look at that. Do you have the same five-year commitment that you have at military academies? Do you make it more? Like, what’s the right blend there so that we can get the right mix? I mean, there’s— everything’s open. You can do your four years at the U.S. Space Academy. If you’re going into civilian service, do they count as government service? They never counted for us in our military time. The time did not— your commitment start for us. It was after our second year, you know, after our sophomore year. When you go to class your junior year, we then had— either paying it back or you’re going to owe military service. Is that the right model? Should it be after freshman year? There’s— everything’s open, and this is what the commission is looking at. It’s a very interesting time. It’s a great problem, a challenge to look at. What’s the best return on investment for taxpayer money to establish the U.S. Space Academy? And we have a lot of people wanting to help. We’re trying to narrow down the ones— you know, we have 120 days. The commission itself cannot be full of bureaucracy. We actually have to move with speed, figure out those nine lines of effort and then get after them.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 20:23So who’s around the table with you?
Col. Matt Anderson 20:25Yeah, so there’s so there’s four people that were identified. Kind of. So the administrator of NASA is the chair of the commission. Then we have two vice chairs, and they’re both in the in the White House staff. I’m the executive director, which we all know what that means. I’m the deputy of administrator of NASA. So that means I’m doing a lot of the work. I’m doing kind of the kind of the quarterback to get it going. And then there’s a number of folks in there, like the secretary of War is on the commission, the secretary of the Air Force. So, you know, for all of the academy graduates, like, “Hey, are the Department of War interests going to be looked at?” Well, 100% We’ve got the secretary of War. We’ve got the secretary of the Air Force. In fact, we have a meeting coming up with all of them, and they’re not sending representatives. They’re showing up, and it just— it’s massive. With everything else going on in the world, they’re showing up to the first meeting of the commission, and we’re pretty excited about that. And there’s others, some other folks in there, a handful of them identified in the executive order and they’re there.  and they can also have their representatives, but we’re also allowed to bring in more, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re bringing in some experts, and I think a lot of Air Force Academy graduates will be part of that.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 21:26So I imagine NASA is very excited about this. What, you know— what’s the sentiment with NASA at this, and what’s NASA’s role? I think, you know, such a heavy lift in this piece of space academy.
Col. Matt Anderson 21:37Yeah, NASA has a huge role because the executive order said this is NASA-led. And that was very intentional to say NASA is a civilian space agency, as we talked about the three types of space sectors right now, so we have a huge role. The chair of the commission is Jared Isaacman and he could not be more excited about this. He views this as a game changer for our nation for space. He’s the most passionate person about space I’ve ever met in my life. He’s a fighter pilot…
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 21:59More passionate than you?
Col. Matt Anderson 22:00Yeah, he’s a civilian fighter pilot who’s got more than 8,000 flight hours. He’s incredibly talented. He’s been to space twice with his two private missions with Inspiration Four, where he raised $250 million for St. Jude. I mean, the guy’s just really good at life, frankly. He’s a good human. His next mission was about two years ago, Polaris Dawn, where he did the first civilian spacewalks. We got outside the capsule. He was up there for five days. His idea of risk and moving with speed is a little different than most people. So we’re excited about it.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 22:31So what do you feel that you uniquely bring to this table? I mean, like you said, quarterback, heavy lifting. You know, how is your mindset and your approach to this because of you being you?
Col. Matt Anderson 22:42Yeah, well, hopefully, passion is coming across. I’m incredibly passionate about it. My background with a with an academic passion for biology and science early on fits great with NASA. My aeronautics background fits great with NASA. The first A in NASA is aeronautics, and we do a lot of work in aeronautics. And then, you know, recently my, all my work in space with the Space Force Association, mostly on the national security side, that brings a little technical expertise. But also, if you look at the commission, there’s a lot of people sitting around that table that some may not have background with the others, and I feel like I have a good background with all of them, and that matters a lot as you’re trying to build trust and you’re trying to get everybody rolling in the same direction. Pretty exciting so far.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 23:24Oh my goodness! You know, you talked a little bit in the beginning about how this will open doors for even, you know, those like your daughter with certain allergies that she couldn’t do certain things at service academies. I’m curious what you hope— let’s look 50 years down the road now. You know, in the way that Air Force Academy’s been here, what does Space Academy now— where are we at technologically wise in this in this space enterprise?
Col. Matt Anderson 23:45Yeah, I think the most exciting thing is, who knows? Those first classes at the Air Force Academy came from West Point. That’s why we were able to move so fast. So even us, we went, still go through the obstacle course, the assault course. And there’s been critiques for years, like why are Air and Space Force you know cadets crawling under logs in the mud with bombs going off still in Jacks Valley? We still do it because there’s still value in training and mental toughness and things like that. Well, when you’re going out to space as an astronaut, or you’re training people to go to space, or you’re designing spacecraft that are in the harshest environments that we’ve ever known… When we spent— when we sent astronauts to the moon in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and they landed there, the temperature swings on the moon are up to 400 degrees when the sun is there and when the sun sets. 400-degree differences. So if you think Afghanistan and Iraq are tough environments, or even Antarctica, the moon is a completely different level. So you need to develop mentally tough people at an academy, just like our other surface academies have done. So all those experiential learning things: jumping out of planes, flying high-consequence fighter aircraft to test your mental toughness — go throw up as a freshman. Puke and rally, right? Puke and rally in a different way. Puke and rally. Get over it. Move on. You know the confidence course when we were here in Jacks Valley. The fear of heights. You know Reid Wiseman, the commander of Artemis II, who just came back, who just went around the moon, has publicly said many times, "I’m ironically scared of heights.” This is a highly decorated fighter pilot, astronaut who led you know the first mission around the moon in over 50 years and, you know, the furthest any humans have ever been. And he goes, “I’m afraid of heights.” So these are things that you and I went through at the Air Force Academy that we worked through. But I think, as I look at what I’m doing today and what you’re doing today, is what you can do. Think about what we did as a freshman. What our day looked like. What did— I mean, we woke up. We vacuumed the hallway. We had three current events.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 25:47We called minutes.
Col. Matt Anderson 25:48Yeah, we called minutes. We stood in formation. We looked at Contrails. We got quizzed on our knowledge. Sometimes yelled at our— you know, about our knowledge. Then we go to march and we get more quizzed on our knowledge. And then we get graded on our marching. We finally get to breakfast. We fill out the Form O-96. We have to— how many ice cubes are in the upperclassmens’ drinks?
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:05Seven chews.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 26:06I mean, seven— we haven’t even gotten to class yet. So then you work through your whole day. You go to track practice. You go to soccer practice. You go to M5. You come back. You got academic call to quarters and you’re exhausted. But what that taught us is you can do a lot in a day if you challenge yourself.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:21That’s right.
Col. Matt Anderson 26:22Well, we’re trying to beat China to the moon. We have clear objectives at NASA, and NASA’s role is just part of the whole federal government. This is a global competition with a growing power in China — economically, militarily, civil space-wise. We need those type of Academy grads all over our space industry. It could be working for Jason Kim, an alumni at Firefly.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:43That’s right. My classmate, ’99.
Col. Matt Anderson 26:44It could be Matt Kuta, who’s at Voyager Technologies. We have grads all over the place working in this industry, and they want Academy grads. Trust me, not just Air Force Academy grads. Hopefully, one day Space Academy grads. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:55I love that. So you know, there’s such a human element to this. We’ve been talking about that. I imagine when the news came out, you probably got a lot of messages. How do you manage the, I guess, the questions that might take people down a different path. What can we share today that you’ve maybe seen in a question that we haven’t covered?
Col. Matt Anderson 27:13I think it’s natural to read things and say, “What does that mean? What does that mean for the Air Force Academy.” First thing I say: Read the executive order. You know, I always tell my kids and people that I’ve worked for, and they say, "Hey, be book smart before you’re street smart.” So just read the actual order, and it is an order. This is an executive option. This is an executive order given to NASA. So we’re going to follow. We’re going to have to have it done in 120 days. But there’s just something about being book smart. And I learned that being a pilot, I was like— I didn’t understand the value of actually understanding the flying regulations until you know them and you can use them to your advantage and you can get the mission done. So, read the executive order. I beg people to read the executive order, see what it says, see what it doesn’t say, and then follow along with the commission. We will have events like this where we’re going to get to talk about it, and then, you know, just after Christmas when this thing is due, there’ll be a little bit time for the White House to figure it out, and I’m sure they’re going to try to move on this very quickly as well.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:03Well, in 90 days, I mean that’s pretty aggressive. Have there been any early decisions or things that you can share with us now?
Col. Matt Anderson 28:09No, not yet. It’s so short.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:11Understood.
Col. Matt Anderson 28:12It’s so short. Right now, we’re just getting the plan together, we’re setting milestones when things are due. I’ve had an opportunity to chat with our new superintendent, our new provost, which you know we used to call the dean, which I think is— I mean he’s incredible. Call sign “Fangs.” He’s helping us a lot thinking about our curriculum and just higher education in general. There’s some headwinds out there in the higher education world right now, and he’s navigating those great here at the Air Force Academy. Our superintendent, Gen. Moga, was so excited to learn more about this U.S. Space Academy, how it affects the Air Force Academy, and will there be exchanges down the road. I hope there are. I mean, if a cadet at the Air Force Academy wants to go to six months at the U.S. Space Academy and vice versa, we sure hope that that happens because I think there’s going to be excitement there. And I think— if you think about experiential learning that we have at the Air Force Academy, there’s a lot of them. I mean, even a lot has changed since we graduated. But jumping out of planes, flying gliders, powered flight program, you know, Falcon Sat, all the things that happen here to produce a better officer, they will be at Space Academy too. They’ll just be different. And they’re going to be incredible. They’re going to be well funded. The president laid out his vision. Is this is going to be similar to West Point, Annapolis and Air Force, and with those experiential, we have some incredible ideas what they could be, and with the technologies we have today. So I think cadets at the Air Force Academy are going to want to exchange. So what we’re looking at, Gen. Moga’s looking at a lot of the positives, and as are we, we hope to have a lot of that exchanges, and especially during summer programs. I think there’s an opportunity wherever this academy ends up. There’s some cool opportunities.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 29:46Well, I think the breadth of touch has been really reassuring for everyone to hear. Like, there’s so many, I think, important inputs as you consider things. One of the things I’m curious on — because this is Long Blue Leadership — You know, we have our listeners and viewers that are faced with something that is proposed or ordered, perhaps, and they have to approach it without, you know, there’s an end date, but there’s not a lot of direction how to get there. What might you share with them on how to approach that?
Col. Matt Anderson 30:11I think the thing is, you know, hit the “I believe button” a little bit and some trust. And if we look back and when service academies were stood up — why they were stood up — if you ever get intellectually curious, go back and do some reading and say, “Why did we stand up West Point, Annapolis, Air Force Academy, Coast Guard Academy, Merchant Marine Academy? What purpose does it serve? What was going on in the world at the time, and does it make sense? Did it make sense? And are we pretty thankful that we, you know, all the naysayers that said you don’t need an Air Force Academy — are we pretty thankful now where we’re at in the world?” And I say, yeah, we’re very thankful. So I think we’re going to see that with U.S. It’s tough, just like when Space Force was born seven years ago. That was not— not everybody was unborn with that. And now you look at it and what’s going on in a classified environment with China and Russia and other competitors. The benefit that the U.S. Space Force has brought to the effort in Iran has saved lives. It has saved Air Force Academy lives because we have a Space Force. Because we have Air Force Academy graduates serving and leading in the Space Force, it saved lives. That’s what’s— that’s the bottom line. And I think we’ll see similar results in the greater space architecture and enterprise with U.S. Space Academy in the industry world, the civil servant world, potentially military service, if cadets want to do that, but I think we’re going to look back on it and say, “That was a great call.”
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:29I love starting with the “I believe button” and have some confidence. You know what have you learned about yourself in this journey? Because you know most would look at you and say, all these things are you still growing in your leadership?Col. Matt Anderson 31:40Oh man, 100%. First of all, you can always stretch your personal limits. Meeting a superhuman, I call him— like Jared Isaacman. You can always find men— I talked to Fred Gregory just yesterday, an incredible Class of 1964…
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:58Distinguished Graduate.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 31:59Distinguished Graduate, astronaut, former deputy administrator of NASA. I spoke to him yesterday. He passed a letter to Mark Hille and said, "Hey, could you pass this to Matt Anderson? I have some thoughts on the U.S. Space Academy.” Fred is 85 years old, and he just busted out a paper on his thoughts — pros and cons — of the U.S. Space Academy. So I was like, I’ve got to talk to this guy. I’ve never met him before. I mean, he was a former deputy minister at NASA, so we spoke for like 45 minutes yesterday. And I learned so much from him about humility. And he’s incredibly technically savvy. His background is unbelievable. He’s 85 years old and still growing. We had an opportunity a couple weeks ago where Jared Isaacman got confirmed last December. I got confirmed about three months ago in May. So we’re just like every commander does. From comes in, looks at looks at the team he’s got on the field. You need to reorganize a little bit, and we’ve done some of that, and we’ve asked for some serious change within NASA, looking at how we assess risk. And we did a pretty exciting thing a couple weeks ago. We brought 45 of the most senior folks at NASA, and we went to an offsite. We went to Bozeman, Montana, and…
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:11Really offsite.
Col. Matt Anderson 33:12We flew everybody up there, and I should say, Administrator Isaacman personally hosted everybody in Bozeman, Montana. He is an avionic, an aeronautics, very passionate about aeronautics. So he keeps a fleet of personally owned fighter aircraft up in Bozeman, Montana. MiG 29, Alpha Jets, F-5s. And another thing that I’ve done with him a lot recently is skydive. So I did AM 490 when I was a cadet, five jumps. But since then, we’ve been doing one minute one-minute free falls, forming up on each other. So we skydive regularly. So we’re jumping out of planes together. We’re flying fighter jets together. My second day on the job, we hopped into F fives and ripped around Starbase, Texas, right before a Starship launch, and so we’re just showing that hey, NASA can be, can have that sizzle like it had years ago. Most of us weren’t even alive when we landed on the moon in the late ’60s, early ’70s. So we’re just trying to generate that excitement. So we took 45 of our senior leaders, went to Bozeman, Montana, and we said, “Hey, we’re going to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable.” So I’m really proud of Kelly. She’s a 62-year-old HR professional, SES that works at NASA and she works for me, and I said, “Kelly, I really want you to jump out of airplane, and I want you to fly in a fighter, and if you puke, that’s great. You can rally just like I did.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 34:23You’re like, “I did it too.”
 
Col. Matt Anderson 34:24And she goes, “You’re crazy, you know?” And we had a whole bunch that the— Dr. Fox, who leads all of science for NASA, same thing. She’s like, “You want me to do what?” I’m like, “No, we need you to understand what we put our astronauts through, the risk that they and their families take, because we’re the ones leading the organization.” So I want our lawyers, I want our program managers that run the money, I want everybody that’s running the organization to understand risk like we have our astronauts do so that we can, no kidding, get to the moon in 2028. So they’re jumping out of planes, they’re flying in fighters. We did all kinds of awesome things, personal growth, and then after they didn’t feel that that great, we did about seven or eight hours of the standard PowerPoint, your briefness on your objectives, and so you got to do this, and then you got to perform, and it was a great team-building exercise. But we took folks that didn’t get this opportunity, like we had, the Air Force Academy, and we said, this is what we think the new NASA should look like, and then shortly thereafter, about a week later, the executive order for the Space Academy came out, and they all kind of smiled at me like, "We see what you guys are doing. You’re creating a new NASA that’s going to go to the moon, build a moon base, nuclear power to Mars and beyond. And they’re like, "Yeah, this is the mindset we need.”
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 35:34That is very exciting, and actually, there were so many good nuggets in there for leaders because you made it real. You made it real for the ones that are really building the products or providing a service to understand what it’s like on the other side of it and I think that’s really important for leaders. And then you also walked it with them. So thank you for sharing those two things, Matt, what’s something you’re doing every day to be a better leader? I mean, in the time that you, you know, you have with all the time.
Col. Matt Anderson 35:57Yeah, I work on it a lot. I had the opportunity to be an AOC here at the Academy, kind of mid-career, where you go get a master’s degree in counseling and leadership, and really the focus there is leadership as a commander you’re a leader. Counseling is a soft skill, but you can figure out how to do that in a manner. Maybe meet people in a different space. So what I sum that up is, be very demanding, but don’t be demeaning. I think when you start getting down that demeaning path, that’s when we get into trouble. But I mean, everybody wants their kids’ coach to be demanding. Like, you don’t put your kids in sports for a really soft coach. That’s not— you want them to learn life lessons and all that stuff. But you don’t want a demeaning coach. If a coach is hard on your kid, I know for me, perfect. I love it because I’m hard on him too, but I’m not demeaning. So as we as we work through this, and even when I went through my Senate confirmation hearing, there were those that maned me to succeed and there were those that didn’t want me to succeed.  But be a leader. Ironically, I talked about core values in a lot of my interviews with the senators, and I and I talked to them about what we learned at the Air Force Academy, and their staffers were taking notes, and they just didn’t get to hear that very often. I was shocked.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 36:58Yes, I am too, actually.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 36:59I was shocked that at the highest levels of our government, Senate staffers that are great humans that have great academic backgrounds, I’m like, you know what? It just comes down to core values, to be honest. And I talked to about our Air Force core values that have stood a long time now, if you think about it, they haven’t changed, and it’s pretty amazing. I talk about those core values. Organizations, companies that have core values, their stock price tends to do better. Companies that don’t have core values, they struggle. They struggle in the media. They struggle with shareholders. They don’t have a vision. If you have core values to fall back on, the more I’ve learned as a leader, I’m like, look, you’ve got to fall back on that. If you just do the right thing, it sounds so simple, but people they fumble the ball all the time on that. They just they don’t do the right thing. They’re trying to do the right thing for a shareholder or for some other reason. But if you stay focused on the mission, you have core values, I think you’re in a good spot.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:48We have that Polaris.
Col. Matt Anderson 37:49Yeah, absolutely.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:50Absolutely. What would you tell a cadet nowadays, or someone, a young child, or you know, kid that’s growing up? What should they be doing now, for the future, to be a better leader?
Col. Matt Anderson 38:02Yeah, I think, No. 1 is it’s work ethic. If we could, I think we look at it with excellence in all we do with our core value, but I don’t think you can be excellent without work ethic. So if you could somehow put grit in core values, I honestly think from what I’ve seen, I’ve seen it with my two daughters. If you have grit and you work hard, you may not be the 1,600 SAT kid. I definitely was not. But if you outwork people day in, day out, take that that duty day like we had as freshmen, and you just work. I think whatever you’re working on, it could be Eagle Scouts, it could be the band, it could be the choir, it could be sports. You just work hard. People, I mean, I’ve had the opportunity to be a lot of the senior space leaders across the world, and they just hire people to work hard because they all work hard. So they look at that person. Reminds me of me, and I want to hire them. I had the opportunity when I first met Jared Isaacman. What did I— first time I met him, I interviewed him in front of the cadets at the Air Force Academy. He was coming out of COVID. He was the first external audience. We brought I brought Jared Isaacman in here, and I said, “Hey, Mr. Isaacman, what do you think of Academy grads?” And at the time, he was a 39-year-old billionaire with, that’s been going to space, started his own company at 16, flies his own fighter aircraft. The line was out the door to ask this guy questions. He’s a great human, and I said—
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 39:21Talk about work ethic, right there.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 39:22It’s incredible. “What do you think of academy grads? If you see a resume from an Academy grad, what does that— do you look at their major, what they majored in?” He goes, "No, no, no. I just know what they’ve been through. I know they work hard.” And every cadet kind of sat up and goes, "Hmm, So 2-0 and go will work?” You know? It kind of was funny, but he goes, "I just know what you’ve been through. So you’ve worked hard. It was different than partying at a state school.”  He respected the process of going through an academy. He did. Every academy grad, Air Force Academy grads sitting there was like, "Wow, that guy’s the coolest person I’ve ever heard talk, and he values my education.” So I think working hard is huge.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 39:59That is awesome. Well, to kind of bring this home, I’m curious if you think will there be updates to the community, to the public on kind of your work, or do you expect that we’ll hear it in about 90 days or so?
Col. Matt Anderson 40:11Yeah, I think it’ll be at the end of the commission because there’s just so much work that has to be done. I think there will be some steps along the way, like we expect to put out a request for information to the states as far as where this thing is going to be located. So, hey, Colorado, what would you think it looks like to put a U.S. Space Academy in Colorado? California? Texas? So on and so forth? Well, you know, they’re going to have an opportunity to make their case. Ultimately the president of the United States is going to make that decision. The commission is going to set out the process to apply, if you will. What resources we would need? What do you think your state can offer to this academy from a space economically, geographically, so on and so forth. Are you close to an airport? Do you have a space industry nearby? We don’t even know what we’re going to learn from the submissions. But that’s probably the first step that the public will see — that there’s going to be an RFI that goes out that says, "Hey, states, we want to hear what you have to say.” This is no different than what happened with the Air Force Academy. I think the difference is then we had over 500 submissions to host the Air Force Academy. We’re going to try to narrow that down one per state because we don’t have enough time to go through 550 submission. And it’s just a request for information. It’s not a request for a proposal or something like that, like an acquisition. We’re just trying to gather information right now and give the president the best options available.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:26This has been amazing. Matt, was there anything I didn’t ask you that you think would be really helpful for folks?
Col. Matt Anderson 41:30No, I just I’ve had a blast talking about it. Hopefully that comes through a little bit. I ask people to be patient, get excited, and if you want, think about if you’re in the space industry, like you know what they need? They need this major. People talk about program management. You know, the executive board had said we want to make entrepreneurs. Well, we need to have very adaptive, world-class program managers, acquisition, contracting-type folks that understand the far. They understand what space companies are using to move with speed, and we want those graduates coming out of the academy as well. So there’s a lot of good ideas out there. You know, flow them up to us. We’re an open book. We’re excited. It is a commission. It’s just an EO for a commission to see what’s possible, and we’re working hard to do it.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 42:14Is there a flow for that information be captured to you guys?
 
