Civilians’ Role in Mission Success
September 23, 2025
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This transcript was generated with the assistance of AI. Please report inconsistencies to comms@afa.org.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Good morning everyone. And thanks for being here. Welcome to this session. And our topic this morning is the Civilian’s Role in Mission Success. And thank you again for all of you being here. This is a subject that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. We often focus on aircraft, weapon systems, or military operations. But behind every mission is a team of professionals. That team is made stronger because of the civilians who serve alongside our Airmen and Guardians. And the Department of the Air Force, the 180,000 civilian workforce just doesn’t support the mission. They’re an essential integrated part of it. Their professionalism, institutional memory, technical depth, and the trusted relationships they build both inside the department and with partners outside are strategic advantages we must understand and leverage. To set the stage, I’d like to begin with a short video that underscores this perspective. The video is eight years old, but I think it’s as relevant today as it was back then when it was developed. Now if you can start the video.
Video:
There have always been civilians in the Air Force, right there with us, side by side, at home and deployed. We wore the uniform and they didn’t. But they took that oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Chances are that oath means more to them than anybody can imagine. We’re all part of the team. They could have taken their skills anywhere, but they brought them to the Air Force. Some of them have been here longer than us and they’ll be here when we’ve moved on. They’re the ones with lifetimes of experience. They’re the ones with fresh-faced enthusiasm, patriotism. They’re the ones who are here to be part of something bigger than themselves, to serve their country and lead in any way they can. Are they Airmen? Some are separated or retired. Some came in through an intern program or basic federal employment opportunity. Some were Marines, Army, Navy, Coast Guard. A lot of them do what we do better. They do it for the same reason we do. Country. A team is not the people you work with. A team is the people you trust. Ask any Airman what the civilian’s purpose in the Air Force is and you might hear that civilians are here to provide know-how and support. And just about every Airman would tell you that civilians aren’t just part of the team, they’re a critical part of the team. So think about this. If everybody on a team supports each other, how are we supporting them? Simple. With our respect. This is for all you civilians watching this. The electricians, the defenders, engineers, child care, instructors, logistics, finance, human resources, all 180,000 men and women without whom this Air Force would grind to a halt in a split second. You, our civilians. You may not stand at attention, but you stand for everything that is good and right about this country. You may not wear the uniform, but you do wear the mission. You are part of this team. You embody our core values and there’s such a thing as respect. We are never required to salute civilians, but we are allowed to. So we salute you. We thank you. And to every single one of you, we say this. Aim high, Airmen.
Kathleen Ferguson:
So thanks for taking the time to listen to this. That one really speaks to my heart. Unfortunately I was a career civilian, never in uniform, 34 and a half years. So very excited that that was done. So turning now, I’d like to introduce our panelists. And we have three extraordinary leaders with us here today who bring decades of experience both from the military and civilian side of the service. First retired General Frank Gorinck, former commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa, with decades of operational leadership experience. Marilyn Thomas, a retired senior executive service leader with a distinguished career in financial management and programming for the Department of the Air Force. And Bob Corsi, retired senior executive service, former director of manpower, personnel and services and a long-time champion of the civilian workforce. And Bob is also retired military. So each brings a little different perspective. But before we dive into our questions, I’d like to ask each of you, starting with General Gorenc, to take just a couple of minutes to give some background, your career pathway, what you consider your most significant contributions for General Gorenc as a military leader, not as a civilian leader, and how those experiences shaped your perspective on the civilian workforce. General Gorenc.