Col. Matt Anderson 42:17There is.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 42:18Oh, I was like, you’re not offering necessarily everyone to reach out to Matt Anderson.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 42:22That’s probably the worst way to do it. My— every form of communication right now is saturated.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 42:28Oh, I can imagine.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 42:29So, you know, there’s the best way to do it for now, especially locations, is work through your state. The states, some states have commissions, they have nonprofits that speak for the states. There’s different— every state does it kind of differently. Some states, the governors are running it, and they’re kind of taking that. Hey, this is a whole-state effort, getting private industry and investors and donors, frankly, involved. So I think work through their states on those types of things. And you know, honestly, this is a historic opportunity for the United States of America. It’s to ensure American space leadership and across the entire enterprise. And I really appreciate— this is really the first time I’ve had a chance to talk about it publicly. So I really appreciate the work that you and the whole team are doing here.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:13Well, Matt, we’re so proud to have you, you know, as a key leader in this in this effort and you know can you continue to make our first academy proud so we’re grateful for you. Col. Matt Anderson 43:23Thank you. Go Falcons. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:24That’s right. Thank you so much. Well, this has been Long Blue Leadership Now. Be sure to stay in touch and you can find all of our Long Blue Leadership episodes at usafa.org/longblueleadership. I’m Naviere Walkawicz, Class of ’99. Again, thank you to Matt Anderson, Class of ’97. We’ll see you next time. Thank you so much.
 
Col. Matt Anderson 43:41Thank you.
 
KEYWORDSUnited States Space Academy, presidential commission, federal academy, NASA leadership, space education, commercial space, national security space, civil space, Space Force, American leadership in space, orbital economy, lunar economy, astronaut career pathways, STEM workforce, space policy, executive order, aerospace innovation, astrobiology, heliophysics, service academies.
The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation
 
 

"Leadership isn't something any of us ever finishes learning."
SUMMARY
In this special Long Blue Leadership: In Case You Missed It edition, we return to eight conversations from 2026 and pull some of their most practical lessons: Slow down when pressure says rush, honor your word, separate the person from the performance, ask better questions, protect what matters, adapt to the moment, be the steady hand and notice when someone needs you to act.  
FEATURED SPEAKERS00:02:00 - Mitch Torrel ’14: Slow Down to Lead Better 00:06:45 - Jessica Whitney ’10: Honor Your Word 00:11:15 - Joe Bledsoe ’11: Make Feedback Useful 00:15:40 - Jannell MacAulay ’98: Ask Better Questions 00:20:05 - Joel Neeb ’99: Protect What Matters 00:24:30 - Kim Ford ’90: Lead for the Moment 00:29:00 - Mark Michalek ’99: Be the Steady Hand 00:33:30 - Matthew Ayers ’99: Notice and Act
THREE LEADERSHIP TRUTHS
Truth One: Leadership begins with intention.
Slow down enough to think. Protect what matters. Honor your commitments. Don't allow the urgency, distraction or discomfort of the moment to make your decisions for you.
Truth Two: Leadership is deeply human.
Ask better questions. Give feedback that helps people grow. Adapt your approach. Create the trust and connection that allow people to bring their best.
Truth Three: Leadership is something we practice.
It's not reserved for extraordinary circumstances. It happens in everyday choices — in how we respond under pressure, how we listen, how we use our time and whether we notice when someone around us needs something we can give.
 
CHAPTERS
00:00:00 - Eight Leaders, Eight Lessons
00:02:00 - Mitch Torrel: Slow Down to Lead Better
00:06:45 - Jessica Whitney: Honor Your Word
00:11:15 - Joe Bledsoe: Make Feedback Useful
00:15:40 - Jannell MacAulay: Ask Better Questions
00:20:05 - Joel Neeb: Protect What Matters
00:24:30 - Kim Ford: Lead for the Moment
00:29:00 - Mark Michalek: Be the Steady Hand
00:33:30 - Matthew Ayers: Notice and Act
00:38:00 - Lessons to Carry Forward
 
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
OUR SPEAKERS:
Ted Robertson, Narrator
 - Mitch Torrel ’14 - Jessica Whitney ’10 - Joe Bledsoe ’11 - Jannell MacAulay ’98 - Joel Neeb ’99 - Kim Ford ’90 - Mark Michalek ’99 - Matthew Ayers ’99
 
Ted Robertson 0:03Over the course of 2026, Long Blue Leadership and our host, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkowicz, Class of ’99, have taken us into some extraordinary conversations with leaders whose experiences span military service, business, aviation, public service and community leadership. I’m Ted Robertson for the Long Blue Line Podcast Network. Long Blue Leadership starts now. For this edition, we’re doing something a little different. We’ve gone back through some of Naviere’s conversations, looking for the leadership lessons that are most meaningful, most approachable, and importantly, most useful. So think of this as Long Blue Leadership: In Case You Missed It. Eight leaders, eight lessons you can carry into your own leadership tomorrow. Let’s get started. We begin in one of the highest-pressure environments imaginable. In 2018, Mitch Torrel, Class of 2014, was part of the U.S. Special Tactics response to the rescue of a youth soccer team trapped deep inside a flooded cave system in Thailand. But Mitch’s lesson isn’t really about cave rescue. It’s about what happens when urgency starts driving the decisions. He learned that the leader’s job isn't always to act first or have every answer. Sometimes it’s to slow the situation down, bring the right people together and create enough space for the best idea, including the quietest one, to emerge. Here’s Mitch Torrel.
 
Mitch Torrell 1:46I just happened to be in the right time at the right place. There was a team of air rescue men and combat controllers stationed out in Okinawa, Japan. There was a group of soccer players who got stranded in the cave after the monsoons came early and it flooded out a section. The Thai leadership and parks team, and then eventually the Thai Navy tried to attempt a rescue, and they weren’t able to action it. So they reached out to the U.S. Embassy and asked if we had anybody in in the region who could come help. And that just happened to be our team out in Okinawa. I think it was definitely a challenge. There wasn’t a lot of information when we left out the door. It was, hey, there’s 13 individuals stuck in a cave. We don’t know what the hurdles are. We don’t know what's been tried. We don't know anything. We don’t even know if they’re alive. And so, getting on the ground, it was a lot of information to take in. There’s a lot of people who are trying to help, trying to facilitate a rescue, working, you know, their own agendas, and I think coordinating and making sense of all that chaos was kind of the first task.Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 2:55Like, how did you navigate that chaos?Mitch Torrel 2:58So I felt like I had the best job out of you know anybody there. I got to be the operations officer, and so I was kind of the troop commander for the team that we had out. And, you know, meanwhile, my leadership had to, you know, liaise with the other leaders. I got to be kind of down and in focused. All right, what plans are we working? How are we coordinating and liaising with our Thai counterparts? And got to be a little bit more down and in, and so I really enjoyed that part, and that was kind of why I got into special operations in general, is I wanted to be, you know, working with a team of really, really high-functioning individuals on very hard problems.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:37Right, and this was one of the first kind of very hard problems that you were working on.Mitch Torrel  3:42It was. So this was my first operational mission, you know, coming out of the pipeline. I got stationed in Okinawa, and this was kind of the first opportunity to showcase what I’d learned and employ. And it was kind of, you know— everybody’s dream is to go through training and then get to action some of those skills and traits that they’ve developed.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:01Right. Well, I imagine it was quite busy, you know, around the clock because you know time wasn’t on their side, and so you were really working against the clock. But I’m curious how you, you know, how do you navigate with urgency as a leader, but still safely? You know, like, how do you manage that, looking at that?Mitch Torrel 4:19Sometimes you got to know when to kind of pull the reins, and that it’s very easy— it was a very urgent situation, right? There’s 13 kids trapped. They don’t have food or water. We don’t know if they’re alive. The cave is continually flooding more and more every hour. But you got to have a plan to go off of. You got to be able to not rush into an emergency and make things worse. And I think off the start, nobody was monitoring who came and went from the cave, and that generated issues. John and Rick, the U.K. and British divers, stumbled on, you know, two would-be rescuers who got subsequently stranded in another section of the cave, and they were able to get them out. And then— and so we realized that taking a step back, generating a plan... When we arrived, there was a key leaders contingent that went into the cave to kind of get information first and foremost. And then we spent the rest of the team. “All right, download the gear, stage everything, prep everything, go get some rest, and then we’re going to generate and come up with a plan in the morning.” But sometimes you got to realize that you can’t move a mountain overnight, and so you need to take time, you know, do a little five-minute huddle and make sure that you have a plan that’s not going to get you further into trouble.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 5:37Yes, well, it’s such an important role, and I’m thinking about you know those moments where you were like, get some rest as the leader in this, and you know, kind of organizing this. What are the thoughts going through some of your, in your head? And I ask that because I'm thinking about leaders who are experiencing something difficult for the first time, and maybe there is some doubt or, you know, how do you calm yourself through some of those questions you have?Mitch Torrel 5:59I think for new leaders, especially, it’s you don’t have to have all the answers yourself, and that that is first and foremost. I on team and probably one of the most junior guys. Yes, I am in charge as the officer, but the guys who are working with me have been in the Air Force, have done rescue missions, have been doing the job for 15, 18, you know, upwards of 20 years, and so I think understanding that no matter where you’re at in a team, you’re a part of a team for a reason, and you should be able to leverage input, leverage ideas and you shouldn’t be beholden to coming up with everything on yourself. I think delegation is super important. I think getting input and opinions from others is extremely important because sometimes the quietest guy in the room is going to have the best idea, and you need to enable and empower them to speak out. Put them on the spot. You know, “Hey, what do you think? What do you— how do you think we should approach this?” And then your job as a leader is to take all these good ideas, is to empower the team to do its best. And so your job isn’t to carry the water, come up with a plan and do everything on your own. Like, you’re there as a facilitator, and I think that that is the biggest takeaway. I think especially young cadets: Please, please, please leverage, you know, the experience that you’re going to go out and be on a team with.
 
Ted Robertson 7:21Mitch reminds us that urgency and leadership are not the same thing, but slowing down doesn’t mean avoiding difficult decisions either. Sometimes the most important leadership moment comes when you already know something isn’t going according to plan, and you have to decide what to do about it. Jessica Whitney, Class of 2010, offers an exceptionally practical way to think about that moment. Most of us understand integrity as doing what we said we’d do. Jessica challenges us to take that one step further. She distinguishes between keeping your word and honoring your word. Honoring it means speaking up the moment you realize you may not be able to deliver, resetting expectations, taking responsibility, and having the uncomfortable conversation before silence begins to damage trust. Here’s Jessica Whitney.Jessica Whitney 8:20I took an amazing class at the Academy, a leadership class that a friend of mine, again from the lacrosse team, recommended me, and she’s like, “Jess, this class — it’s called Transformational Leadership. It’s way more than that. I really think you need to take this course.” And she was so right because there are so many things that I carry over from that from that course into my leadership, and then just my everyday life, and it was taught by Capt. Carrie Granger, who's now Carrie Zeller. Kind of the main takeaways I had were, one, kind of heard the definition of integrity. We all know the Air Force's definition of, like, doing what you know the right thing when no one's watching, when nobody's looking, but she kind of defined it more as both keeping your word and honoring your word so we all know that keeping your word that’s easy but what does honoring your word mean? And her framework kind of laid out honoring your word is as soon as you realize you're not going to keep your word, notifying the person that it involves, saying when you are going to keep your word, and then cleaning up any mess that you made by not doing it. So a quick example would be, you know, you're running late to a doctor’s appointment. You get in the car, you realize, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to be seven minutes late to the appointment.” Instead of like white knuckling your you know your steering wheel — “Am I going to make it in time?” And you feel guilty when you get there. You immediately call the office. You tell them, “Hey, I’m going to be late to the appointment. I’m going to get there seven minutes late, and you know I realize that this has an impact on you. Like, let me know if I need to reschedule.” Whatever it is, right? Most people are so shocked by this ownership that they are so much more gracious to you in whatever the circumstances are. And on top of that, you're not stressed. You’re not, you know, white knuckling.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:22When it really takes you nine minutes to get there…
 
Jessica Whitney 10:27Exactly. So hopefully you overestimate…
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:28Like seven minutes and 40. You’re like, “Mmmm, I’m gonna round down.”
Jessica Whitney 10:32My husband calls that, like, Jess math. I’m like, “Ah, well, that’s fine, it’s fine.” But like, if you think about in the workplace, right? Like you have an assignment, you have something your boss gave you. It’s due Friday. You realize Monday, “OK, there’s no way I’m going to do this.” I can either stress about it, work super late hours, and, you know, like, cause all this extra stress, and then maybe still not accomplish and get the work done, and then show up to my boss on Friday and say, “OK, sorry boss, I couldn’t get it done.” Or on Monday, you bring up the conversation, you swallow your pride and you say, these are my challenges. You manage expectations, and your— you guys together can you know either reassign, get help, or bump the deadline, whatever it is. But now you're no longer living in this, like, fear of, like, I’m going to be late or whatever. Like, you’re able to perform better, and so they in the class they talked about how with integrity everything works, and they talk about the idea of, like, a bicycle wheel, right? There’s spokes on a bicycle wheel, and if all the spokes are intact, it’s gonna run very smoothly, right? That’s keeping your word and honoring your word. You’re performing really well, or when you’re not honoring those spokes, and you're not keeping your word, or you're not honoring your word, some of those spokes are missing. So it’s just going to be a little bit bumpier, and things are going to get done, but they’re not going to get done as well as they would if you were honoring your word.Ted Robertson 11:58Jessica's lesson gives us a useful way to think about accountability, and once an organization has that kind of trust, it becomes possible to have another conversation leaders sometimes avoid: honest feedback. Joe “Paveway” Bledsoe, Class of 2011, comes at feedback through the fighter pilot debrief, and the principle translates remarkably well beyond the cockpit. Joe says effective feedback isn’t about assigning blame; it’s about getting better. The debrief begins with the mission, identifies what happened and why, and ends with a clear path toward improvement. The person isn’t the problem to be solved; the performance is what gets examined? That’s a subtle distinction and a powerful one for anyone who leads coaches or develops other people. Here’s Joe Bledsoe.Lt. Col. Joe Bledsoe 12:52I think the first thing is transparency and honesty right up front. Like this, Naviere, if we were flying together, right, and you were my instructor, your job is not to degrade me as a human, but to prove to me that I made a mistake, with the ultimate goal of making me better, right? Your job is to always like— and the relationship you and I have as an instructor and a student is my. I’m going to sit here in the debrief and go, and Naviere is here to make me better, right? Like that’s your that’s your job, right? So once you start that as the foundation, like it can only get better if I know your job is to make me better, and your job is I'm supposed to make this guy better, right? And often we can, when feedback is provided, you’re like, this could be a personal attack, or like that's all left out, that’s all left outside the debrief room, right? Like we’re here to make everybody better, and I think that’s where it starts with that transparency and honesty up front of the expectation.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 13:51So you will actually say that?
 
Lt. Col. Joe Bledsoe 13:52No. I think that’s just a common that's a common theme, right? That's the expectation in the community, and not just in the fighter community. I think it’s throughout the Air Force, right? I think that's what makes us really, really unique.Lt. Col. Joe Bledsoe 12:52Because feedback is something that we do, although maybe some can do it better than others. I think that's a really fantastic way. Before you’re giving someone feedback, you're really clear on this is what we're hoping to accomplish by having this time together. And so I think what you just said can make feedback so much more impactful because it's not about the person; it's about what are we trying to accomplish in helping you. I guess it is about you but ultimately helping you.Col. Joe Bledsoe 14:34Absolutely, right? Like where every debrief starts is we had a mission objective and we had tactical objectives. Do we do we do them? If we didn’t, let’s figure out why, right? So, translating to the business world or you know private sector, it’s a root cause analysis. It’s a root cause analysis, and we will get down to the nitty gritty of like, what type of error. Did you make a decision error? Did you perceive the environment wrong? Did your actions cause the error, right? And we get down to that level so that when the student, student Paveway walks away, Naviere knows— Naviere, you gave me the exact… “Like, you decided wrong because X, Y, and Z. Don’t do that again. Here’s your fix.” You know that, and that debrief can take hours, and that’s the beauty of it, right? We’re going to sit there, and we’re not going to let anything not be uncovered because we’re going to go do this again tomorrow, and we can't make the same mistake tomorrow, right? We can’t make the same mistake.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:36No, that’s fantastic. I mean, to have that clear and to know, like, “OK, we’re not going to, we don’t stay in that space. We’ve addressed it. We've we know we’ve identified a fix, and we move forward.” Is that what you would say?
 
Col. Joe Bledsoe 15:47Absolutely.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:48There’s no like continue to revisit. Like—
 
Col. Joe Bledsoe 15:49Yep, That’s the point, right? Like, I’ve learned something. I’ve acknowledged my mistake. Let’s move on. This wasn’t personal; this was you making me better. Iron sharpens iron.Ted Robertson 15:59Joe gives us a framework for conversations that improve performance, but leadership conversations aren't always about correcting something. Sometimes their greatest value is simply letting another person know, "I see you.” Jannell MacAulay, Class of 1998, gives us one of the simplest tools in this entire episode. It’s a question. Jannell suggests replacing the automatic question, "how are you?” with something more intentional. “What’s going well for you today?” The difference may seem small, but the answer can open a real conversation, create connection and even uncover someone who is struggling quietly. Leadership doesn’t always require a speech. Sometimes it begins by asking a better question and listening very closely to the answer. Here’s Jannell MacAulay.Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jannell MacAulay 16:57Stop asking people how are you doing, OK? I want them to rephrase that question and ask, “What’s going well for you today?” And the reason we do that is for— there’s two reasons. The first one is when you ask someone how they’re doing, you're going to get— exactly. And most people are just going to give you like, “Busy.” “Good.” “Fine.” “Living the dream.” Whatever, right? But did I as a leader get any information from you when you say any of those in response? No. And then what we do as a leader: “How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing?” And then we check the box. And if you happen to have someone who's like, “Oh my gosh, let me tell you,” you're almost like, “Oh my God, good for you. I gotta go. I gotta go,” right? “I didn’t mean for you to tell me.” Because that's our culture again, right? So I want leaders to start asking people, “What’s going well for you?” And that does two things. Now I’m going to get information from you based on your answer, and that information is also going to start training your mind and your psychological framework toward optimism and hope. Because do you know the biggest problem for leaders today, I think, is missing the hopeless people. We think that there’s this binary of optimism and pessimism, and so the optimistic people — we can find them easy. And the pessimistic people — we can find them easy too, right? They’re usually— and we usually focus on the pessimism because they're noisy and they’re loud and they're annoying and they’re bothering us and they’re bothering the whole unit, right? And sometimes we’re like, “Oh my gosh, Bob is so negative and angry. Like, we should worry about Bob.” But the thing is, is that actually, Bob’s not your worry, because people who are pessimistic understand they’re on a sliding scale. A pessimist thinks that there’s a genuine belief that things could get worse, but if you believe things can get worse, you know they can also get better, which is what optimism is: a genuine belief things will get better. So a pessimist— it’s not binary. I want people, leaders, to open up the aperture. There’s optimism, there’s pessimism, and then there’s hopelessness and hope. That’s the second thing. And then the last thing is leaders suffer from what I call compassion fatigue. OK, it's a very real thing. How many of us spend all day at work? It's kind of a combination of decision fatigue and compassion fatigue. You spend all day at work making decisions for other people. You make you spend all day at work taking other people's problems, and if you're an empathetic person, like you take it on, right? You're like, “Oh my God, I feel so bad. Like airmen are struggling with all these things.” Then you go home, and someone at home says, “What’s for dinner?” And you flip out about what's for dinner, right? And it’s like, “Oh my gosh, where did that come from? Like, I didn’t mean to snap.” Or someone in your— that's very important to you in your home life comes to you and needs you, needs your attention, and you're like, “I have no more attention to give you. I have no more compassion to offer because I’m done. I'm empty.” So it’s a very real thing, and it’s not an excuse. I might have given people a label for what’s happening when they go home at night.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 19:49Like, it’s this thing. I have compassion fatigue.
Col. Jannell MacAulay 19:52Yes, which is very true, and it's a very real thing. And I’m not giving you an excuse; I’m telling you, you need to fix it. And here's how: You need to every time— like, the whole time you’re at work during the day, you need to shed all the mental distress that happens. You need to shed the empathy, right? Your empathetic— the empathy that you use when you’re in an interaction with someone builds like extra stress into your—  it’s actually in your like body, right?
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 20:20You take it on.
 
Col. Jannell MacAulay 20:21Exactly. You take on those physical— and it becomes a physical manifestation. You need to shed that. So what I have is called a waterfall technique.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 20:30Waterfall?
 
Col. Jannell MacAulay 20:31Yes. So when you’re, yeah, yep. So when you're engaging with people, remember we don't want to be distracted and not paying attention. So put your phone away once you invite someone in your office. Like don’t have it. It distracts you by 20% if you have it on your body or in your view, right? Just have it put away. So now you’re more attentive. Then I’m going to listen to you when you tell me whatever’s going on in your life, and I’m going to envision we're at the top of a waterfall. Visualization is very powerful for our minds, so we’re going to visualize that waterfall. And I’m talking to you. We're having a conversation. I'm fully present. You might have some stuff going on in your life. Like I might have to take a note. I might have to be OK. Follow up. I might give you some mentorship. But when we’re done, your problems go down the waterfall, right? Like we want to feel “Oh, I’m their commander.” No, it’s still not your problem, right? The problem goes down the waterfall. So then the next person can come in. Now you’re at the top of the waterfall again. I’m fully present with my next person that’s coming in. I’m paying attention to them, not thinking about the other conversation. Then, when we’re done, your problems get to go down the waterfall. It will protect, right, your energy.Ted Robertson 21:33Jannell's lesson asks leaders to be more intentional with their attention, and that raises another question: Where are we choosing to put that attention in the first place. Joel “Thor” Neeb, Class of 1999, argues that as leaders grow, one of the hardest skills they may need to develop is not saying yes; it’s saying no. Joel describes an evolution many leaders experience early in a career. Saying yes can create opportunities, but later effectiveness increasingly depends on deciding what not to do. His warning is worth remembering: The enemy may not be failure; it may be distraction. If everything gets your attention, the things that matter most never receive enough of it. Here's Joel Neeb.
Joel Neeb 22:25My philosophy and how I mentor people that are that are pursuing a path to their dreams and whatever that dream might look like is the following: I tell them, “If you’re younger than 35 years old, you need to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way.” What do I mean by that? When the boss asks you if you’re able to give the big sales presentation, even though the voice in the back of your head says, “You’re not ready for this, I don’t think you’re going to do well,” the answer is yes. You prepare yourself. You go out there. You embarrass yourself. You do it better next time, and that’s how you learn through that process. When they ask you if you’re ready to go lead this mission, your answer is yes. You’re going to figure it out. You’re going to do everything behind the scenes to make sure that you’re successful, and you’re going to push yourself into that discomfort zone and ensure that you’re leaning into all of those opportunities as aggressively as you can. Why? Because it’s exposure to all of those areas of discomfort that really owns the discipline for us to perform in this positive way when you get to those areas. Now, when you’re after 35 years old, the main advice that I give to people is that you’re flipping the script. You are no longer going to say yes to everything you’re asked. You’re going to aggressively say no to everything you’re asked unless it aligns to your key things that you want to pursue. So you’re completely looking at it in a different direction. I’ve said yes to everything for the first half of my life. Now I’m saying no to everything in the second half. Why? Because it’s the distractions that stop us from doing the big things in life once you pass about 35 years old. The better you are at saying no to things, the freer your time will be to say yes to the most important things. So while it looks like I’m juggling a lot of things, to your point, I’m aggressively saying no to everything else that doesn’t align with the few things that I have really focused my time on.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:14So let’s pull that thread a little bit more because saying no is uncomfortable, and it may feel to some that they are letting others down. How do you— how might you coach them through telling someone no?Joel Neeb 24:31Yeah, I would say that I don’t have that problem. I probably did, and certainly prior to cancer, I would have. I am at the place now after I’ve learned how short all of our lives are — not just my life, because I had a cancer battle. And the big surprise for me was not that I might die in 18 months; it was that I was going to die at all. Because for all of us, that notion of death is so far away, and really something that we don’t really come face to face with very often in life, that all of a sudden I had to, you know, accept the fact that I was going to die someday, and I better make good use of the time between now and then. So when people ask to have my time, I aggressively say no. I never feel bad about it, and then I also introduce gatekeepers to my time on top of that. So I don’t even— most of the time, you’re working with my executive assistant. Most of the time, you’re going to be working with somebody on my team, and that’s because I want to jealously guard my time at this stage so I can be as incredibly impactful on the few things that I want to do as possible. That desire dwarfs any emotional attachment I would have to say no to somebody else in that time. Really, just, I mean, it doesn’t even cross my mind to think twice about it.
Ted Robertson 25:48Joel gives us permission to protect our priorities, but priorities shouldn’t make us rigid. Leadership still requires us to read the room, understand the mission and recognize what the people around us need. Kimberly Ford, Class of 1990, learned throughout her aviation career that effective leadership doesn’t always look the same. Kim describes leadership as something we adjust. There are moments that require assertiveness; others demand listening, patience or a different communication style altogether. The lesson isn’t to abandon who you are as a leader; it’s to develop enough range that your preferred style doesn’t become more important than the people and mission you’re there to serve. Here’s Kimberly Ford.Lt. Col. (Ret.) Kimberly Ford 26:42In the military mission, it was more— it was usually time critical, and it called for often a very assertive type of quiet leadership. So you're still bringing that assertive type of quiet leadership, but you’re also bringing customer service to families and passengers who are getting to where they need to go, whether it be a vacation or to visit family, or, you know, taking a businessperson where they need to go. So you’re having that patience, letting people know that they’re welcome, that you're happy to see them on board. You’re working with crew members who may not have that sort of military background, and so there are different communication styles. Different, you know, there are different people, and so you’re really sort of reading who they are and making sure that you can communicate information in a way that is effective for them as a person and their age and experience level. So I think I had to just sort of maybe dial it back a little bit in my presentation, make sure I just gave that great customer service. I would say in the cockpit it is that same — in the flight deck, I’m sorry — you're giving that same pre-resource management, that same building, that same trust within the person who you know, letting them know that you know your job, and that you’re ready to execute. So I would say it’s probably more the same within the flight deck.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:09I would almost go so far as to say is the ability to understand when you need to assert more, and when maybe a more quiet and customer service-oriented leadership style needs to be used. You almost have a superpower of understanding when to employ them. How do you help others who maybe have the other side of the leadership spectrum, where they come in very a very assertive-type leader? How do you help them see the value in your approach that is natural to you?Col. Kimberly Ford 28:38We have a moment at the end of our flights at Alaska Airlines where we sort of we sit back and we basically say, “How do we think that went?” You know, “What could we change?” And so I'm able to sort of give my perspective and maybe how I might have done things or perhaps sometimes the we'll divide duties and the captain will say, “OK I see here maybe you would be great at doing this duty. Could you take this over?” And so I think that's how I can show that maybe a different style of leadership would be would be more effective in those certain situations. And we're trained to really listen and just take in the feedback that's coming towards us. And I would say all of the crew members are very good at listening, adjusting and taking in what's offered to them.Ted Robertson 29:23What we’ve learned from Kim is that knowing how to adapt is valuable when circumstances are changing. It’s even more important when they’re changing faster than you can comfortably process them. Mark Michalek, Class of 1999, experienced that kind of leadership test during the Boulder, Colorado, attack in 2025. His lesson is strikingly simple: Be the steady hand. When information is arriving in real time, the stakes are high and pressure is coming from every direction, a leader can easily become part of the chaos. But Mark offers us another approach: Trust the people around you, create clarity, stay steady. Leadership in those moments isn't about personally doing everything; it’s about giving others enough confidence and direction to do what they're prepared to do. Here’s Mark Michalek. Mark Michalek 30:21Boulder attack happened on June 1, on a Sunday, and so many things happen at one time. You know, our society has changed, where you know it's a 24/7 news cycle, and so this is happening, unfolding in front of you in in real time. And there’s so many things you’re responsible for as the leader. I think when it comes to times of crisis, people want stability. They want reassurances. They want a steady hand to land the plane, and that’s what my focus was on. That although I have the same emotions, anxiety, stress that is happening, we need to be the steady hand to land the plane. Being the leader in that situation, you are getting torn in multiple directions. So you have your employees responding to the scene. You have local law enforcement. You have elected leaders here in Colorado that want to know what’s happening. You have elected leaders in D.C. that want to know what what's happening. To the point where my, like, my phone broke. So many phone calls at once. Like it just— it was fried. And so again, like focusing on, I’ve got to be the steady drumbeat. I’ve got to be measured here to telegraph that we’ve got this, but also a trust and confidence that your people do have it, and to get out of the way. They’re the experts. I’ll block and tackle for them and let them run, and I telegraphed that in our culture and let them run, and they did phenomenal. And I focused on what my responsibility was on, was not on being at the scene and seeing what’s going on in that. It was engaging with executive leaders to be able to understand what we have, what resources we need and to be able to deliver. Now, at that time, given the context of what was happening overseas, we knew this would be an international— of international interest immediately. So it could either go very well and controlled, or it could be absolutely horrible. And so that’s another layer of pressure. And when you go back to the fundamentals at the Air Force Academy of when it matters most, that you buckle your chinstrap on the helmet and you just get to it, and you immediately go into that mode and distance your emotions and thoughts and anxieties and put those to the side and focus on the mission at hand, and we knew when we were giving statements in the press that it would be carried internationally. So a different layer of stress as a leader, you know, we had simultaneous operations. We had the scene. The subject had a makeshift flamethrower and threw Molotov cocktails. There was about 15 victims at the time that were transported. Luckily, he was arrested by a Boulder police officer on the scene. But we also had activity in Colorado Springs, where his house was, so generate search warrants and everything for that, and then a mobile command post to be able to assist Boulder PD.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:19I'm curious, because I remember the reason why you left active duty, or you transitioned from active duty to the FBI because you wanted to be in the things, doing the things. You find yourself now in positions where you’re leading. How have you grown as a leader yourself? What have you learned about yourself in this not being able to be the one doing, but like you said, blocking and tackling? Like, how have you grown yourself?Mark Michalek 33:41So I was a violent crime agent when I first graduated from Quantico, and I did that for about 12 years. And the— it was all about impact for me. So I worked bank robbery and armored car robbery scenes, and I remember this— I remember these scenes as we're talking. But you know, you go to a chaotic scene like that with yellow tape and local law enforcement there, and people crying, and physical evidence, and blood on the ground and people are looking for somebody to take control. And I remember walking out of my car with that gun and badge on my hip, and you could feel it. Here comes the FBI. OK, they’ve got this. And to be able to turn order into chaos, or chaos into order, and create— you know, develop evidence, make a case, prosecute it, provide that sense of closure for victims, that was the juice for me. But then I started to feel the calling of leadership from the military, and I started to see that as you move up the ranks, you’re able to make more and more impact with a greater group of people, but that really motivated me to be able to give back that public safety-kind of motivation in larger and larger groups of people. And often, when it comes to leadership, whether you’re in the military or the FBI, there's kind of this imposter syndrome of like, do I really have this? But you look back and say, “Look at all the things I’ve endured. Look at all the experiences I’ve had. All the different places I've led all over the world, and it's turned out just fine. I’ve got this.”
 
Ted Robertson 35:12We’ve talked about leadership under extraordinary pressure, but I’d like to end our eight lessons somewhere quieter. No crisis room. No cockpit. No command center. Just a grandfather, an 11-year-old boy and a group of people who needed someone to notice. For Matthew Ayers, Class of 1999, one of the most important leadership lessons of his life came from watching his grandfather. His grandfather encountered people in need and did something deceptively simple. He became curious. He asked questions. He built a relationship, and then he acted. Matthew learned that leadership doesn’t always begin with authority, expertise or even a grand plan. Sometimes it begins when we notice another person and choose not to walk past. Here’s Matthew Ayers. Matthew Ayers 36:07I always continue to this day trying to live life like my grandpa. He just was so inspirational in the way he lived, and he’s a very relational servant leader. He pastored most of his life in the Pacific Northwest, but his beginnings were in Wuhan, China, where he was born and raised, and moved to the U.S. when he was 15. Got on a back of a cargo ship, and he and his brother John made their way here. He built railroad with the CCC and flipped burgers. Put himself through high school, college, seminary and he's just got an amazing life. But he was genuinely curious about everyone he met, and so he just modeled that with such joy. I just grew up thinking I want to be like my grandpa. He’s an amazing guy, and so he, yeah, he's got I got unlimited stories about him. That's anyone that really has left a mark on my life. And I was 11 years old, and we were pretty new, about a year or so into living in central Washington state. OK, and he came to guest preach at a local church there, and when he came to visit, of course, we would always go to the local Chinese restaurant. So he disappeared like usual, and we just knew he was back in the kitchen, probably washing dishes, hamming it up with the staff, and soon he comes back out, introducing us to staff, and we have all this free food, and he’s best friends with this couple, so we were just— this was like a normal experience with Grandpa, but on this particular visit, he had some pretty serious conversations after that with my parents, and he had found out that several of the staff were labor trafficked. They were new immigrants from China, and the next day, even as brought me along as a little boy, we go down in a little town into a back alley, knock on a door of a warehouse, no running water, no electricity, no amenities, dirt floor and I see the rats running around. I’m like, “What are we doing here?” And we get to sit down with these people who are serving at this restaurant and can’t speak English and do not know any way to navigate their situation. And he challenged us as a family. Well, he might have just volunteered us, but it was going to happen one way or another that this couple ended up moving in with us, and we got to be like family with them, and had the most incredible experiences cross culturally, just in our own home. And that was my first, maybe you know, shocking example of just the vulnerability of people in every community. It happens everywhere, but at this, what was even more powerful to me about that, and what stays with me, is just how simple it really was looking back, where he just asked the question, and it seemed like such an ordinary, easy thing that that he made it out to be. And looking back, I’m like, well, that that’s not easy for most people, but really, it is an ordinary thing that anyone can do.Ted Robertson 39:26And with Matthew’s lessons, maybe the most fitting place for us to end these eight conversations is with his reminder that leadership doesn’t always announce itself as leadership. Sometimes it’s simply seeing another person, recognizing what the moment asks of us, and choosing to act. Eight leaders. Eight very different experiences, and what strikes me after hearing them together is how accessible these lessons really are. If I were to carry three larger truths from these eight conversations into tomorrow, they would be these: Truth one, leadership begins with intention. Slow down enough to think. Protect what matters. Honor your commitments. Don’t allow the urgency, distraction, or discomfort of the moment to make your decisions for you. Truth two, leadership is deeply human. Ask better questions, give feedback that helps people grow, adapt your approach, create the trust and connection that allow people to bring their best. Truth three, leadership is something we practice. It’s not reserved for extraordinary circumstances. It happens in everyday choices, in how we respond under pressure, how we listen, how we use our time, and whether we notice when someone around us needs something we can give. That’s what I appreciate most about these conversations: different leaders, different experiences, different tools, but every one of them gives us something we can actually use. If any of these conversations spoke to where you are in your own leadership journey, I hope you’ll listen to the full episodes. You’ll find these conversations and many more with Naviere Walkewicz at usafa.org/longblueleadership. That's usafa.org/longblueleadership or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you know someone who could use one of these leadership lessons, share Long Blue Leadership with them, because leadership isn’t something any of us ever finishes learning. I’m Ted Robertson for the Long Blue Line Podcast Network. Thanks for joining me for this special Long Blue Leadership-In Case You Missed It edition. Until next time.
 
KEYWORDS
Leadership, leadership development, leadership lessons, leadership philosophy, accountability, integrity, adaptability, influence, trust, feedback, active listening, curiosity, focus, composure, resilience, decision-making, leading under pressure, servant leadership, personal growth, leadership in action.
 
 
The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation
 
 
 

Great leaders don’t always have the answers. But they know how to build teams that do.
SUMMARY
In this episode of Long Blue Leadership, Mitch Torrel ’14 discusses the power of mentorship, constructive feedback, humility and creating an environment where everyone can contribute. His leadership lessons are just as relevant in the boardroom as they are on the battlefield.
 
MITCH TORREL'S TOP 10 LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS
Lead Through Fear, Not Around ItEven when you’re anxious or scared, keep moving forward and executing the mission; courage is acting despite fear, not waiting for fear to disappear.
Trust Your PreparationWhen you hit uncertainty, fall back on the work you’ve already put in — physical, mental, and technical — rather than spiraling about what’s coming next.
Focus on the Team to Get Out of Your Own HeadShifting your attention from your own anxiety to how you can support and elevate others makes hard environments more endurable and improves performance.
Discover You Have “More in the Tank”Don’t treat real missions or selections like workouts; push past your comfort ceiling and you’ll find reserves of mental and physical capacity you didn’t know you had.
Break Big Fears into Small, Daily GainsYou don’t need to be the best today — just better than yesterday; attack weaknesses with small, consistent, incremental progress.
Leverage Mentors and Learn AggressivelyAssume you’re not the first to face a challenge. Seek out people who’ve done it before and copy their mindset, preparation and frameworks to shorten your learning curve.
Make Feedback Normal, Specific, and FrequentBuild team habits where everyone gets clear strengths and weaknesses surfaced (even anonymously at first), then use trends in that feedback to drive personal change.
Balance Urgency with Deliberate PlanningIn crises, don’t rush in just because the situation is urgent. Pause to gather facts, build a simple plan and avoid making the emergency worse.
Use Your Team’s Brains — Don’t Lead AloneAs a leader, your job is to facilitate: Draw out the quiet voices, aggregate the best ideas, and delegate execution rather than trying to be the sole problem-solver.
Set Clear Standards and Red Lines EarlyExplicitly communicate what you will and won’t tolerate so you can enforce discipline fairly and consistently, protecting both people and mission over the long haul.
 