Gen. Frank Gorenc, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you very much. It’s great to be part of this panel. I was surprised when I got invited to talk about it because obviously I wasn’t a civilian during my service. But I was really happy to be able to address this topic. And I talk about it often. But for those of you that don’t know me, I’m really a pure operational background. You know, by function, I was a pilot. My experiences in the Air Force were primarily operational experiences. And fortunately, the Air Force allowed me to be a commander, you know, at every rank, from lieutenant colonel all the way through to a four-star rank, where I ended up at USAFE. And as I thought about what I wanted to discuss today, I was heartened yesterday, and I’ve heard the message often from leaders in our Air Force who take the time almost every time to talk about our workforce. And that the diversity of our workforce is so gargantuan, and each of the elements of our workforce make unique contributions to this Air Force. And it’s right, like the secretary and the chief said yesterday, we’re going to succeed. And we’re going to succeed primarily by the strength of our workforce that has to be trained, equipped, and ready to execute the mission. And along my journey, I had a lot of interaction with the civilian workforce, starting almost immediately when I went to pilot training. I graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1979, and I went to Vance Air Force Base. And you may not know, but the crew chiefs and the maintenance organization at Vance Air Force Base was contracted. It was one of the few that was contracted. I was a lieutenant. I was just happy to be alive and show up. But the bottom line is, that’s where my interaction started with the contracted civilian Air Force. And as I moved through my career, I had to interact with a lot of civilians, because the civilian workforce is a lot more than contractors. It’s SESs, it’s GSs, it’s senior scientists. It’s all kinds of people, foreign nationals. I spent a lot of time overseas, and we interacted with the civilian workforce. And the bottom line is, civilians make our mission successful. And in the end, when we do succeed, we have to make sure that everybody understands that that success comes from that active duty National Guard, Reserve, civilian workforce that every day lays the foundation for success. And unfortunately for our Air Force, oftentimes we get into these discussions about platforms, B-21s, F-35s, NGAD, all that kind of stuff. And I’m of the belief that, yeah, let’s have those discussions. But the reality is, the real power, the real strength of the Air Force, regardless of the equipment that we have, lies in our workforce. And if we get their training and development right, mission success is assured.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Thank you, General Gorenc. Ms. Thomas.
Marilyn Thomas:
Thank you. First of all, I’d like to thank AFA for hosting this session. I think it’s the first one I’ve been to that really focused on the civilian workforce. And that really inspired me. I don’t typically like doing these kinds of things, because I’m not particularly a good public speaker. But when asked to do this, I said, you know, this is important, because you guys are important. And I also want to give some deference to Colonel Gorin here. He said, you know, he’s not a civilian. He’s always been an operator. But during my time working with him, he’s always been a very strong advocate of the civilian workforce and total force. So I really appreciate you, sir, and the fact that you’re participating on this. So I’m one of the three on this panel, like Kathy, who started my career with my first career job. I had many part-time jobs as I got through college. But in 1987, and upon graduating from Oklahoma State University in the small town that I grew up in. And at the time that I was recruited, I thought I was going to tinker Air Force Base. And it turns out they had different designs for me. They wanted me to move to D.C. to help stand up and work within the first Air Force cost and analysis agency. And the rest from there is history. I pretty much took the assignments that the Air Force asked me to take, which were always challenging, wonderful. I’ve had a wonderful Air Force career of 33 years. Since then I’ve been doing consulting with GuideHouse, which has given me the opportunity to keep connected with the workforce and the Air Force family that is in Space Force family now. When I retired in 2019, we didn’t have the Space Force. But certainly the Guardians were part of the people that I cared about. And I think one of the things that was most important to me, and I see some very notable SESs, senior leaders in this crowd today, Laura Sayre, who is the acting FM for the Air Force. We’ve got Melissa Blakeslee who is the FM for IMSC. And it’s just being able to work with that kind of talent and those kind of people, and of course those in uniform. And I’ve gotten some of my best mentoring from those in uniform who have taught me about leadership and taking care of people and command. And I look forward to talking a little bit more as we get into some of the Q&A, particularly about my thoughts on continuity and how that has changed over time. And Lauren Estep as well. I look out in the audience and I’m just amazed and thankful to all of you that you’ve taken an interest in this because it is important to our mission readiness and operational effectiveness. So with that, I’ll turn it back to Kathy.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Okay. Thanks Marilyn. Mr. Corsi.