CHAPTERS
00:00:00 – Opening: Leading Through Fear00:01:27 – Special Tactics Pipeline: Anxiety, Night Sweats and Uncertainty00:03:50 – Trusting Preparation and Learning to Hate the Water Less00:05:40 – Shared Hardship and Team Bonding in the Pipeline00:07:27 – “More in the Tank”: Rucks, Mental Toughness and Selection00:11:14 – Learning from Others, Mentorship and Owning Weakness00:15:36 – Five Traits Torrel Looks for in Leaders00:19:49 – Feedback Culture, Blind Spots and High-Performing Teams00:25:34 – Thai Cave Rescue: First Mission and Leading Under Pressure00:29:59 – New Leaders, Delegation and Facilitating the Team00:36:34 – Failing, Standards and Command Red Lines00:40:24 – Advice to Younger Self and Enjoying Each Season00:43:25 – Transition to Business, Ongoing Service and Final Leadership Charge
 
ABOUT MITCH
BIO
Mitch Torrel, U.S. Air Force Academy Class of 2014, is a former Division I hockey player, Air Force Special Tactics officer, entrepreneur and founder of Sentry Operations. After beginning his Air Force career in pilot training, Torrel found his calling in special operations, completing the demanding Special Tactics training pipeline and serving in operational and leadership roles.
While stationed in Okinawa, Japan, Torrel served as operations officer for the U.S. team supporting the 2018 rescue of 12 young soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave complex in Thailand. The experience, his first operational mission, became one of several defining chapters in a career shaped by high-stakes decision-making, teamwork, resilience and leadership under pressure.
 
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Ted Robertson | Producer and Editor:  ted.robertson@usafa.org
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AVAILABLE AT USAFA.ORG/LONGBLUELEADERSHIPAND ON ALL MAJOR PODCAST PLATFORMS
 
 
TRANSCRIPTOUR SPEAKERS: Guest, Mitch Torrel ’14 | Host, Lt. Col. (ret.) Naviere Walkewicz ’99
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 0:01Sometimes leadership isn't about eliminating fear; it's about learning how to move forward, even if fear is sitting right next to you. I'm Naviere Walkowicz, Class of ’99. Long Blue Leadership starts now. Today's guest is Mitch Teorrel, 2014 graduate of the Air Force Academy, former Division I hockey player, Air Force special tactics officer, also an entrepreneur near the founder of Century Operations. You know you've had a unique career. In fact, many probably know a lot of your work when it comes to an international rescue event, and we'll talk about that later on. But I think what's most exciting about this time with you, Mitch, is how you continue to lead, but you've done it through what some would call overcoming fear or maybe leading through fear. And so I think we're going to have a fantastic conversation today, and I welcome you to Long Blue Leadership.
Mitch Torrel 0:53Naviere, I appreciate you for having me out. Humbled to get the opportunity to kind of share some stories today, and so I'm looking forward to it. Thank you.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:01Well, thanks for the time. We're going to jump right in with the time that you know when we had a chance to talk, Mitch. It was something that kind of surprised me, and I think others will really appreciate this. You know, when you're going through your Air Force special tactics training to kind of be in that role, you experience like night sweats and literally having to change your clothes at night. And I'm looking across to you. You're not sweating right now. You're looking pretty cool and calm. And so take me back to that experience, and let's just start there.Mitch Torrel 1:28Yeah, pipeline is a pretty arduous process. It's two years; every day is a grind. It's difficult. You're not really sure what tomorrow holds, and they keep it that way, pretty close hold. You don't know what you got tomorrow. You just know it's going to be an early rise, and it's going to be really physically taxing. It's going to be mentally demanding, and you're not sure if. I think part of the anxiety is, do I mentally have what it takes to withstand and with withhold another day? Do I physically have what it takes to continue to drive on, and I think that unknown, the unknown on what's to come, am I going to be enough? The two years is a selection process, so you're getting assessed and selected every day, and it's a lot of anxiety to take on because you're not sure how you're going to perform. I think a lot of us have such internal pressures on ourselves to perform in and out every day that it makes it very difficult to get out of your mind and not worry about the anxiety of what's coming tomorrow.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:29Well, it makes me think the closest thing that I can think of right at this moment is you know basic cadet training, which is six weeks, and you just talked about two years of uncertainty and not you know waking up early and not knowing what's next. You know, how did you kind of navigate through that? I think we all know how we navigated through BCT, but I think certainly this is much when it's something that's so enduring. I think that's a different situation.Mitch Torrel 2:51I think a part of goes back to just trusting in your preparation. Did I do what it took to prepare? And if you did, if you didn't, there's not much you can change the night before, and so trusting in your abilities, your ability to adapt, your ability to withstand. I think I hated the water, and they always told you going through the pipeline. If you don't love the water, you're not going to make it through. And I'm a testament to I hated the water every day, dreaded it almost on a daily basis. But you know, learn to overcome and deal with that anxiety and just pressure that it brought. But every day is an opportunity to kind of build that wall up. Your ability to withstand, your ability to deal with anxiety, your ability to deal with the unknown, and I think the pipeline was a really good opportunity for me to kind of grow. I remember when we were in Mississippi, one of the earlier schools. It's three months. Every day was again very arduous. You didn't know it was coming. Are they going to put us in a pool tomorrow? Am I going to drown? You know, am I going to be able to make it through? Am I going to do a good job of leading the team? I think being able to focus on the team allowed me to not worry about myself and kind of focus on something else. And I think worrying about others allowed me to really make it through some of those arduous times, and that was very helpful to me. I remember I probably took a lot longer to grow to the point where you know you're not worried about tomorrow. I used to have to wake up at night, change my sheets, change what I was wearing, you know, and that happened every night because I would just wake up in a dead sweat and I was soaking wet, and eventually, you know, through exposure and through time, you learn to just exist and not worry about what's coming tomorrow. And it's a constant evolution. You know, that's not to say I don't get anxiety about things that are happening tomorrow today, but you start to learn to head off those thoughts early on and allow yourself to just take what comes tomorrow.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:57So I'm thinking about you being in those moments, and when you said it was probably later on, I'm curious as how you know that every night you're changing your sheets, you're going through that. But I'm curious, were there others that were experiencing the same thing, or were others even helping you through navigating those thoughts that you had?Mitch Torrel 5:14I think just being in a team environment makes things so much better. Sharing in in in the suffering, sharing in the stories, and getting to reflect on that. When I look back on the pipeline, what an amazing time and something that I think our entire team looks fondly about. We're very close still, and I think that shared hardship, that shared experience, is something that bonds you together for life.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 5:41So that two-year journey, and obviously you graduated and became an Air Force Special Tactics Officer. You know what was, I guess, the moment that it clicked for you. You know, you said you got to that point. Do you remember that day? Do you remember what was different, or you just all of a sudden didn't sweat the same?Mitch Torrel 5:57I think it probably lasted for me longer than a lot of people, and you know, it seems like I learned a lot of the lessons hard myself. You know, and but I think it's just something that gradually over time, you know, the way I remember it is one day it stopped, but I'm sure it was a little bit more gradual than that. Like I think over time you just learn to just, hey, tomorrow's going to be no different than it was today. Today was fine. We made it through. The team did great. You know, I performed up to my standard, or maybe if I didn't, tomorrow's another opportunity in which I can go back and get after it again. And there's plenty of times where I look back, and I think it's easy to learn and roll when you're being put in those situations each and every day. And so it was a very growth-oriented couple of years for me, and I really enjoyed it.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:52I would have loved to have been working with you on the day after you didn't have to wake up and change the sheets. Whatever you had, you know, you know, you were more alert that day. You actually had better sleep.Mitch Torrel 7:01Yeah, I think definitely had to drink a substantially less amount of water each night before going to bed. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 7:09Oh goodness! Well, let's talk about — I think you know, there was something that you shared before about kind of uncovering in yourself that you had more in your tank than you thought, and I'm curious that that was during pipeline in those moments that were like you know forced experiences, or if you found that at other times when you kind of surprised yourself in learning that about. Mitch Torrel 7:28I think the entire 10 years was a constant lesson of you've got more in the tank, both physically and mentally. I think when I first decided today, I was going through pilot training, and I just felt like it was more of a hobby than a job. And I got to meet guys in special operations, and was very impressed by the camaraderie, by the caliber of guys that were there. And to me, it was like a hockey team, and I missed that. I missed that group because you wanted to be a pilot first, correct? Is that what you're planning? Yeah, I think my family wanted me to be a pilot. I think they kind of pushed me that direction. I always enjoyed flight, you know. But for me, I just thought that some of my skills and abilities would better translate, and I would have a more fulfilling career, getting to be around you know that type of environment. And I think too, there's always you know, can I make it through the training? Do I have what it takes? You know, what will I learn about myself? And so that was a little bit of kind of just the unknown was alluring, you know. But I think there's just so much every day. Where I remember one of the first selection events, you do a long ruck event, and leading up to training, I was so focused on passing the initial fitness test to just start the assessment that I didn't rock, I didn't do underwater stuff. I was just focused on can I do push-ups? Can I do pull-ups? Can I do the 3-mile run? You know, and that took all my time and energy. And when I got to the ruck, it's unknown time, unknown distance, and they just tell you to go. And I remember I was like, all right, I'm going to treat this like a workout, and I'm going to run for a couple minutes, and then I'll walk for a few minutes, and I'll run for a couple minutes, and that'll help get me through. And I remember Master Sergeant came up to me, and he's like, “Why, why are you walking? And I remember being embarrassed at that moment, where it's do I not have it in the tank where I could have just been running this whole time? Do I want it enough where I can just dig a little bit deeper and showcase that? And I remember that fed me through the next two years, where it's like, do I have the mental hardness? Do I have the toughness? Have I prepared physically, you know, for these events? And so I think that was kind of a good wake-up call. Where it's not a workout, you know, what do you have left in the tank? And I think throughout two years there, went through another direction halfway through my career, and that was another opportunity to kind of dig in the dig in the tank a little bit. Did you approach that one differently? I did, and very proud of you know what I had learned throughout the years, what I was able to showcase. We did a much longer rec event, and I ran the whole thing, and was pretty proud of myself about that.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:22What a fantastic example! Because I'm thinking about you know in in in our work and our profession, we do we think about how can I create something to be distinct, right? How can I do something for the long haul? But you're right. If we don't, if we aren't thinking about how can we perform at our best as part of that, you know, that that equation, then we might not even get to the long haul, right? And so I think that's really powerful that you kind of shared, you know, giving your all and realizing that there was more in there than you originally were trying to like, you know, save. Yeah. Wow, that's a really cool story. I bet there are many examples of that. It was quite. Oh my Did you see others? You know, as you had these moments where you kind of learned these things about yourself, and obviously, I think you know in hockey you probably saw this as well. But have you been able to pull others along with you in these experiences that you've had that you've seen? Maybe others are struggling the same way.Mitch Torrel 11:15I think everybody struggles in different areas, especially in the pipeline. You're learning a lot of different skill sets. You're working on a lot of different things. Cardio is a part of it. Strength is a part of it. Determination. I mean, just — and there's so much. I think you pick up some really good traits from others. Hey, I really like what you're doing, or how you having such success, or how do you navigate this portion? I was always terrible in the water, bad swimmer, horrible underwater. I think when I went through initial selection, somebody pulled me out of the pool after we did underwaters, which is you go down, do a completely underwater, you know, swim underwater, swim underwater for the distance of the pool, and then come back up at a 45-degree angle. And I remember one of the cadre. He pulled me out of the pool, and he said, "You are terrible. Like I wanted to pass out watching you.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:22And you're like, "Thank you for that feedback.
 
Mitch Torrel 12:08And so it's getting with people who are really good at it and getting advice. I think something throughout my career that I've been very blessed to have is really good mentorship. And you're typically not the first one to go through a process, find a new job, you know, and having a good network of people who, hey, how did you prepare? What set you up for success, or especially in business now, it's a completely new world for me. And having mentors who are able to help think of it this way, or there's a better way to orient your situation, or prepare yourself, and that's really important to surround yourself with people who, you know, are able to elevate you, make you rethink kind of your approach to things, and then give you tips and advice.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 12:52So I have to ask, do you like the water today?
Mitch Torrel 12:54I like being on the water, you know, on a boat, you know? Just hanging out.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 12:59There’s some material between you and the water, so that leads me to this question. I know that was a little comical, but I'm curious when someone, as that's you know a developing leader or wherever they're at in their leadership journey, if they really want to be part of something, but there is something that is fundamentally part of that that they just don't like or they're just not good at, what would be the advice you give them? Because you know some people might be like, I just hate that so much, I won't pursue the thing that I love because that component's in there.Mitch Torrel 13:28I think there's kind of two factors in that. If you hate something so much that you know in your heart that it's not something that you can overcome or you want to deal with on a day-to-day basis, then then maybe that that's not worth you know getting through. But I would also argue that until you give yourself the opportunity to progress and grow and learn to get through whatever that difficulty or whatever that is that you don't like, you won't know. And I think there's a lot of ways to incrementally. You don't have to be the best swimmer today. You just have to be a little bit better than you were yesterday, and I think that was something that we and our team learned throughout the pipeline. Is hey, you don't have to be the best at everything today, but everything that you do today is just making you a little bit better for tomorrow. And so I think breaking down things into manageable and you know smaller bite-sized things that you can you can do. You know hey, when I first started swimming, I couldn't believe people swam multiple laps at a time. You know, and I was like, “All right, I'm going to swim two, you know, 50s at a time tomorrow, and then, you know, next week I'm going to build up to 100,” or, you know, and it doesn't have to all happen overnight.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 14:45Right. For a moment, I thought two to 100 but you're talking 50s. Well, that's fantastic, and thank you for sharing that because I think what I also gleaned from that is there's some self-discovery that comes from, I really don't like something, a part of you starts to learn, “Really, did I really not like that?” Right? Maybe feared that because I'm not good at that. And so I think I really appreciated your thoughts of you haven't really given your chance to truly assess that.Mitch Torrel 15:10And I think we build things up so much in our head. You know, I think dive school is one of those — “Oh, it's terrifying.” You know?
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:16I mean, it probably is, I’m not gonna lie.
 