Robert E. Corsi, Jr.:
Thank you, Kathy. General Gorenc, it’s great to see you again from our time working together when you were the AFDW Commander. So I had 46 years in the Air Force, 28 years on active duty. I was fortunate to spend 18 years in the Senior Executive Service. Started off as an engineer at base level. And that’s where I got exposed to some outstanding civilians right off the bat. Coming out of college as an engineer, you don’t have any practical experience. And those civil engineers took me under their wings and showed me what design was all about and how they took care of me. I also saw the blue collar workers, the shop foreman, how they took those young Airmen under their wings to help them be proficient in their particular specialty. Over the years I have experienced some phenomenal civilians. There was one civilian that profoundly changed my life. We both arrived at the Pentagon for our first assignment. I was a 12-year major at the time. He got promoted to GS-13. I’ll call him Dennis. Dennis had more breadth of experience than any of us, any of the military had that were on the headquarter staff at the time. Dennis was a Vietnam veteran, Green Beret. Suffered significant injuries during Vietnam, almost killed him. But he chose public service. I had a discussion with him. I said, Dennis, why did you choose public service? He said, I heard President Kennedy’s call to public service. He said, I was hooked. During the years that I was at the Pentagon with Dennis during my first assignment, Dennis had a profound impact on every military officer. Very subtly he was mentoring everybody. So fast forward a few years after I had a few assignments, I came back to the Pentagon. I was told I was coming back to the Pentagon. Dennis was now a GS-15. Dennis was now holding that division together after it was going through significant turmoil. Dennis said, I’ll be here to help you transition. So when I came back to the Pentagon on the first day, Dennis never really looked good because of his Vietnam experience. Dennis really did not look good. I asked him, what’s going on? What he told me emotionally really had an impact on me. He said, if I went to the doctor, I wouldn’t be here to help you transition. And I will tell you, that day had a profound impact on me. Dennis took me to staff meeting. It was in the basement. We were on the fifth floor. Going down the stairs was fine. Coming back, it took us 20 minutes to walk up those five flights. We had to stop at every platform so Dennis could catch his breath. When we got back to the office, first thing I did was I told Dennis, just let’s settle what you need to get done. You’re going home this afternoon. Dennis had a quadruple bypass the end of the week. He took two months off, and he came back, and he was his old self, just a bit slower. Continued mentoring me, continued helping the entire staff there. You know, with the mission. All I can say about Dennis is that he was what I would epitomize as the absolute professional civilian. He defined servant leadership well before we started talking about servant leadership. I had the honor of retiring Dennis, and unfortunately, he passed within about two years of his service. Way, way too early. But when I was selected for SES, Dennis continued to mentor me. I know you find this a little funny, but he also told me about how to dress for the civilian to be a good-looking civilian. He was impeccable in his dress. He mentored me during my early years as at SES, also making me more attuned to the sensitivities of the civilian workforce. So from the day one in the Air Force to the time I retired where I was overseeing civilian force development for the Air Force, I have been so proud and honored to work with incredible civilians in my Air Force time.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Okay. After that I don’t think I have any more questions. But Bob, thank you very, very much for that story about Dennis. I think somehow he probably heard that today. I think that’s just representative of what a lot of us have experienced throughout our careers by having both military and civilians being mentors to all of us. So I’m going to kind of go a little bit out of order here based on those great remarks, Bob. One of the key strengths of our civilian corps is trusted relationships as Bob just pointed out with military leaders, with external partners and across organizations. Starting with, we’ll start with Marilyn this time. How can we strengthen the culture of collaboration so that civilians and military are seen as one team in the Department of the Air Force?
Marilyn Thomas:
Well, I think a couple of things. And you know, having colleagues in uniform that understand the importance that civilians bring and I like the term continuity, but continuity has changed over the years. They used to mean you left a desk and you left a smart book. So the person who came behind you had that smart book and they could learn what they needed to do to do that job. The way I look at continuity now, having been through and certainly during Bob and General Gorentz’s tenure, many different operations. And I heard on one of the panels yesterday, it was how do we expand the industrial base. And one of the gentlemen said when the nation goes to war, when the nation goes to battle, they bring the industrial base with them. And I think the understanding that when the nation goes to war, they bring the civilian workforce with them too. They may not be on the front lines, but having had the privilege of during some of these times of extremists going out to installations and seeing how civilians were keeping sorties going, they were keeping money flowing, they were keeping parts flowing, they were advocating for resources, they were going to the Hill in some cases to advocate for supplemental funds. And I think that combined effort so the operators can focus on the mission that they need to be focused on, which is often on the front lines, and I think just the understanding of how that collaboration, how that works together. So I think the appreciation on both sides. I will say from a civilian standpoint, and I always stress doing the IDE, the SDE, learning about the operational world as a civilian. Because having that knowledge and that appreciation for the requirements and what is needed was critically important to be an effective partner. And then in turn, the relationships, which take time. They take time to develop. But those trusted relationships every time I think made us a pretty effective team during some of the hardest times.
Kathleen Ferguson:
That was great, Marilyn. Bob?
Robert E. Corsi, Jr.:
I think you can all be proud for your Air Force. Back in 2019, they did an informal survey, the Senior Executive Association of all the federal agencies in terms of who developed their civilians the best. And they’re saying nobody came close, federal-wide, to what the Air Force does and how it develops its civilian. Back in 2000, there was an effort to make sure that the military, as Marilyn mentioned, that the civilians had the same experiences as the military. So there was a concerted effort to expand civilian force development for civilians to have career broadening opportunities, for them to attend in-resident PME. There was an effort to give civilians leadership positions. There weren’t commanders where commanders may have filled those positions before, but they were now directors. The whole idea was to make leadership seamless between the civilians and the military. So all during any transition, you would basically not lose a step in terms of that mission accomplishment. And there has been a very concerted effort over the years to fund that ability. And the Air Force has been one of the best in protecting those monies for the civilian force development. Because my last data point was that nobody came close to the monies that Air Force, the tens of millions of dollars that Air Force committed to civilian force development. But you know, we heard continuity, but the emphasis should be on seamless. When I was on active duty and then in the SES side, during a 10-year period of time, I had nine one-star generals as bosses. So when we talk about seamless leadership, it’s absolutely critical in the organizations in order to be able to complete and meet all of those missions demands. So when we talk about the importance of civilian leadership, I can only say that it’s absolutely critical day in and day out that you have a trained, professional, leader capability civilian workforce that while we have our military, especially when you get to certain grades, every two years you have to move in order to meet certain types of milestones. When it comes to general officers, if you can have a general officer boss in two years, that’s wonderful. I did not have that until I got more senior, where we were changing the general officers over every year because we wanted those general officers to get that particular experience under their belt so that they could assume that next level. For a senior civilian, you don’t get a seat at the table unless you bring significant technical qualifications, because that’s why you are there in all those senior forms. So all I can say is my word is seamless leadership when it comes to what we have in the Air Force and how critical it is.
Gen. Frank Gorenc, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah, I want to just kind of piggyback on some of the comments. With respect to the question of how do you take this workforce that we have and make it as seamless as possible, my belief is that that work has to happen at the workplace level. There has to be a trust developed. There has to be an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of a civilian versus an active duty or a guard or reserve officer. I think that in my experience, it’s just hard work, and it requires a lot of inclusion. It requires a trust. If I’m the active duty, if I come to a staff and I’m an active duty division chief, do I allow my civilian deputy to make decisions while I’m on leave? Well, of course we want that. Why wouldn’t we do that? If you don’t allow that, we’re basically taking away the very advantage of this diverse workforce that we have. But for me, the continuity was very important. I thought it was kind of funny. I’m done being an ops group commander at Kadena. Man, I can generate 250 sorties a day. I get an assignment and they go, “Hey, you’re going to the joint staff and you’re going to do senior level war games for the director of the joint staff.” I go, “Yeah, let me package up all that experience I have in that and go to the Pentagon.” So I rolled into an organization that had a direct report civilian to me, and I understood that I needed to be developed in this area. I needed that continuity. It was Lisa Disbro at the time. You may know her. We developed a good working relationship and an understanding of what were our advantages and what were our disadvantages. Where can she help me? Where can I help her? And it’s that very interaction in the workplace that allows those that work with us to basically come to the conclusion that, you know what? This civilian, this military, this guard reserve mix is the right way to fly, fight, and win anytime, anywhere. You know, and you have to have discussions on what is the mission. I’ll be perfectly honest. In my experience, I’ve walked into many workplaces and say, “What’s the mission of the United States Air Force?” Some people don’t even know. So I would encourage to take the demand that in the workplace we continue to develop our people at all levels. And for me, development in the Air Force was simple. We get trained, we get educated, and then we have on-the-job experiences. That three-legged stool of professional development has to be balanced. Otherwise, your contributions to the mission can’t be optimized. But that takes a lot of work to do. But I can assure you that we have the right people in place to be able to do that. You just have to, you know, develop that trust, know that and be confident that the subject matter expertise is there, and then move on. And at that point, we become more seamless. And even in my career, I was a direct report to a civilian, and I had civilians that were a direct report to me. You know, and it was hard for me to understand the civilian, you know, professional development path, you know, because it’s always developing. And it was hard for my civilian boss to understand, you know, what I needed, too. But I let him know. And that’s — so communication, trust in the workplace is, I think, the best way to take advantage of the civilians and the rest of the diverse workforce.