Mitch Torrel 15:19And it really wasn't. I think we throughout training did a good job. And in preparation, again, you fall back on your preparation. Worked really hard to get there. Put in the extra And it just makes you know those hurdles that at once seem like mountains, you know, just small little hills that you have to go over. Yeah.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:38Well, you mentioned some of those in your life that you realize when you're going through something, you're probably not the first person that's gone through it, and you have that network of mentors. What are some of the traits that— And I think you alluded to, there are five traits in a leader that you really kind of look to, you know, to see. What are those?Mitch Torrel 15:56So drive, you know, and a lot of people that were surrounded with, especially at the academy, or in you know in the soft community, or in the military in general, have drive, and so that's not necessarily a unique characteristic, but it's something that you need in order to make you successful. Interpersonal effectiveness, and so how do I integrate with a team? How do I relate to others? And it can't be cookie cutter for everybody, and because team environments, people you know are different, and that's it's one of those soft and fuzzy skills that you need to work on and develop the way that you communicate, and so can I get my message across? Do people understand it? And that's both in writing, spoken. You know, be nonverbal, verbal, the way that you carry yourself, body language, super important. Problem solving. So that's something that the academy does a good job of exposing you to routinely. Can I solve this problem? How do I get my team to you know get after this complex problem? And so that's another one of those characteristics that we typically assess and select for. I think stress tolerance. You know, Pipeline does a really good job of building you up with that. The Academy, basic training, all of that is just another iteration at how am I handling things when I'm getting yelled at, when there's a timeline, when there's you know things at stake.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:19So I'm curious, were those you've just over time recognized that when I see things or leaders succeeding really well or being able to accomplish things that maybe that others would think impossible, they carry those traits. Is that how you have kind of derived them down to five?Mitch Torrel 17:37I think there's the foundation of it. Obviously, there's a lot of subfacets that go into each of those traits and characteristics and some leaders have you know all five of them in spades. Some of them are much more heavily reliant on some of their characteristics than others, but it's always a good thing to develop the traits that you're lacking. I think feedback is a really important trait and really important characteristic of well-functioning teams, and so how did I do this week? If I didn't do great, you know, like I don't need to be beaten down about it. But people typically want to be high performers, and everybody has blind spots, and so being able to call out those blind spots in a healthy and functional manner is super important because people want to be high performers. And I had the privilege of running and getting to work some of our selection events, and what we found was a really cool trend, which is we used to do weird feedback, and so guys would show up to selection, and right away the first day you'd have a bunch of tasks and events, and we'd bring everybody together and be like, all right, go down the row. Who is the two highest performing guys today? And that's really easy. People love to give praise, and then you go down the line, and you're like, all right, call out the two lowest performing guys and tell them why. And people go, I don't want to do that, and it's like, why? Like, do you not want them to get better? Do you not want them to have the opportunity? We're in Day 1 of day X, and it's not too early to turn their train around. What we saw is typically the guys who are the lowest performing early on are never the lowest performing at the end of the year, and they take that feedback, they internalize it, and they adopt and you know overturn that. And it's really fun to see that progression, but none of that happens if they don't get called out, if they don't get constructive feedback. “Hey, when we were working as a team, you were doing X and Y and Z by yourself, or you know, there's a million reasons why either an action is perceived as hey, you weren't for the team, or you didn't perform the standard.” I think people getting that feedback is what turns that train around.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 19:49Right, it's almost probably like exactly what they needed. So I'm curious because feedback is challenging. It's hard to I think for some to give feedback. It's hard for some to receive feedback, I'm fascinated because when I think about the pace in which you have had to operate and do things, that you make time for feedback. I'm curious if you could talk about how you guys do that in a way that's received well.Mitch Torrel 20:13I think it, again, it goes back to interpersonal effectiveness, and so you've got to know who do I have on my team? Are they somebody who's going to internalize this or not take it very well? There's a bunch of different ways in which you can get feedback and then provide it to somebody. Where we used to early on in the pipeline, as guys were learning to get feedback and you know not you know get too shaken up about it. Is we would have guys write, all right, hey, everybody on our team, we're going to do three things they do well, three things you wish they'd improve on, and then we strip out the names and we provide just a list of hey, here your three things that you're doing really well, and then here are your three weaknesses that you know everybody said we go around we talk about it, and that was a really good kind of introduction, where it's not tanked to anybody. Right. And then what's really nice is you start to see trends. So it's really easy for people to be like, “Oh, you know, Mitch doesn't like me,” or, “That's Mitch's opinion.” But when you start to see that correlation of, well, I got this five times. Is hey, my body language day to day is probably not where it needs to be, or I'm constantly putting others down, or I'm just you know not showing up on time, just small things, and I think drawing awareness to that and getting buy-in from guys to change it, and you see that transition all the time, where, all right, like, now I'm aware of it, I can fix it, I can identify it, and then you get the team to hold you accountable with it.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 21:44Well, in the way that you just described that, I'm curious how often you think that it's, you know, relevant or should be practiced. Is it, like, in the moment? Is it something, like, that where it's weekly? But I think, what I think is really neat about that — it was never attacking, and it was never something they had to defend. It just seemed like it was just information. Like it's what you do really well. This is what you need to work on. And taking the attribution away from it, like who said it? I think just made it, you know.Mitch Torrel 22:09And I think everybody got to understand that you're a student, you know, of life and a student of your job. You're a student of life. You're a student of you know whatever position you're in. And I had a mentor growing up and played professional sports, and there was a conversation where, hey, “How do how do you know when it's time to retire? How do you know when you're done?” And it's when I stop improving and I stop learning. And so having that mentality where, no matter how long you've been around, there's things to improve upon, there's things to learn, is really hard to have because people, you know, you get comfortable in a position. It's like I've seen it all, I've done it all, I've been there. But the people who are the best at their jobs, and especially in the military, the people who show up every day, work on their trade, work on their skills and seek to improve, and I've been blessed to be surrounded by just, I mean, some of the most decorated warriors that the Air Force has put out on the battlefield. And it was a humbling experience, but even more so humbling was the approach they took every day. As they came into work every day and got better at something. They didn't sit on their laurels and “Hey, I did this two years ago, and now I can kind of walk through the rest of my career.” It was— they came in every day to work, and it was impressive.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 23:30Oh man! What is something that and normally asks at the end, but it just seems so fitting right now. Like, how are you getting better and learning every day?Mitch Torrel 23:38I think every day is new problem sets, and I think it's you know trying to expand my education. I think there's a lot of new tools out there. There's a lot of new opportunities and think the world's constantly changing. And so, staying informed is one of the ways in which I'm trying to be a better leader. I think business is this completely new hurdle. I think being in the military, there's a very different type of leadership that you're able to bring. And two, I mean, everybody is there for the mission generally and believes in the task and purpose. And business now, you kind of need to appeal to people in a lot more of a well-rounded manner. And so, I think having conversations with mentors, you know, I'm maintaining that. I try and just meet as many people as I can and glean information from them, experiences from them, because I'd like to think I'm getting smarter as I get older. I'm trying to learn all the lessons myself. So…Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:39Well, I'm grateful for that because the reason why we're talking here is because you answered, you know, and we're willing to talk about it. So I think that's you know just proof right there of that stretching and outreach. So before we shift into, I'm curious on you know you talk about you asked your mentor when does he know it's time to retire. I would love Kind of the business world, but before that, I'd like to visit actually one of your experiences while you're in in service, and you know it's something there's you know there's a movie on it. We actually featured in our 2018 checkpoint, but you were instrumental in rescuing the boys' soccer team in Thailand when they had a huge monsoon. And I was wondering if you kind of take me not so much. Maybe you can share with others in case they aren't familiar with it. But I'm really curious about the leadership piece of that because it was a huge operation, and it was dealing with water. So let's talk about that.Mitch Torrel 25:34Yeah, exactly — my nightmare. You know what? I just happened to be in the right time at the right place. There was a team of pararescue men and combat controllers stationed out in Okinawa, Japan. There was a group of soccer players who got stranded in a cave after the monsoons came early and had flooded out a section. The Thai leadership and parks team, and then eventually the Thai Navy tried to attempt a rescue, and they weren't able to action it. So they reached out to the U.S. Embassy and asked if we had anybody in in the region who could come help. And that just happened to be our team out in Okinawa. I think it was definitely a challenge. There wasn't a lot of information when we left out the door. It was either, you know, is 13 individuals stuck in a cave. We don't know what the hurdles are. We don't know what's been tried. We don't know anything. We don't even know if they're alive. Oh my goodness. And so, getting on the ground, there was a lot of information to take in. There's a lot of people who were trying to help, trying to facilitate a rescue, working, you know, their own agendas, and I think coordinating and making sense of all that chaos was kind of the first task.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:47And so, what was your role? So, you know, obviously, like the call came in, and then you know, you were — that was, you know, your, you know, was assigned to that. What was your piece, and like, how did you navigate that chaos?Mitch Torrel 26:58So I felt like I had the best job out of you know anybody there. I got to be the operations officer, and so I was kind of the troop commander for the team that we had out. And you know, meanwhile, my leadership had to you know liaise with the other leaders. I got to be kind of down and in focused. All right, what plans are we working? How are we coordinating and liaising with our Thai counterparts? And got to be a little bit more down and in. And so I really enjoyed that part, and that was kind of why I got into special operations in general as I wanted to be, you know, working with a team of really, really high-functioning individuals on very hard problems.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:38Right, and this was one of the first kind of very hard problems that you were, you know, working on.Mitch Torrel 27:43It was. So this was my first operational mission, you know, coming out of the pipeline. I got stationed in Okinawa, and this was kind of the first opportunity to showcase what I'd learned and employ. And it was kind of, you know, everybody's dream is to go through training and then get to action some of those skills and traits that they've developed.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:02Well, I imagine it was quite busy, you know, around the clock because you know time wasn't on their side, and so you were really working against the clock. But I'm curious how you, you know, how do you navigate with urgency as a leader, but still safely? You know, like how do you manage that?
Mitch Torrel 28:21I think, sometimes you got to know when to kind of pull the reins, and it's very easy— it was a very urgent situation, right? There's 13 kids trapped. They don't have food or water. We don't know if they're alive. The cave is continually flooding more and more every hour. But you got to have a plan to go off of. You got to be able to not rush into an emergency and make things worse. And I think off the start, nobody was monitoring who came and went from the cave, and that generated issues. John and Rick, the U.K. and British divers, stumbled on you know two would-be rescuers who got subsequently stranded in another section of the cave, and they were able to get them out. And then, and so we realized that taking a step back, generating a plan. When we arrived, there was a key leaders contingent that went into the cave to kind of get information first and foremost. And then we spent the rest of the team, all right download the gear, stage everything, prep everything, go get some rest, and then we're going to generate and come up with a plan in the morning. But sometimes you got to realize that you can't move them out in overnight, and so you need to take time, you know, do a little five-minute huddle and make sure that you have a plan that's not going to get you further into trouble. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 29:38Yes, well, it's such an important role, and I'm thinking about you know those moments where your like, “Get some rest,” as the leader in this, and you know, kind of organizing this. What are the thoughts going through some of your in your head? And I ask that because I'm thinking about leaders who are experiencing something difficult for the first time, and maybe there's some doubt, or you know, how do you how do you calm yourself through some of those questions?Mitch Torrel 30:00I think, for new leaders, you don't have to have all the answers yourself, and that is first and foremost. I on team, and probably one of the most junior guys. Yes, I'm in charge as the officer, but the guys who are working with me have been in the Air Force, have done rescue missions, have been doing the job for 15, 18, you know, upwards of 20 years, and so I think understanding that no matter where you're at in a team, you you're a part of a team for a reason, and you should be able to leverage input, leverage ideas, and you shouldn't be beholden to coming up with everything on yourself. I think delegation is super important. I think getting input and opinions from others is extremely important because sometimes the quietest guy in the room is going to have the best idea, and you need to enable and empower them to speak up, put them on the spot. You know, “Hey, what do you think? What do you— How do you think we should approach this?” And then your job as a leader is to take all these good ideas, is to empower the team to do its best, and so your job isn't to carry the water, come up with a plan, and do everything on your own. Like, you were there as a facilitator, and I think that that is the biggest takeaway. I spend, especially young cadets, please, please, please leverage you know the experience that that you're going to go out and be on team with.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:22I think that's fantastic advice. And as you look back on it today, I know we chatted a little bit earlier. I said, gosh, you know, it probably it's a while ago, but maybe it feels like yesterday, and you said no, it feels like forever ago. You know, have you seen yourself? You learn from that, but have you grown in the way that you continue to do things now because of that experience?Mitch Torrel 31:43I think everything is additive. You know, I mean that was a huge learning experience. It was I learned a ton. I think there are several things that having a second shot at it that would have done substantially different. I think the outcome ended up in a very happy manner; I think it's very easy now that we've developed this framework. Here's how we tackle this problem, but that's been applicable in other means and other avenues as well. And so again, you know, as you build your toolbox of experience, as you build kind of these traits, and you get to refine that, it's something that you continually get to bring out in other manners. And so yeah, I grew a lot from the event, learned a lot, and have been able to apply it since.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 32:29Well, as I've been sitting across from you, one of the things that I'm just feeling in spades is that as a leader, you are somebody that's really humble, and you know you approach it, like, through humility. And so I'm curious, you know, how you've seen that carry you, and what you might share with others when they're thinking about, you know, how do I, you know, as I'm leading, how do I lead? Like how do I lead with humility? Because it seems like it's working very well for you.Mitch Torrel 32:51I think it was easy to be humble when you're surrounded by the caliber of individuals that I was blessed to be around mean, every team I was on, it was. I mean, they were phenomenal guys who have done phenomenal things in their career and were just so impressive. And so I was just always just thrilled to be a teammate of theirs. I think, really going back to you know, again, your job as a leader is to facilitate the team, is to you know drive you towards mission accomplishment. I think if you always put things back onto why we here, it's not for leadership's sake, leaders don't exist, you know, outside of facilitation, and you know it's not to downplay the job of the leader. It's not at all. It's a big responsibility. You have the authority. You have the — you know all of that, and so now it's your job to delegate that accordingly and efficiently. And I think it's going back to just understanding that again, we exist for the mission. We exist to enable that team to accomplish whatever its task or business you know directive is, and so I think having an understanding of that, and then it's just fun to see people progress, right? You know that the cave rescue was my first mission, but that didn't mean because I hadn't had real world experience that I didn't have things that I could bring to the table, and I think it's understanding that as well as humility is important. Like maybe you know not jumping across the table and you know declaring yourself the king of whatever's going on, but individuals have a lot that they bring to the table. You know, having an ability to you know see other things that aren't being looked at, bring other perspectives to the table, even just making sense of the chaos. You know, and that's not something that you need to be a leader or in a leadership position to do. And being forward leaning enough to anticipate hurdles, second, third order effects. What else needs to be accomplished or taken care of? I mean, there's a lot of ways in which you can provide value.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 34:56Mitch, have you always kind of been this way? Have you always kind of operated in that space or is it something that you've kind of learned over time about yourself, or taken on from others you've seen?Mitch Torrel 35:06I think it's something that's developed. You know, I don't think you know. I think there's a little bit of nurture and nature into it, where you know you're born a certain orientation where it's like, hey, you're comfortable being you know in charging groups, and some people aren't, and that's OK. But a lot of people develop into it, and I think I've just been blessed with a lot of opportunities to try things out, fail, come back to the drawing board, work on it, improve, and you know the pipeline was monumentally developmental for me. I'm sure there's a lot of teammates who you know listen to this and laugh pretty hard about you know some of the stupid things that I did going through the pipeline, but they're learning experiences, and we had a really good group, and we pushed each other so hard, and so I had an assistant troop commander who was going through with me, and we had really healthy camaraderie, but a really healthy. I mean, we were constantly competing, and it just drove me to be so much better. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 36:07So, you know, we were talking about how you are continually working on being better, right? Being better than you were yesterday, so that it's always kind of an additive improvement. I'm curious on when you've seen yourself fail. You talked about you failed and you've gotten better. Can you share an example of when you have failed and that literally shaped something very quickly instead of being additive, but quickly that you changed in the way that you already did.Mitch Torrel 36:34I think just failures and take care of people, I think is one of the biggest things to learn is, you know, going through the pipeline, it's easy to you know lose sight of the overall end state. And at the end of the day, it's your goal is to there be there to make people better incrementally every day. I think there's been a couple situations in which maybe I was a little ax on some enforcement of rules or standard that came back to kind of bite us a little bit, you know. And so, and this this will probably feel free to cut this, you know. But I think there was an opportunity guys going through a pipeline. They're really young. I grew up, you know, in northern Minnesota, and you know, people drink underage. I was hey I'm OK hearing about it or you know like I'm you know as a commander it's like if it happens it happens you know but I think what's hard is how do you enforce the rules if you're looking the other way if you're not enforcing that standard and so I think what's really hard is you can be there be one of the guys but you got to set your red lines you got to set hey here's what I will and will not tolerate and so I think I learned early in the pipeline that if I'm OK or if I let the standard slip on certain things, you know, like guys drink underage, like guys do you know stupid things, and then they get in trouble for it. How do I, as a commander, enforce it? And so it was one of those learning experiences where going through the pipeline, guy had you know you know got found drinking underage, and it's like, “Hey, it's on you as the, you know, officer to discipline them.” It's like, “Well, I'm also a part of the problem because I didn't set that standard. I, you know, allowed it.” And so I think that was one of those heavy learning experiences where, you know, you're — yes, you're the quarterback of the team, but you got to there has to be some delineation between you know between what you allow and what you can't.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 38:49I'm really glad you shared that because I think that's real. I think that is something a challenge that you know, especially when I think about the Class of ’26 that just graduated and they just finished their six days of leave, and they're soon to head onto their bases, right? You know, the world doesn't always turn out, and so how do they navigate some of those things that they're going to inevitably come across? So I think that's a real conversation, and I really appreciate you sharing that.Mitch Torrel 39:14And I think what I started doing, you know, from then on is, is you as a commander, you as a officer, should have you know your command guidance. It should be your checklist. Hey, here's what I value. Here's what my red lines are, and you gotta set the standard immediately to just let people know, “Hey, like here's what I'm gonna be irritated about if you show up late to meetings.” If, you know, here's what you know I'm not gonna handle any moral, legal, or ethical issues. Like if it's not moral or legally or ethically a problem, like my job is to you know delegate that down to you and allow you guys to do it. And so setting that standard early as leaders is extremely important because then it allows you to enforce, uphold the standard, and be like, "Hey, we talked about this. This is the expectation. You understood the expectation, and now I can hold you accountable.” And it's not me coming after you because we sat down and had a conversation.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 40:13That's right. That's excellent advice. So one of the things that we like to do is ask you if you were sitting across, not Navid now, if you're sitting across young Mitch. What was what piece of advice you'd share with him?Mitch Torrel 40:25I think, enjoy the period in which you're in every stage. I feel like every four years, I look back on the previous four years and just think about what an amazing time period that was. And you know, getting to play hockey, going to the academy, the academy was amazing. You're hanging with your friends. You're in college, and you know, increasingly as you age, it's going to be increasing responsibility. There's going to be a lot more you know burden on your shoulders, but it's fun, you know. And progression is fun, moving on to the next stage. But I think enjoy where you're at in life a little bit more. It would kind of be my advice. And then, you know, I don't necessarily regret anything, but it's you know continually to just work hard, progress, and you know have those cups coffee, learn from other mentors, you know, expand your network, and just grow.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:20What are you doing now that helps you enjoy life?
Mitch Torrel 41:25I think right now, so just moved, and you know, right now I'm trying to focus on a little bit more me, you know, be a little healthier with sleep, eating, you know, and just I think it's easy to kind of burn the candle at both ends, and now it's kind of taking a step back and understanding that you need to be rejuvenated, you need to you know unplug periodically to be able to bring your all to you know what you're working on, and sometimes things get monotonous, and sometimes you know you just need to take a step back and reinvigorate yourself.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:58I love that. That's fantastic. So, today, in today's terms, what are you most proud about yourself when it comes to? And if I word this right, maybe I say, what are you most proud about in being a facilitator? I want to say being a leader, but I wonder if you're going to answer that. I'm really good at facilitating high-performing teams. I'm curious how it goes.Mitch Torrel 42:19I think what I'm most proud about is just looking back at the people I've had the blessing of coming across and just seeing them grow in their life. You know, like I think we allow sometimes in in the military where everybody's going to leave the military at some point, and that's OK. You know, I’ve got friends who stayed in for 2030, years and done phenomenal things. I've got friends who've gotten out, and you know progressed in their professional careers, and to me, it's just fun to see where everybody ends up. Like I love seeing people have success, and especially people who, you know, I may or may not have helped at least a little bit. You know, or you know, at least been a bad example of what not to do. But I think, yeah, it's the relationships that I look back on, and I'm just very happy to have you know gotten to know the people that I've come across.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:13Well, you yourself made that transition, I think, from you know active service and obviously an entrepreneur. You know, what's some advice you might give someone in in that kind of decision calculus of transitioning their career?Mitch Torrel 43:26I think it just goes back to again, am I am I continually am I student of the game? Am I showing up every day invigorated to learn and be better at my job? And you know maybe if the answer is if not, you need to step away for a little bit, reinvigorate yourself, reprioritize your life. And sometimes it's just, hey, I've got some goals that I've set out to get after, and sometimes your path diverges, and that's OK. And I think in my case it was I had some things that I wanted to accomplish in life that the — it was just time for me to, you know, change my path, of course. And so it wasn't. I loved the military. I loved the team environment, the camaraderie, the units that I got to be part of were phenomenal, and I miss that every day. But sometimes you just got to, you know, understand where you're going and you know set out and accomplish those goals.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 44:20Well, I think there's been a theme across many of the graduates I get to speak with, and service continues even out of uniform. So I think that that definitely speaks volumes. So Mitch, was there anything today that we didn't cover that you would love to share with our graduate community, even if it's just words of encouragement?Mitch Torrel 44:37No, I think it's just you know continue to build your skill set, build your toolbox, understand that every day is an opportunity to learn to better communicate, to invest in yourself, to professionalize you know your approach to things and building discipline, building you know your approach to complex problems, and I think a lot of us just want to check the box and move on and get you know. But every day again is an opportunity to better yourself, and so I think that that's what I would impart on, you know, younger next generation who are going to solve tomorrow's hard problems, who are going to be in these complex positions that we can't even fathom.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 45:21Well, there are so many amazing things that we covered today that I think many can take back and internalize and find the way that it connects to them. But something that really stood out to me, just first and foremost, with you mentioned that you're more authentic and you just live with your heart. And so I think that came out in spades. I loved learning that you know leadership to you started with really kind of looking inward and what you really wanted, right? You could have gone a path of a pilot, and you could have done well, but you recognize that there is something that you wanted to do that might be more fulfilling with your skill set and align better with you. I think that that is that awareness as a leader is really important. I also really appreciate how you continue on focus on better every day, and you don't have to be the best tomorrow. But you need to be better than you were, and you're competing against yourself every day while lifting others up. I think the other thing that I really just enjoyed about you is remembering that the leader, yes, does have responsibilities to make decisions and you know, you know, advocate and empower others, but you're a facilitator and making sure that you help others have their voices bring out the best so that you actually can bring out the mission to success. So it's been an incredible conversation. I've thoroughly enjoyed this. So I just truly appreciate you being on Long Blue Leadership.
Mitch Torrel 46:33No, thank you.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 46:35Absolutely. And so, for any of you that are still watching and listening to this, be sure to share this with others because the leadership journey is one that it never ends. Right? We're always growing and evolving, and this conversation and all of our conversations on Long Blue Leadership with the lives of Air Force Academy graduates can just help you in your own personal journey. So, see you next time on Long Blue Leadership. I'm Naviere Walkowicz. Thank you.
Mitch Torrel 46:56Thank you.
 
KEYWORDS
Leadership, fear, resilience, mental toughness, preparation, adaptation, team cohesion, shared hardship, humility, mentorship, feedback, continuous improvement, self-awareness, stress tolerance, problem solving, interpersonal effectiveness, communication, delegation, accountability, standards, courage, growth mindset, trust, mission focus, servant leadership.
 
The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation
 
 

“The people you're trying to lead may become your greatest teacher.”
SUMMARYMatthew Ayers ’99 believes leadership isn't about having all the answers. It’s about listening, learning and serving with joy.
Hear how experiences at the U.S. Air Force Academy, on a U.N. peacekeeping mission and leading Dream Centers of Colorado Springs transformed his understanding of leadership.
MATTHEW'S TOP 10 LEADERSHIP LESSONS1. Leadership Begins with Ordinary ActsMatthew's grandfather didn't set out to do extraordinary things—he simply noticed people, asked questions, and invited them in. Great leadership often begins with small acts of compassion that have lifelong impact.
2. Lead with Joy
One of the defining characteristics of Matthew's grandfather was his joy. Even in difficult circumstances, he demonstrated that joy isn't the absence of hardship—it's a choice that gives others hope and the courage to move forward.
3. Stay Curious About People
Matthew learned that leadership starts by genuinely wanting to know people and understand their stories. Curiosity builds trust, broadens perspective, and opens the door to meaningful relationships.
4. Integrity Is Lived, Not Signed
His experience during a United Nations peacekeeping mission revealed that values aren't proven by an oath—they're revealed in everyday decisions. Leadership requires the courage to live your principles, even when circumstances become complicated.
5. Influence Doesn't Require Authority
Serving alongside people outside his chain of command taught Matthew that leadership often happens through relationships rather than rank. Quiet, consistent influence can move an organization—and a mission—forward one conversation at a time.
6. Presence Is Sometimes the Greatest Gift
Whether comforting cadets during tragedy or supporting people in crisis, Matthew discovered that leaders don't always need the perfect words. Simply showing up and being present can have a lasting impact.
7. Listen Before You Lead
Matthew's work reinforced that the people closest to the problem often hold the clearest vision for the solution. Leaders who listen deeply make better decisions because they're willing to learn before they act.
8. Let Others Become Your Teachers
One of the most powerful themes of the episode is that leadership is not about always being the teacher. Matthew believes the people we serve—and the people we lead—often become our greatest teachers if we're humble enough to learn from them.
9. Transformation Happens Through Action
Leadership isn't mastered in a classroom alone. Matthew reminds us that principles become convictions only when we wrestle with them in real life, applying them through service, relationships, and everyday decisions.
10. Leave People Better Than You Found Them
Looking back on his grandfather's influence, Matthew's own leadership philosophy comes into focus: serve others with humility, model joy, remain teachable, and help people flourish. The greatest legacy a leader leaves is the positive impact they have on the lives of others.
CHAPTERS
00:00:00 – Opening: Sometimes the Greatest Teachers Aren't the Ones We Expect
00:00:53 – Meet Matthew Ayers, USAFA Class of 1999
00:01:38 – The Story That Changed Everything: Grandpa, Joy & Two Strangers
00:08:47 – Justice Begins at Home: Lessons Passed from One Generation to the Next
00:15:12 – Ethiopia: When Integrity Is Tested in the Real World
00:24:31 – The Difference Between Signing an Oath and Living It
00:31:26 – The Child Who Became the Teacher
00:39:08 – Why Great Leaders Never Stop Being Students
00:45:51 – Leading Through Joy, Compassion & Presence
00:52:37 – Leadership in Practice: Listening Before Leading
00:58:44 – Matthew's Leadership Philosophy
01:03:28 – Advice to His Younger Self
01:06:14 – Final Reflections: Leave People Better Than You Found Them
 
ABOUT MATTHEW
BIO
Matthew Ayers, USAFA Class of 1999, is the founder and CEO of Dream Centers, a Colorado Springs nonprofit dedicated to serving women, children, and families through comprehensive healthcare, behavioral health services, and transformational housing. Before founding Dream Centers in 2011, Matthew served as an Air Force officer, managed air and space programs, taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and deployed as an unarmed military observer with the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
A passionate student of leadership, theology, and community development, Matthew believes the most meaningful leadership begins with humility, service, and a willingness to learn from others. Through his work and volunteer service, he continues to champion innovative approaches that strengthen families, empower communities, and create lasting change. Matthew lives in Colorado Springs with his wife, Amber, and their two children, Zeke and Halle Joy.
CONNECT WITH MATTHEWLINKEDIN  |  DREAM CENTERS
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Please note: we are only considering USAFA graduates as guests at this time.
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Bryan Grossman | Copy Editor:  Bryan.Grossman@USAFA.org
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Guest: Lt. Col. (Ret.) Matthew Ayers ’99  |  Host: Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz ’99
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 0:00Sometimes the greatest leadership lesson isn't learning how to teach others; it's discovering that the people you're trying to lead may become your greatest teacher. I'm Naviere Walkewicz, Class of '99 — Long Blue Leadership starts now. Well, welcome. Our guest today is Matthew Ayers, class of ’99. Yes, my classmate. Welcome, welcome to Long Blue Leadership. Let me tell you about Matthew from his military service, where he served in international peacekeeping. Then he went into the classrooms of Fairchild Hall, onto leading an organization called Dream Centers, where he's the CEO, really focusing on a vulnerable set of our community. It's such a pleasure to have you here today, Matthew.Matthew Ayers 0:46Love being here. Thank you, Naviere.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:48Absolutely. Well, we're going to jump right in because your story is so unique and so personal. I'd like to take us back in time and talk about your grandfather. I know we had some time talking about him, but I think it's well worth that our listeners and our watchers get to know him a little bit more as well. Let's talk about your grandfather and maybe a particular act of courage.Matthew Ayers 1:09OK, yeah, he's my hero, and I always continue to this day trying to live life like my grandpa. He just was so inspirational in the way he lived, and he's a very relational servant leader. He pastored most of his life in the Pacific Northwest, but his beginnings were in Wuhan, China, where he was born and raised, and moved to the U.S. when he was 15. Got on a back of a cargo ship, and he and his brother John made their way here. He built railroad with the CCC and flipped burgers, put himself through high school, college, seminary, and he's just got an amazing life. But when I got to know my grandpa as a little boy, he was smoking cigarettes like a chimney and in the local bowling league and playing cards with his neighbors.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:01I can visualize this man. Yes. Yes.Matthew Ayers 2:06He was just everybody's person, and he could hang out with anyone. No one was a stranger, and he was genuinely curious about everyone he met. And so he just modeled that with such joy. I just grew up thinking I want to be like my grandpa. He's an amazing guy, And so I’ve got unlimited stories about him, about someone that really has left a mark on my life, and I was 11 years old, and we were pretty new, about a year or so into living in central Washington State. And he came to guest preach at a local church there, and when he came to visit, of course, we would always go to a local Chinese restaurant.
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:53And did he say it wasn't as good as when he grew up, though?Matthew Ayers 2:57It was not nearly as good, but he still enjoyed it. He still would enjoy it wherever he went. And so he disappeared like usual, and we just knew he was back in the kitchen, probably washing dishes, hamming it up with the staff. And soon he comes back out, introducing us to staff, and we have all this free food, and he's best friends with this couple. So we were just this was like a normal experience with Grandpa, but on this particular visit, he had some pretty serious conversations after that with my parents, and he had found out that several of the staff were labor trafficked. They were new immigrants from China, and the next day, he brought me along as a little boy, we go down in our little town into a bag alley, knock on the door of a warehouse, no running water, no electricity, no amenities, dirt floor, and I see the rats running around. I'm like, "What are we doing here?” And we get to sit down with these people who are serving at this restaurant and can't speak English and do not know any way to navigate their situation. And he challenged us as a family. Well, he might have just volunteered us, but it was going to happen one way or another, that this couple ended up moving in with us, and we got to be like family with them, and had the most incredible experiences cross culturally just in our own home, and that was my first, maybe you know, shocking example of just the vulnerability of people in every community. It happens everywhere, but what was even more powerful to me about that, and what stays with me, is just how simple it really was looking back, where he just asked the question, and it seemed like such an ordinary, easy thing that that he made it out to be. And looking back, I'm like, well, that that's not easy for most people, but really, it is an ordinary thing that anyone can do.Naviere Walkewicz 5:07Ask a question and bring someone in, right?Matthew Ayers 5:10That's it.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:46I'm thinking about you as an 11-year-old, and you said it was kind of your first real glimpse of that experience. How did that shape you as you grew up? Because they were with you, right? And so, first off, did you did you learn to speak Chinese?Matthew Ayers 5:27No, I learned a few phrases. I should have though. I remember even the simple things like these cross-cultural miscommunications we had about ruining laundry and just doing things so differently that made us sometimes laugh and sometimes have some pretty tense moments. But it was it was all of us learning together. How do we do this? And I think one of my favorite memories was one of these people — they were they just had this incredible ability to do this unique art form of laying small colored thread, and would take months and hundreds of hours per piece of art, and just the beauty of getting to introduce into this art of her culture that was in particular from this region she was from. So we just, I mean, we had so many rich experiences like that.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:29I can imagine. So taking a leap forward, what was part of your journey that led you to the Academy? And when you went to the Air Force Academy, was your goal in mind to think about how to either participate or engage in things cross culturally, or was that just part of your upbringing and your makeup?Matthew Ayers 6:50Yeah, I thought you might ask me this, and I have nothing here. Honestly, I saw pictures of the Rocky Mountains. I love the beauty of Colorado. It just seemed magical to me, coming from this little town in central Washington, and I wanted to snowboard, so it came with some, you know, really good university education. It was a win-win.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 7:13Yes. So getting into the Academy, you know, obviously drawn by the aesthetics. What about the service in the military do you think really called you? And would you say that started, you know, with your grandfather, or was that something else you saw throughout just your childhood?Matthew Ayers 7:29My mom and dad modeled it well, of course. My dad found an amazing and safe place in my mom's home, where she grew up in Wenatchee, Washington, and so they really had this model of my grandpa and grandpa Paul and Lydia serving continually, and they modeled that in our home, in our community, in our neighborhood. I mean, from as young as I can remember, my dad was leading leadership camps for high school students in Washington State and doing incredible things to serve. And servant leadership, which is always kind of a part of the conversation. So it was like the water that we got to swim in.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 8:09It seems so when you talk about your grandpa and your parents, it feels very warm and comforting and secure. And when I think about our time at USAFA, Matthew, it was — you know while it was, you know, in this ecosystem, and yes, you know, we were growing as leaders, I would say there was chaos around us, you know? How did you navigate that with such a different kind of upbringing, and by what you saw in leadership.Matthew Ayers 8:37Yep. That is, I think, really insightful, and it's probably — it could be the most powerful part of my growing up, my formation in my family. Because my grandpa, when he did these hard things that were ordinary, but you naturally create friction in these situations where you're serving and helping and bringing cross cultures together and bringing people in need, including us. We needed to be educated in that situation, understanding what was happening in our own community and understanding how to serve. And you don't — there wasn't a formula for that, and we didn't have a lot of coaching or training. Grandpa just pulled us in, and so we learned through doing this kind of life together. And I think that that was the power of it: is that he did it with such joy. So you describe it as this warmth, and absolutely it was. And so having that mindset, I think, built this resilience in us to have joy no matter what the situation was, and to hold those things intentionally. You know, sometimes things are really difficult and sad and sorrowful, but to still be able to carry joy into those situations, you're really able to have that impact on somebody who may need that. So even coming to the Academy and experiencing that, especially the chaos of the first year, it felt like a little bit of a challenge. Like, how do we have joy through this?Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:05Well, I think I would have loved to be in your squadron because it sounds like you would have brought some joy to us for sure. Let's talk about after the Academy. There was a particular time while you were serving, you went on to work in — I think it was 2005 — you were part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission. Can you talk about some of that experience and how it maybe shaped you? Because I think it was a really transformational moment as well in your leadership journey.Matthew Ayers 10:33It was. It was. I was in the acquisition career field, and so I didn't have much opportunity to go overseas, but although I really wanted to. So this was one of those few things that I could thankfully got some approval from our commander and got to apply for this mission. And in that, I had this experience of coming out of Asmara, Eritrea, and heading down to our team site, which was pretty remote near the border, just south of Eritrea, and in this very small village in a war-torn area, it was completely austere, and you basically, as military observers, you have a team site you run and you kind of manage this area that you observe with daily patrols. And so I got to be in a team site with people from Ghana and South Africa and Bangladesh, and you name it. I mean, we always had new members coming in and out from one of these 41 nations that were there. And when I arrived at the team site the first day, Adahanit was our team cleaner, and so she was hired by the local staff on our team site. And when she literally ran to me, she saw my uniform and the American flag, and she dropped to her knees and just started weeping. And she was telling me how grateful she was that an American was at her team site now, because Americans had treated her and some of her family and friends and people who were living in this village with a little more respect than they were used to, and that was my introduction to this mission, to this team site, and I just thought, “Wow, what did I step into?” Because there are obviously a lot of really interesting dynamics that I didn't necessarily expect that kind of welcome coming in.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 12:27We take for granted what seems so normal and usual and expected, right? And so to actually see how what we're expecting can really make a difference to somebody else is really powerful. What was some of that experience like there? Can you talk a little bit more about that mission and really why it, besides that incredible greeting, why it really spoke to you?Matthew Ayers 12:52What I came to learn over the next six months living in Shiraru was that, you know, we all of us on the mission we had this MOU, kind of a moral obligation that we signed. We had this oath that we gave and communicated. We had a lot of training, extensive training in country, and then when we arrived overseas, and it was so — I think coming from this side, we had these just very clear expectations, and I think also kind of some of the culture that we swim in is filled with moral obligations. Even just our values at the Academy, where we where we were trained, and but it's such a part of American culture. And so what I realized is that although all the soldiers from every nation get to sign this thing and take this oath, it's not necessarily something that was part of the conversations in families growing up, or a part of the water that they swam in. So our day-to-day life there was filled with this tension between what we agreed to do and what was actually happening on the ground, and those things were completely different. So we saw — I mean, I saw two nations get kicked out and dismissed from the mission for starting trafficking rings. I saw two members of our own team site, they ended up running the black market cash exchange for the entire nation of Ethiopia while I was on site. And some of these things I really struggled with. Tried to work with people to help them understand what we were doing is not helpful to locals, and even to the point of bringing some of these things up legally with some of the team at headquarters. But when they're dealing with international trafficking rings, some of those smaller things that were happening at our team site, they just — they didn't even have capacity to deal with. And so that's also tension was like, OK, we have to learn to deal with this on a one-on-one basis in our team site in the middle of several hours' drive away from anyone who has any authority over the space.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:06Wow! So, how did you learn from that? What did — what changed in you, or what evolved in you? How do you grow as a leader from that? Because that's really powerful when you have a mission, and then you have these competing things happening that sometimes challenge values.
Matthew Ayers 15:25It made life so much more complicated for me. I think I went in —
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:28Like, “If my grandpa was here, he simplified things really well.”    Matthew Ayers 15:33Right. Exactly. Where is this simple answer? There really wasn't. And I remember sitting in several meetings, both formal and informal, with some of the JAGs, some of the legal team there, and just trying to untangle some of these issues and understand what would be worth our time to bring up, even to the highest levels, even if we had to go to Congress. What are some of the things that we need eyeballs here and influence here so that we can change some what's going on ground? It's really negatively impacting people's lives, and some of the things that we had to wrestle with were these larger moral questions of if we do this and we potentially raise these other issues at this particular level, we can end the mission. And we're trying to keep these two nations from destroying each other. So please don't go to this level. Work with us. We're going to work with you. We're going to give you advice, but you need to deal with this one on one with these people that you're working with and serving with, and they may not be from your country and they may not be in your chain of command, but you have at least some level of influence with them. So we need you to be courageous and we need you to have these conversations on a daily basis and help us. So those, that was powerful to me because it wasn't, you know — I at first I felt disempowered and like I don't know what I could do in this position, but over time I think little by little, you know, you can you can move the ball down the field if you stay focused -and you kind of understand the situation you're working within. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:11I'm so glad you shared that because often we might think, “Well, I'm just an acquisitions officer” or “I'm just this and this is not my lane” or “This is not my role.” But I think to your point is we can all be leaders and if we stay focused and we know what we need to be doing, moving the ball down the field is still very much progress. And so thank you for sharing that. I think that was really powerful. You know, you've had so many incredible experiences. I'm curious. So, acquisitions officer, you went and did this UN mission, and somehow you ended back in the hallways of Fairchild Hall teaching cadets. Let's talk about that transition and maybe what leadership looked like after you had some of this real-world and mission experience, operational experience. How did that translate to leading cadets in the way they think, etc.Matthew Ayers 18:03The mission, you know, sharing knowledge, sharing wisdom, sharing the things that we know we're learning in Management 101. I mean, that's important, right?Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:13Yeah.Matthew Ayers 18:13But what I realized in that role too is just, and I realized this going back to our time. You know, as ’99ers…
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:24Gold will shine.
 
Matthew Ayers 18:25…and just people who had so much influence on us. That's my always dreamed to come back. That was a dream job for me. I wanted to be back here on campus and influencing kids' lives because I think you are for the first time in your life for most of us. Then you're away from home, and you get to like have your family, your brothers, your sisters, your parents, your grandparents. You can lean on in those situations at home to help you carry that leadership. But this is the first time you get to try it out on your own. And I wanted to get to know people relationally first and build trust so that I could earn a right as little as it was to speak into anyone's life, and maybe learn from them too, because we're all coming from different backgrounds where we can learn from each other. So that environment was incredible to me because it's just so much more than sharing knowledge, right? You know you're transforming. You're part of that transformative process of a person being formed when they're standing on their own values for the first time.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 19:34Matthew, can you share an example of maybe when you saw that come to life with a cadet and an interaction with you? Was there a time in that that when you were facilitating or when you were an instructor that you actually saw some of those seeds be received and how it actually bloomed?Matthew Ayers 19:52My very first night on duty, I was officer on duty at night, and you know you do this. Everyone pitches in and has that role at some point or another when they're on faculty here, and there was a suicide, and I remember getting to interact in the moment as the news is, you know, in a grassroots way, very quickly moving through the Cadet Wing. And in the middle of the night, just walking the hallways and seeing kids, and just getting to put my hand on my shoulder and ask if they need to talk, can I pray? Can I support you? And hearing their stories and what they knew, and so life happens, right? No matter what position you're in, no matter where you are, and you get to show up for people where you don't, or you get scared. And I think some of those things, you know, being in Eritrea in the middle of night with people, and that I think you build a little more resilience there too when you're in some interesting situations. And it helps you step into somebody else's space and just be present and I — those are sacred memories for me and those opportunities just to be present. Didn't do anything really but just be there. And I think I'll cherish that always. And I just encourage us. You know, it again — these things seem like so challenging sometimes when you're in a, when the stakes are high and the emotions are high, but those are the most important times to stand in and be present.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 21:42I feel this tie from your grandpa to you. This ordinary act. I will tell you, the cadets that you spent time with when you were walking the halls that evening, and you put your hand on their shoulder, or you said, "Do you need to talk?” They will take that with them, and there's a good chance that when the moment calls for that from them, they're ready because they saw it in action and they felt the importance of that. Man, thank you for sharing that incredible story. I have to think that that probably played into your decision to jump into the nonprofit space and lead something incredible like you've been doing for the past 10+ years.Matthew Ayers 22:20If I'm honest, I was a little bit upset leaving the Air Force. I loved that job. I loved what I was doing, but of course, I did have the seed that my grandpa planted, and really, it went back to that first experience that day when he introduced us to the staff at this restaurant. And I thought, I remember making a commitment back then to say, I want to be like my grandpa, and I want to do something. I think with my life, just to interact with vulnerable people and serve them. And so that came true. I got to start some work in the nonprofit world when I got out of the Air Force, and then it led into this opportunity. And I think just casting that vision in that early season of getting out and just sharing this bigger idea of like, OK, we what does the city need? We love Colorado Springs. There's a lot of great nonprofits, and we don't want to duplicate anything. So what do we really need? And that's when I got to go on this journey of just listening to leaders all over our city and discovering what some of those things could be.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 23:29I love that powerful listening tour. Before we jump into that, I want to just in that piece of time in which you made that transition, I'm curious on how you knew it was time. Because I think many leaders, you know, when they're in different roles, they're looking for the when is the right time for what's next, or and who do you talk to in your corner? What was that transition, and maybe that network around you or your community around you, what did that look like in navigating that decision?Matthew Ayers 1:57So, Naviere, my life is like one example after another of I have plans in my mind, in my heart, and then they get redirected. And there's a proverb about that that says, you know, people make plans in their heart, and the Lord directs their steps. So this was another clear example of that, of me taking a while to learn what really should be the next step. And I remember the voluntary separation program, that VSP came open, that opportunity. And this is strange. So if anyone's been around the Academy or taught there, you know this. If you haven't, it is rare to have people just come by your office and small talk for a while, right? You're with cadets in your open office hours, or you're teaching, or you're preparing for something. So we're running. We're always running around. And 15 people, several of them — I couldn't have even told you their last name. I was just an acquaintance with them — stopped by my office in my open hours during the day, one after the other, asking the exact same thing: “Are you going to apply for this VSP?” Col. Naviere Walkewicz 25:12Did you make — I mean, I can't even. That's just kind of blows my mind, right? I'm just I'm putting myself in your shoes in that moment. Yes, please continue.Matthew Ayers 25:22Yeah. So if Anthony Pedroni is listening, he was the last one, and Tony comes in at like 7 that night in my office and asks the same exact question. We're friends. We work together in the management department. And he said, "Are you going to apply for this VSP?” I said, "No, man, I love my job. I love what I'm doing. Why would I want to leave here?” And he said, "Oh, Mr. Sensitive,” and he walked away. And when he said that, I was convicted. I had not even stopped to pray for a second. Like, is this the right thing to do? And I just knew it was, and I didn't know why. So, I, as an Enneagram 9, I try to lead with my gut instinct. That always just naturally leads first, and I just knew I needed. So I applied that night. I was one of 20 that got it. I got a call the next day, and I was out in 30 days. Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:11Oh my goodness. So really, it was this group around you, and then some self-reflection and prayer, and you made that decision. There was really not a lot of talk at all, it sounds like. Matthew Ayers 26:23There was zero planning. So yeah, but I knew it was right, and I knew if — you know, I just think taking steps of faith, sometimes we need to be redirected. And looking back on my life now, I cannot imagine not doing this nonprofit work early. In my mind, the timing was retire first, be stable, make a good decision, get your retirement, then launch this nonprofit. But that's not that wasn't the best way forward. And so I would just say that for others too, where I had to be redirected, and it was so helpful for me. And that if you know you're holding on to a dream, sometimes it's good to be stable and make that, you know, what might look like a more traditional decision, and sometimes it's not. And to have the courage to be able to at least ask that question.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:15I love that. So you jumped, and you have now led Dream Centers. Let's talk about this a little bit because I think many people may not know what Dream Centers of Colorado Springs is and the mission.Matthew Ayers 27:30There's a movement across the world. There's several hundred Dream Centers, and the basic thing that ties it all together is that we share this vision that we would find a real need in a city wherever we're located that's unduplicated, and we go meet that need. So we're not the same organization as any one other of these hundreds of Dream Centers. But I got to go on that listening tour for about six months and learn as much as I could from people here before we decided what we wanted to land on. That would really be something unique and unduplicated that we could offer the city.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:09Do you feel that this is another way that you continued to put on a uniform outside of the uniform, right? So this is a new way of service. Do you think that that was part of not only it was a need that you decided this is the one we're going to do and it's unduplicated, but it actually spoke to you because of your servant leadership background?Matthew Ayers 28:29Maybe. I think honestly, going back to those roots, my parents, my grandpa. I mean, I think of my wrestling coach in high school and English teacher. They served so well, and they did it with joy. I think just to me, it was a more inspiring way to live, and so I didn't think about it like that, and I don't think about it like that. Although that's absolutely important and valuable, but I think as I as I experience the joy of learning from our clients right now and our staff, and just how rewarding the mission is, yeah, absolutely. It's about serving our community, but it is so joyous. It's — I get so much more out of it that it's like it really is a way of life that that is just incredible. I love getting up in the morning. I love what I get to do.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 29:19So you are learning from the people you serve. You just — you were just talking about the joy that it brings you. What has changed in you? And I think about it — you know, this is Long Blue Leadership. So from a leadership capacity, because you're leading a team of professionals that's making this joy possible, but curious how it's also really, like, you know, changed you?
Matthew Ayers 29:40Man, I think I've changed every day. There's — you know, I have not had a lot of extreme or challenging situations I've dealt with in life, but I've had like a front row seat to that, and I think that I don't understand what it's like to live in a car, or to live on the street, or to experience domestic violence, or to be without food, and people are in those situations in our city every day, and they have so much to tell us about what's going on with our city, what's working, what's not. How can we improve it? How can we improve it down to the level of interactions, from phone calls and intake and how we're welcomed into a front office, to what actually is going to move the ball and make an impact in their life, and I think those are the things that we know are like adding to the quality of community, and it transfers intergenerationally in our city. So if we don't stop to learn about those things, it we're all going to be affected by that, and we're all going to be life will just not be as rewarding because it is so rewarding to be in the middle of those conversations and experiences.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:17So I'm thinking about it in parallel as leaders. To your point, are you know they have colleagues or teammates that are experiencing things that they haven't. How do you navigate those conversations? How do you actually get to a place where maybe you are driving impact or making it a difference? I'm curious if you could share some of that, maybe some for those who are looking for that leadership as well.Matthew Ayers 31:41We're always trying to do things with excellence. We're always tweaking what we're doing, and we're trying to just be steady and show up every day and learn what we can. And so I think when we have some big changes we need to make or a program we need to implement, first it needs to come from the people we're learning from, right? And it's not dreamed up without partnership there, and I think it needs to be confirmed by them as well. And so I mean, this again-it's the story of my life. But for several years at one of our programs at Mary's Home, the families we get to be with and serve and learn from were telling me about, you know, “The way that you're setting up this high-challenge, high-support program, and what we're able to accomplish here, and how we're surrounded with love and services and challenge. It is so good. Why aren't you doing that with our children? Why are you not offering the same thing for them?” And we — this was a theme, and I got to hear it over and over and over again. And they probably felt like they were being a broken record, but it was so important that they kept — they felt they had that important message to share. And it took me years of hearing that and then validating it with other people in the community, other people who had come through the program, our graduates, who had been years, you know, after launching for Mary's home, validating it, and I think that whole process was something where, for me, it felt like at least scales had to fall from my eyes. I had to really wake up to the reality of what this is because at first I was thinking there's other organizations that do this, and they continued just faithfully week after week, month after month, to have this conversation and say, “No, you — OK, so you don't really understand, Matthew, what we're talking about, so let's back up.” It was conversations like that. Like, “Let me tell you about my experience here with my children.” “Let me tell you about my experience over here at this service and why it's not working.” And so I think those, you know — it's being in touch with your customer. It's being in touch with your client. It's really — we have to be changed first if we're going to really offer something that's truly transformational.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 34:03I love how you said you can drive change and it really make an intergenerational difference. I'm curious how your work has changed the lives of your family because I know you know you're married and you have two beautiful children. What does this legacy look like in your household?Matthew Ayers 34:22Yeah, well I hope that I can you know at least try to live up to my grandpa's way of being. And so like when we're around work, that our kids it feels like a normal thing to do, just to be in service and to be engaged, to be in touch with what's going on in our community, and that it feels normal to come to work and have that warmth and have that encouragement and see models of people just doing normal things that we may if we don't have those models otherwise they seem maybe difficult for a little distant from us. And sometimes they're actually closer than we realize and we just keep them distant because it reminds us of just how maybe vulnerable we are sometimes, or maybe a memory like going back to our childhood that could be implicit. You know, before we're even four, and we remember it with our mind. Our body is remembering it with our emotions, and we're and so we get scared sometimes, and we don't even know why to engage with some big challenges in our city. And that's what I think. Yeah, the day-to-day stuff I want to model for Zeke and Halle Joy are just — you know, this is this is actually super rewarding, and it's one of the best things in the world you can do.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 35:40So, Matthew, if we can go back in time, and you could talk to your 11-year-old self, what might you tell him today?Matthew Ayers 35:46I think knowing what I know now and seeing what's possible, what transformation, what kinds of things, and just that we've been able to do with our partners in the city, through Dream Centers, going back to that, all that may seem really daunting and just incredibly tough to imagine or even think about as 11-year-old. But I think I would keep just want to model it for him, you know, just like my grandpa did, and make it make it easy, make it like this is — anyone can do this. Take that next faithful step, that everyone has something that they can do to show just a little bit of genuine curiosity in whoever they're with, that we always have something to learn, and if you can model that with joy, I just think it can be captured so much easier. If you model it in any other way, I don't know that it becomes something that you want to emulate.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 36:45I love that. And speaking of joy, I have a feeling I know where you might go with this answer, but let's see if you surprise us. You know, what is something you're doing every day to be better, either as a leader, you know, in your in your life? What are you doing every day to be better?Matthew Ayers 37:05I'll say it's something that I try to do every day. So even this week is a great example. Like, the last couple weeks, I've had conversations with staff where they felt courageous enough to give me feedback, and I got to listen, and I get to learn from them, and they're my greatest teachers. “So, this is how I felt in that situation, Matthew, and this is how I didn't feel seen or heard.” And let me just tell you how that impacted me, and those conversations are, you know, although I wish I could say they're far and few between, they're probably more regular. But I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that we have a team that really trusts each other, and where we can just be honest and reflect and call each other to this higher place. And my team does that for me. So if I could do one thing, I don't always do it, but if I could do one thing really well, it'd be to keep learning from them.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 38:03Oh, that's fantastic. May I ask how you accept that feedback? Because, you know, being open to hearing it is one thing, but accepting it, I think, is another. Can you talk about how you do that?Matthew Ayers 38:18Yeah. Well, I think people are complicated, and all of us, right? We're like this incredible mishmash. You have, like, unlimited layers of variables going on an x-axis and a y-axis, and for some reason, on one day, one person will hit that one button that really affects us more deeply than another. And I see that, you know, with me, I see that with our team. And so, even one staff member will give me feedback that's in this direction, and another and receives it completely differently. So, what I think it does for me is I want to hold all those things as equally valid and say how can I sharpen what I'm doing even more so? Like that thing really landed for somebody and it really hurt somebody else. So how can I adjust? How can I learn from that so that I am presenting, I'm showing up to work my best self in a way that's able to speak to everyone. You can't always do that. You're never going to hit on the head, and that's why we need grace for everyone. We need a little patience. But I think we can always learn too, and we can always sharpen the skills. And I'm so grateful that we can, and that EQ is just one of those things that we can constantly work on. So, yeah.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 39:36I love that. Well, what is something that we didn't cover today that you feel is really important for our viewers and listeners to hear from you?Matthew Ayers 039:46You keep doing what you're doing because you're bringing a message that is really — it's not complicated at all, but there's so many layers to this leadership journey, and I think people need examples of that. We don't learn — I think what I know that whether it was just in my work here at the Academy, or the work with the nonprofit, or just growing up in Ellensburg, Washington, learn as much in the classroom, and so we have to wrestle with these ideas. That's important, and these ideas we'll hear today are really important. But we need to the community we live in, the family we're a part of, our work, and we need to apply these things. And that's where we really learn. And I don't think leadership can ever be learned just from talking about it, right?
 
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 40:43That's right.
 
Matthew Ayers 40:43So we have to be able to apply these ideas constantly and wrestle with them, and talk about them, and keep them front and center. So thank you for doing that. And I know we're going to keep trying to do that within Dream Centers and make it real instead of just theoretical.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:00Well, Matthew, this conversation has been really incredible in many ways. I think some of the things that really stuck with me in this conversation, one, I just really appreciated getting to know your grandpa through you. I mean, he's someone that I also hope that I can emulate in just his finding ordinary ways to make big impact. And I think you're doing that every day in your job, and that's helping to inspire others as well. I really appreciated our conversation how you really have become a student of learning leadership through the through the actions that others have gone through, right? So maybe not living them yourself, but being there in the moment, learning from them. And so I appreciated how you really talk about leadership through learning. And so I think that really came through and folds in our conversation today. And last, I want to end with this because, as I sit here and I smile at you, it's because you bring joy, and I think it's really important that we find joy in the moments, even when they're difficult. If we can continue to like hold onto that thread of joy, life is sure a lot more fun and meaningful, and we bring others along with us in that in that capacity.Matthew Ayers 42:04Thank you, Naviere.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 42:05For all of you that are watching this and listening, thank you for joining us on Long Blue Leadership. If you know someone who's on their leadership journey, they really should check out this conversation and all of our others at longblueleadership.org. Many of our graduates have different paths that they want on leadership, and just like Matthew, they have so many wonderful lessons you can pose in them. So until next time, I'm Naviere Walkowicz, Class of ’99. We'll see you on Long Blue Leadership.KEYWORDS
Primary:Servant leadership, leadership through learning, influence, humility, curiosity, transformation.
Secondary:Mentorship, moral courage, resilience, trust, active listening, empathy, community, values-based leadership, feedback, purpose.
Supporting:Emotional intelligence, authenticity, growth mindset, stewardship, compassion, vulnerability, presence, integrity, service, relational leadership.
The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation
 
 

Leadership isn't about changing who you are; it's about becoming the fullest expression of who you were meant to be.
 
SUMMARYWhat does quiet leadership look like? From military deployments to the flight deck at Alaska Airlines, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Kimberly Ford ’90 explains how preparation, trust and listening can be just as powerful as command. 
 
COL. FORD'S TOP 10 LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS
1. Leadership doesn't have to be loud to be effective.Ford's journey demonstrates that quiet, thoughtful leaders can inspire just as deeply as outspoken ones. Authenticity is what earns trust and influence.
2. Feedback can become the catalyst for transformation.Receiving a poor leadership evaluation at the U.S. Air Force Academy was painful, but instead of allowing it to define her, Ford used it as the beginning of her growth as a leader.
3. Finding your voice begins by believing your perspective matters.Confidence wasn't something Ford was born with. It was developed through mentors, experience and the courage to share her passion with others.
4. The best mentors don't remove fear, they help you move through it.From the jump master to her pilot instructors, Ford's mentors equipped her with the mindset and confidence to act despite uncertainty rather than waiting for fear to disappear.
5. Preparation creates confidence under pressure.Chair flying, visualization, repetition and mastering the fundamentals allowed Ford to perform when the stakes were highest. Excellence begins long before execution.
6. Trust is earned through competence and consistency.Whether flying combat missions or commercial aircraft, Ford explains that teams build trust quickly when they know each member is prepared, dependable and committed to doing their job well.
7. Leadership must adapt to the mission.Effective leaders recognize when decisive command is required and when empathy, patience and service are the qualities the moment demands.
8. Listening is one of leadership's greatest strengths.Ford's approach emphasizes seeking feedback, understanding different perspectives and creating an environment where others feel heard before decisions are made.
9. Resilience is built through daily disciplines, not extraordinary moments.Grounding practices, physical fitness, reflection, continual learning and intentional self-care help leaders remain ready for whatever challenges come next.
10. Great leaders remain lifelong students.Ford's advice to her younger self reflects her enduring philosophy: believe in yourself, seek mentors, embrace feedback, learn from mistakes and never stop growing.
 
CHAPTERS
00:00:13 – Meet Lt. Col. (Ret.) Kimberly Ford, USAFA Class of 1990
00:00:57 – The "Rate Your Neighbor" Moment that Changed Everything
00:05:33 – Finding Her Voice & Honoring the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs
00:08:34 – Family, Faith and the Foundation of Leadership
00:11:00 – Jump School: Fear, Courage and Asking for Help
00:15:15 – Developing a Warrior Mindset Through Preparation
00:17:24 – Transitioning from Military Aviation to Alaska Airlines
00:20:06 – Leading Under Pressure in Combat Operations
00:23:38 – Adapting Your Leadership to Fit the Mission
00:27:28 – Daily Habits That Make Better Leaders
00:29:43 – Advice to Her Younger Self & the Power of Mentorship
00:31:26 – Final Reflections: Leading with Quiet Confidence
 
 
ABOUT COL. FORD
BIO
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Kimberly Ford, USAFA Class of 1990, is a distinguished combat aviator, senior mobility leader and lifelong advocate for aviation, leadership, and service. During her 25-year U.S. Air Force career, she served as a KC-135 and C-17 command pilot, instructor pilot and mission commander, logging more than 11,000 flight hours while supporting combat, humanitarian and contingency operations around the world. She also served in strategic leadership roles at Air Mobility Command, helping shape enterprise-level operations and leadership development across the Air Force's global mobility mission.
Following her military service, Col. Ford has continued to lead through aviation and community engagement as a commercial airline pilot, board leader and champion for preserving the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots while expanding opportunities in aerospace and STEM education. A recipient of numerous military and civilian honors, including induction into the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals Hall of Fame, she remains dedicated to mentoring the next generation of leaders through a life defined by service, resilience and authentic leadership.
CONNECT WITH KIM
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Please note: we are only considering USAFA graduates as guests at this time.
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AVAILABLE AT USAFA.ORG/LONGBLUELEADERSHIPAND ON ALL MAJOR PODCAST PLATFORMS
 
 
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Guest, Matthew Ayers ’99  |  Host, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz ’99 
 
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 0:00Sometimes leadership isn't about speaking the loudest; it's about finding the courage to speak when your voice matters most. I'm Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99; Long Blue Leadership starts now.
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:13Today's guest is Air Force Lt. Col. (Ret.) Kimberly Ford, United States Air Force Academy, Class of 1990. She has had a remarkable career through KC-135, C-17 command pilot, instructor pilot, senior air mobility command leader. Today she serves as an Alaska Airlines pilot, aviation advocate, and champion — preserving the legacy of our Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots, WASP, while inspiring the next generation of aerospace leaders. I should also add that Kim is our 2025 — one of our 2025 recipients — of the Leadership Achievement Award. Kim, we're so glad to have you here.Lt. Col. (Ret.) Kimberly Ford 0:53Thank you so much. It's just an honor to be here to speak with you today. Thank you.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:57Absolutely. And so, here on Long Blue Leadership, we like to jump right on to a really key moment in your life, and one, if we dial back the time a little bit, goes back to your three-degree year at the Air Force Academy, and they had something at the time, I think you mentioned it was “Rate Your Neighbor,” so something that you all did, and you scored a D. And I'm curious on what that was about, and then can you take us back to that conversation that time.Col. Kimberly Ford 1:23Correct, they had something at the time called Rate Your Neighbor, and that called for your classmates, your peers, people above you and below you, rating your ability to be a leader in the Cadet Wing and in your squadron, and then eventually a leader in the Air Force, and so everyone in your class would get a rating. I had come into the to the meeting thinking that I had done really well, and that my passion was shining through, and so imagine my surprise when I found out that I received the equivalent of a D grade. My air officer commanding was empathetic, but he was also very concerned, and what I did appreciate was he did give me the chance to respond. At that time, I just felt really disappointed. You know, I'd come into the Academy, I really wanted to be in aerospace, I was really excited about STEM. I was so happy to have the opportunity to be there, and so I must admit that I really felt crushed when I heard his words, that I hadn't done as well as I thought I had.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:32It almost sounds a little bit like a 360-degree kind of assessment. What, in particular, I guess attributed to that, kind of that score, that rating from your peers? What did they see, I guess, in that to give you that score?Col. Kimberly Ford 2:49Yes, you know, looking back with my lens now, I know that there are different types of leadership, different styles of leadership, but I think at the time the type of leadership that was expected was someone who was assertive, who was upfront, who was more sort of direct. At the time, I was a young cadet who definitely needed to be mentored and learn some skills. I think what they saw in me was someone who was very quiet. I had not had the opportunity or taken the opportunity to speak about who I was, my background, my passion for aviation, someone who didn't make eye contact, and you know, someone who maybe didn't greet them on a personal level, who didn't check in before a session, during a session and maybe after a session. And so they just really weren't sure about my aptitude, and I can understand that big picture. I was someone who definitely needed to be mentored and definitely needed to learn those skills in a style that was commensurate with my personality and what I had to bring to the table.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:55Well, you talked about being passionate and you went in feeling really good and hoping that it shined through. How did you adjust, maybe, or adapt after that feedback to bring your voice and that passion forward. What did that look like in your leadership journey at that time?Col. Kimberly Ford 4:10Yes, I remember the air officer commanding said, “Hey, you know, let's talk about this. What do you — what are you bringing to the table?” And so I said, “Wow, I'm someone who wants to be here. I'm someone who wants to fly. I am someone who wants to give back to my country, and I want to serve my nation.” And so, after that, I'm lucky that I had a good group of mentors, both peers and older cadets, and I was able to sit down with them and get that constructive feedback and constructive criticism. So I was able to speak with my flight commander about, you know, goals that I have. I want to do, you know, eventually I want to do the soaring program. I want to do — which I may have already finished by that point. I want to do the T-41 program, which was the solo program at the time. I would like to be a pilot. And so I really practiced making eye contact, speaking about my goals, sharing my passion, and just really checking in and making sure I receive that feedback from my leadership, and then also points where I could improve. You know, as an 18-, 19-year-old, you know, young woman who was very shy, that was a lot for me. But it just — so it took a lot of courage, so I'm really proud of myself for being able to get there, to be able to interact and have those conversations that I needed to have with my cadet leadership at the time.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 5:33Well, let's fast forward now, because I feel like that voice that you found has been really instrumental in some of the advocacy and work that you've done around really highlighting the legacies of our Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Air Service Pilots, or WASPs. Can you talk about, you know, where that came into play, or how finding your voice, what that looked like, and what some of that work, important work, was that you did?
Col. Kimberly Ford 5:59Yeah, yeah, I will go back. When I was a young woman, still in high school, I had really started to show interest in aviation, and we didn't know a lot of people who were pilots or in aerospace, and so what my parents did for me, especially my mother, who loved to read, is she found me a lot of books, and she found me books about the Tuskegee Airmen and about the Women's Air Service Pilots as examples. And so I read about these courageous, you know, young people who were serving during World War II, all of the challenges and barriers that they had to overcome, and the life lessons that they had to share. And so I really took that to heart, and that really helped to inspire me during my career. I had the opportunity to speak with some Tuskegee Airmen during my Air Force career by attending conferences. As I moved back to the Seattle area, when I came back to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, I had the opportunity to serve at the Seattle Museum of Flight and serve in panels. We would talk about subjects such as the Berlin Airlift, some of the flying out of a Ramitelli in Italy, and just sort of passing along those leadership lessons. I had also joined my Sam Bruce Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen. We were able to work on some youth programs and grow them from very small programs to larger programs, which really passed along those important leadership lessons to young people and inspired them on their journeys to becoming pilots. I had another opportunity to volunteer with the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony for the Women's Air Service Pilots. So, I went to Washington, D.C. I was able to pass along the Congressional Gold Medal to June Lecky and spend time with her family and learn about her service, so I always called her my WASP. I'm lucky that I was able to go to the museum, the Women's Air Service Pilot Museum in Sweetwater, Texas, and have the chance to interview WASPs, volunteer alongside of WASPs, and as well pass along my message of my service and sort of help to grow young people. Through my Sam Bruce Chapter, I met mentors such as Bill Holloman, who was an original Tuskegee Airmen, and Ed Drummond, who shared their stories of just leadership and courage. So to me, those lessons are so important to pass on to the next generation.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 8:34I think you hit it on the, you know, hit the nail on the head when you talk about sharing the stories, and as we share your story today, I think it's really important that our viewers and our listeners kind of really appreciate that not all leaders, you know, approach things in the same way. To your point, you know, you start off really shy, and you found your voice, and then you're able to even share stories of other leaders. I'm curious, in your journey, of, you know, how that continued to evolve, you know, where did you find yourself really championed, perhaps? You mentioned your parents early on, and you know, understanding your love for aviation, did they also kind of show up for you in that way of helping you to hone in on your leadership skills a little earlier?Col. Kimberly Ford 9:20Yes, yes. As a young person, I knew early on that I wanted to go to college, that I wanted to achieve a graduate degree, and seeing those examples of my father serve overseas, and my mother alongside with him…
Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:37Both your parents served?Col. Kimberly Ford 9:38Actually, my father was in the Army, he got up to the rank of captain, and my mother, they had just gotten married, and my mother joined him in France, where they served outside of Paris at a place called Saran, France. So I just saw that example. They started taking me to museums, as I mentioned, they had me read books, but they did see that I was more shy and more quiet, and so they started really relating to me, they just passed along that I, that I'm a leader, you know, I am a leader in my own way. These were often quiet messages, they weren't often direct, but I just remember when I showed up at the Academy, they just, I remember that that message, that I am a leader, that I am capable, that I can do these jobs, that I had just as much of an opportunity to succeed, they were really just strongly, strongly instilled in me.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:37I love those affirmations, and I'm curious, you know, obviously you went on to go to pilot training. How did that continue to evolve, and being a quiet leader, show up in, you know, in the cockpit or amongst your peers? Were there times where you had to be more assertive, or use a different voice? How did you kind of deal with how you're wired, so to speak, with what was needed for the moment?Col. Kimberly Ford 11:00Yeah, so one story that I'll take you back to goes back to jump school. One of my friends wanted me to take jump school, I was really uncertain about this, and she's like, "No, we let's take jump school together.” We were both seniors, and it was just a great opportunity. We went through the training. I had always thought of the people that did jump school as just these amazing people. I wasn't sure if I could just reach that pinnacle. I'm so lucky that we made it. We both made it to the through the training, and then you get to the point where you, you're standing in the door, so this is the point where you take all of your training and you are going to execute this training, and you're going to face this really critical, intense moment. And so to me it was sort of like a parallel of I was finding my voice, I'm a cadet, and then I have the chance to go to pilot training. I remember before we stood in the door on the ground, I'd spoken to the jump master, which was really intimidating for me as a young cadet, and I said, "I want to jump out the door. Can you help me get there? Can you sort of show me how you get yourself ready to do that?” And so, looking back now, when I got into the door, he basically looked me in the eye, and he helped me to take a deep breath, to settle myself, and to take that big step forward. And I jumped out the door, and I went on to do five jumps, and I completed that program.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 12:21I have to give you props, because I think the fact that you recognized in yourself, giving yourself the permission to ask for help, right? You said, "Can you help me get to and through the door and accomplish this jump?” And then go on to get your jump wings. I think it's really powerful and a leadership lesson in itself. Was that something that you just you — it happened, or you've seen it modeled before you, or you just, it was just something in you that, “I'm going to ask for help here?”Col. Kimberly Ford 12:52He certainly helped me to get that warrior mindset. So, I believe even back before, you know, maybe wanting to do a certain program at in high school, or even wanting to apply for the Academy, my father said, “You know, you just have to step forward and do it.” Also, dating back to my father's father, who was one of the first Black policemen in Baltimore City. He was a very, he was also a very reserved man, very much like myself. And I remember speaking to him about being nervous about applying to the Academy and going to the Academy, and he said, “You know what, Kim? You've just got to get started, you've just got to take that first step.” So, basically, putting yourself in that space, that mental space, being prepared, being confident, and believing in yourself, and taking that step forward. I was able to carry that through, going to pilot training. I was really nervous. A lot of cadets had the opportunity to do a lot of flying, a lot of discovery flights or programs like Civil Air Patrol or scouting, and my parents were only able, they were able to provide me with one amazing discovery flight, but it was tough. I had to learn a lot of information in a short period of time. I had an amazing UPT instructor for my first flight. His name is Colonel, retired now, Kevin Mastin, and he actually went on to become a Thunderbird. He went to the University of Washington, where I'm from, so a neat link there. And I just told him about my fears. “I'm nervous. I don't know if I have what it takes. I don't know if I can keep up with the other students.” And he was — he said, "Do you really want to do this and finish this program?” And I said, “I really do,” and he said, “Well, let's work together, basically to develop this warrior mindset, or this mindset of focus, of intensity, of bringing your best, of being excellent like the Tuskegee Airmen.” So he really worked with me and helped me to do that. So I was basically able to bring that to serving throughout my career up to serving in Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom. You know, just really taking that deep breath, knowing that I am capable, knowing that I am a good leader, and sort of executing the mission, working with the crew, or working with the team that I'm working with at the time. So I'm really proud that that started, as you know, as a child with my parents was honed also at the Air Force Academy and with other mentors through my career.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:15Were there particular pillars of leadership or things that he said this is how, you know, your process to thinking like a warrior having that warrior mindset. What did that look like?Col. Kimberly Ford 15:25Yes, yes, he always he focused on telling me to sort of don't listen to the noise and the other inputs. You know, fly the airplane and focus on the important tenets, the important things that you need to do. You know, “You need to fly the airplane into the air, you need to make it act in ways that you want it to act.” He spoke with me about, you know, learning all of the information, such as, you know, chair flying or visualizing. He said, "I want you to know that information cold. So, if you know the information cold and you're nervous, you're it'll allow you to fly the airplane and focus. So, we would actually have study sessions where we would go to the squadron, and we would basically go through our steps and procedures, and just really practice focusing and just eliminating all of that noise, flying the aircraft, and putting the airplane, you know, in acrobatics and VFR flight and IFR flight.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 16:20And for someone who's not in aviation, what does VFR flight and IFR flight mean?Col. Kimberly Ford 16:23Visual flight rules, where you can see, and instrument flight rules, where there are clouds, and you're not to see the ground.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 16:31Well, I can imagine that's really helpful, going through the repetition of actually being in the cockpit, you know, not in the cockpit, right? Like you said, chair flying. I think that's really powerful, visualizing. Were there any other kind of key instructions or thoughts in that process of putting on the warrior mindset and being able to push through any of the self-doubt or kind of the reservations that not just you but I think other leaders share?Col. Kimberly Ford 16:57I think it's also, you know, being the consummate professional, you know, always learning about your craft, so I'm always learning something new, I'm always reading, always listening to what others might say, always listening to feedback. And always showing up, you know, being early, looking professional, having your uniform look well — just sort of those are some of the other tenants that he taught me, also.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:24And I think about what you're doing now. So you're a current pilot with Alaska Airlines. Oftentimes, you know, many of our graduates do go into, especially those who served as pilots, go into, I think, you know, commercial aviation. You know, was that an easy process for you? How did that challenge you as a leader? Was that something that was already kind of written in your game plan of life?Col. Kimberly Ford 17:47Right, so I actually became a commercial pilot in 2001, so it was right around the time of 9/11. It was a little bit challenging, just because I had just finished my active duty, where I was flying the KC-135. I did the Kosovo operations, and also Northern and Southern Watch, where you're basically flying around Saudi Arabia. I finished that and I was just starting my time as an Air Force reservist as a C-17 pilot. So I did initial training for the MD-80 at the time, which was an older passenger airline for Alaska Airlines, and I was also starting training for the C-17. There is quite a difference in culture — you're learning with, you know, working with a different crew, slightly different style of crew resource management. Your purpose is, you know, a little bit different. You're flying passengers and some cargo to get to where they need to go. So I'm really lucky that I was able to rely on mentors to step me through, do that visualizing and share flying. Soon after that, I was actually called up to serve full time for the Air Force for about three to five years for Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, that's operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. So I always had to, you know, I took copious notes. We had a lot of conversations on those flight decks as we were doing our military operations. There were a lot of Alaska Airlines and other airline pilots, and so I'm so lucky that I could fly with some really experienced crew members who could really talk to me about this civilian procedures. It is fast paced — you're working at large civilian airports, so I had to learn those standardized procedures, and I had to learn to work with the crews to be able to execute that civilian mission well.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 19:41I'm curious about, you know, your service while you were deployed in support of those different operations. If you could talk about where you saw yourself evolve as a leader. How did you continue to grow in that space from, you know, where you started as a quiet, more reserved leader, still quite passionate, but where did that show up, and how did it show up in the deployed spaces?Col. Kimberly Ford 20:06Right, let's see, in the deployed spaces, just to give people an idea of the operations at the time, they were a very fast-paced. This is like around 2001, 2002 and on. We had to fly a large part of the mission because a lot of the experience was in the Air Force Reserve. I was serving at a joint-based Lewis-McChord, and so we would take large contingents of especially Army personnel from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, usually to the East Coast, maybe to Europe, such as Germany, and then overseas. It might have been the opportunity for me to sort of have a briefing, and then in general the mission would match the briefing, usually, usually in the KC-135. I would say in the C-17 it was very intense, where you were on alert, and then the mission could change and evolve. It might be incredibly intense where it was at night, — you might be landing with night vision goggles on a runway that wasn't lit, and so they were very intricate details. So changing mission, very intense missions. In the last part was very long missions. So I believe that I had to really dig deep and always be willing to have that resilience and more resilience and more endurance than I'd ever, ever had before. Also, working with a larger crew for a longer period of time. Just really — I knew that the people around me knew their jobs well, they were motivated, they wanted to serve, and they could execute well, and they were passionate about the mission, so I think just having that stamina and endurance, and flying in more challenging conditions. Definitely.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 21:57When you're stepping into some of those roles, there's this need to build a team very quickly, and trust, and you know, obviously leadership is part of pulling all that together. How did you do that successfully? I mean, aside from, you know, having stamina and really just, I think, being ready, were there any other things that you thought you really tapped into from your strengths that helped you to navigate that cohesion and that trust together pretty quickly?Col. Kimberly Ford 22:24Right, it seems like one of the easiest ways to build trust and have that team as — there are really standardized roles that are expected in the crew, and when the crew knows that you know your role inside and out, and that you can execute well, that you will, you know, speak the way you need to speak, that you'll fly the way you need to fly, that really quickly helps to build trust. I think, also, it helps to be able to speak through the mission to be able to talk about some of those key crunch points, and you know, options that we would have as a crew, and basically work together to make decisions, and also if that one person had information that the rest of the crew didn't have, such as the need to go around or to stop or to turn the other way, that the entire crew, especially the other pilot, would listen to that information and execute immediately. So, building that trust by performing your role, being prepared, going over the mission, going over those crunch points and acting quickly when you needed to act, that really seemed to form a cohesive crew.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 23:38You know, if we can go back a little bit, I'm curious to your time, you know — I guess it's not really going back, it's a bit more current now — but you'd mentioned a little bit ago that working with Alaska Airlines, the pace is a little different, and the mission has changed. I'm curious on how your leadership has evolved when you think about a changing mission, and maybe it's not life or death or national security, but how do you continue to evolve as a leader when the stakes aren't as high?Col. Kimberly Ford 24:06Right, right, so in the military mission, it was more — it was usually time critical, and it called for often a very assertive type of quiet leadership. So you're still bringing that assertive type of quiet leadership, but you're also bringing customer service to families and passengers who are getting to where they need to go, whether it be a vacation or to visit family, or, you know, taking a businessperson where they want me to go, so you're having that patience, letting people know that they're welcome, that you're happy to see them on board, you're working with crew members who may not have that sort of military background. And so there are different communication styles, different, you know, they're different people, and so you're really sort of reading who they are and making sure that you can communicate information in a way that is effective for them as a person, and their age and experience level. You are — it is also a compressed timeframe, so ensuring that you're getting loaded and boarded within that timeframe, and sort of helping the airline to get those, you know, different pushes of different aircraft at different times off on time. So I think I had to just sort of maybe dial it back a little bit in my presentation; make sure I just gave that great customer service. I would say in the cockpit it is that same — in the flight deck, I'm sorry — you're giving that same crew resource management. That same — building that same trust within the person who, you know, letting them know that you know your job and that you're ready to execute. So I would say it's probably more the same within the flight deck there.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 25:53I would almost go so far as to say is the ability to understand when you need to assert more, and when maybe a more quiet and customer service-oriented leadership style needs to be used — you almost have a superpower of understanding when to employ them, and I might, I might ask you this: You know, how do you help others who maybe have the other side of the leadership spectrum, where they come in very — “I'm a very assertive type leader.” How do you help them see the value in your approach that is natural to you?Col. Kimberly Ford 26:25We have a moment at the end of our flights at Alaska Airlines, where we sort of, we sit back and we basically say, “How do we think that went?” You know, “What could we change?” And we speak about, you know, “How did the crew receive our message? How did the passengers receive our message? How did the gate personnel receive our message?” And sometimes you could say, like, “OK, well, maybe we could have said this this way. Maybe we could have responded this way as we were flying the approach.” And so I'm able to sort of give my perspective, and maybe how I might have done things, or perhaps sometimes the will divide duties, and the captain will say, "OK, I see here, maybe you would be great at doing this duty, could you take this over?” And so I think that's how I can show that maybe a different style of leadership would be more effective in those certain situations, and we're trained to really listen and just take in the feedback that's coming towards us, and I would say all of the crew members are very good at listening, adjusting and taking in what's offered to them.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:28By you kind of sharing the ability to listen, but also share your perspectives, I think, in itself, is another great leadership lesson that strong leaders have the ability to listen to others and take in other inputs before making decisions or moving forward. So I think that was a wonderful recollection of how you do that in the civilian world in aviation. So one of the things we love to do is ask our guests: What they're doing every day to be a better leader? Would you mind sharing with us what that is?Col. Kimberly Ford 27:59Let's see, I do a number of things. One is I try to take a quiet moment just to do some breathing and just really to center myself and ground myself, so a quiet moment. I'm trying to get enough sleep. It's amazing how much, you know, good sleep can affect your ability to execute your day properly. I'm trying to get some exercise every day, so whether it be — I'm trying to do a lot of weightlifting, Pilates, yoga, doing things to strengthen myself as well as ground myself. And I'm also making sure I'm taking a break to do something fun, you know, something that I enjoy with my spouse or a friend, going out to lunch or something like that. So, you know, trying to take care of myself and make sure I take some time for fun and just set time for grounding and for breathing a few minutes each day. I find those things very helpful.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:57Is that something that you sort of employed as, you know, you've become more understanding of time and experience, or have you always kind of operated in that way — just to kind of appreciate the moments, you know, take time to fill your cup, etc.?Col. Kimberly Ford 29:12You know, I would say that that is something that my parents instilled in me a long time ago. My mother instilled in me, especially just that: that breathing and just taking that moment and just grounding yourself. I remember we went to some sort of exercise classes together when I was in junior high and high school, so I'm really proud that she instilled that in me early. My father also exercised with me as I was getting ready for my Academy initial fitness test to get in.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 29:43Well, frankly, I mean they really did help prepare you so well for being a cadet and then going on to be highly successful, both as an officer and then in the civilian world. But speaking of when you're a cadet, if you could go back in time now, Kim, and tell, you know Cadet Kimberly Ford, you know, something that she should be thinking about to be a better leader down the road, what would you tell her?Col. Kimberly Ford 30:06I would say always believe in yourself. Know that you can do this, that you are capable, and you have an important perspective to bring to the table. Your voice is necessary, and you have something to bring. So, I would just say it's coming. Keep believing yourself, and I would also say to her, you know, keep finding different mentors, you know. Some mentors are sort of focused on the operation that you're doing on a narrow scale, and some are more big picture mentors, so rely on those mentors and peers, and continue taking that feedback, and always growing, remain a student, always improving, making corrections, and it's OK to have those missteps. And it's an amazing journey as you keep learning and growing and becoming a better leader. That I would tell Cadet Kim.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:59That is outstanding. And may I ask you, what are you most proud of about yourself as a leader?Col. Kimberly Ford 31:06I am proud of resilience, but I learned how to be resilient leader, you know, that I learned from my parents, relatives and, most importantly, through those programs and leadership at the Academy instilled in me that I'm a resilient leader, that I have a lot to offer.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:26Awesome, this has been amazing. I mean, we always enjoy being able to take a peek behind the story of our Air Force Academy graduates and our leadership journeys, but I really appreciate the time, and you really pulling back the layers, taking it back to your family, taking it back to some of the, you know, just right away the lessons you learned from peer feedback and how to adapt and evolve and be resilient, and then when the moment calls for it, bring your voice back to those important moments when you need to help others see a different perspective. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on Long Blue Leadership today.Col. Kimberly Ford 31:59Thank you so much. And I just have to say, Mighty ’90 for the class, as well as War Eagles for the CS-15 War Eagles. But thank you so much. It's been just an honor to be here with you, and I have really very much enjoyed this.Col. Naviere Walkewicz 32:13Thank you. And for all of you watching this or listening, be sure to share this journey with others who are also in their leadership journeys, whether in aviation or not. Right? Just looking for what are those ways that our leaders are taking shape. We do this on this particular Long Blue Leadership episode, and all of our others at longblueleadership.org. What really stuck with me about this particular conversation is to really be a leader for what the moment calls for, and I think that Lt. Col. (Ret.) Kim Ford, Class of ’90, Mighty ’90, as she said, did it really well. So until next time, I'm Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99 and we'll see you on Long Blue Leadership,
KEYWORDSQuiet leadership, authentic leadership, finding your voice, leadership development, leadership philosophy, resilient leadership, leadership resilience, mentorship, servant leadership, emotional intelligence, courageous leadership, confidence, self-belief, constructive feedback, growth mindset, warrior mindset, leadership under pressure, trust, team building, crew resource management, aviation leadership, military leadership, Air Force Academy, USAFA, combat leadership, decision-making, adaptability, resilience, visualization, chair flying, lifelong learning, personal growth, women in leadership, women in aviation, Tuskegee Airmen, Women Airforce Service Pilots, WASP, professional excellence, leadership communication, leadership lessons.
 
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