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Thanks, General. So I wanted to reach back a little bit and talk about what the Secretary talked about yesterday on innovation and the need to innovate faster than our adversaries. And starting with Bob, I’d like to ask you, how can the Department better leverage civilians? A lot of the civilians have private sector experience, academic backgrounds. How can we leverage our civilian expertise to drive the innovation that the Department needs so quickly?
Robert E. Corsi, Jr.:
This is a tough question. Many of our civilians grew up in the Air Force. They came in expecting a career. For our young civilians coming in, that — they don’t even think of a career. They’re looking at opportunities. They’re looking at their development as to where they can go to get some great experience so that they can think about that next chapter. So when it comes to leveraging civilians, in my view, we need to change our mindset in terms of recognizing that these young, talented people coming in may not be with us, you know, for a 35-year career. They may want to stay with us for four or five years, but then they may want to go on and do something else. And I would applaud that. And if they did a great job, in my view, I would get them some type of an award to thank them for their work. But we also need to be able to accept them back after they’ve gotten maybe some commercial experience and they want to come back now to help the Air Force, you know, to be better because of that experience that they got. My view is we need to change kind of our mentality in terms of attracting talent, allowing them to go out and come back. And that is a paradigm shift that, you know, is very difficult for a lot of our older civilian leaders to accept who have grown up for 35 and 40 years in the system. But from my standpoint, that’s the only way we’re going to be able to leverage all that changing technology, how rapid it is, and those college graduates coming out with that incredible talent. But we also need to recognize that, you know, over time, talents get a bit old. So we need to look at innovative ways as to how can we keep replenishing that, allowing into civilians to come into the system, thanking them, but also having easier ways for them to come back, maybe not through a rigorous competitive process, but allowing them to come back with that new technology to help us move forward.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Marilyn?
Marilyn Thomas:
So I agree. Encouraging that innovation and investment in technology is imperative. I also think allowing people, I mean, it really comes down to risk and our appetite for risk and allowing people to take risk. I sat in the industrial base panel yesterday that Hock Carlyle moderated, which was really good. And one of the gentlemen said, hey, you know, in industry where, you know, there’s vast innovation going on, you don’t change out the C-suite every three years or every year. And so I think one of the things, and it registered to me, and I thought, you know, that’s one of the things that the civilian workforce can bring is, you know, and back to the continuity, you know, we get to live with the decisions we made sometimes. You know, and Lord knows I’ve made a few bad decisions that I got to live with and fix over the course of my career because I was there, you know, for a certain amount of time. You know, for example, like the POM. I would help participate in building the POM. Oh, by the way, I had to defend the budget. And oh, by the way, I had to execute it. It’s like eating your own dog food, right. So I think, you know, the continuity aspect, there’s also an accountability aspect, too. You know that the decisions that you make today are going to be ones that your workforce or you will live with in the next budget cycle or the next, you know, whatever cycle. And so I think, you know, allowing people to make those mistakes and to bring their innovative capabilities, and you know, the workforce I see coming in today is far more adaptive and innovative than I certainly was when I came into the workforce 40 years ago. I mean, they figure stuff out quickly. And how do we continue to allow those people to develop and make those mistakes without punishment, without punitive action, I think is the best way to keep them in the workforce and teach them, you know, how to help be that continuity as they grow through the ranks. That would be my recommendation that I took from that panel yesterday.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Thank you, Marilyn. General?
Gen. Frank Gorenc, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah, I agree that, you know, the discussion about how do we get talent, move them in and move them out, you know, and all of that, that’s been an ongoing discussion. And I think it’s even worse now. And I’ll never forget when we began talking about AI, you know, the vice chief says, “Hey, do a scrub and tell me how many data scientists we have in the United States Air Force.” You know, I think they came up with six. You know, so in the context of new technologies, fast-moving technologies, you know, the idea that we’re going to be able to do all the processes that were mandated to do using expertise inside of our professional civilian force and our active duty in an area like AI, but you pick whatever you want to talk about. But the bottom line is we find ourselves, you know, a little bit flat-footed, and obviously we go to contracted, you know, kind of things to kind of catch up on that. So yeah, the technology and the needs of what the workforce needs to be able to do normally doesn’t catch up quick. The other one that I’ll introduce, if I may, is I just read an article where General Harris talks about we need to get back to our expeditionary roots in the United States Air Force. Well, yeah, we’ve done that before once. Do you remember that after the first Gulf War? And I’ll tell you, it was super painful, super painful, because we went from an in-garrison force to a no-fly zone, let’s deploy everybody. And now we’re talking about agile combat support. So the question for all of us is rhetorical. What does that mean for the composition of our workforce? You know, if you want expertise in all the innovation and you want continuity, who’s gonna deploy? I mean, that’s the fundamental problem. And I know the Air Force has a way ahead on this, but all of us really have responsibility for this discussion. What do we need? Because of the innovation and because of the expeditionary nature of our Air Force, what should the mix be of civilians and active duty and guard and reserve at ACC, at Global Strike or whatever? This is like an ongoing project, and we’re able to, and we have been able to up to this point, been able to compensate for those changes in a spectacularly successful way. Because as you know, and the chief highlighted yesterday, when our nation calls on the United States Air Force and the United States Space Force, guess what? We deliver. And we do it because of that workforce. Nothing’s guaranteed in the future, but we’re still gonna have to work hard to develop trust and integrate the workforce in the workplace to continue with that success.
Kathleen Ferguson:
Thank you, General. So as we close, I want to highlight just three takeaways. I hope everyone feels today that after the discussion and based on your experiences, those are not just support, they’re really integral to mission success. And I debated whether or not to tell this story or not, but standing up here for the last 40 minutes, I feel compelled to do this as we come to the end of the fiscal year and a potential, another government shutdown. I was in the Las Vegas airport in February of this year, and I was sitting in the lounge, and there were four gentlemen sitting at a table right next to me. And one was obviously recently retired Air Force officer. Another was a young contractor. The third, actually, the third person was a Frenchman. And then the last was a contractor. And they basically said, and I was extraordinarily upset that civilians are useless and they get free time off. And what I would just tell you is that was one of the most hurtful conversations I had heard having given 35 years of my life to the Department of the Air Force. And I’m not unlike thousands of our Air Force civilians around the globe. So as we come to the end of the fiscal year and the civilians are likely, well, will get furloughed if the Congress doesn’t pass a budget, just know that they don’t want to be home. They want to be at work. They want to be standing shoulder to shoulder with our military folks out there. So I’m sorry, it’s not the Dennis story, but I had to relay that on behalf of all of our civilians out there. But really going back to Dennis, you know, the professionalism, the mentorship with folks like Dennis, institutional memory, diversity of the workforce really are strategic advantages to the department that we can’t afford to overlook. As General Gorenc pointed out, communications are so critically important. And Bob knows this way better than anybody is the need to invest in development of our civilians and integrate them into the day-to-day business, innovation partners, partnerships to strengthen the entire total force. So I want to say thank you to our great panelists up here, General Gorin, Mrs. Thomas, Mr. Corsi, thank you for your candor and also for your service. And for all of you in here, you know, the Department of the Air Force is going to continue to face new challenges, but with our military and civilian professionals working together, I’m confident that we’re going to succeed. And I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference.