Photo By Katherine Spessa | Col. Neil Richardson addresses the Soldier, Sailors and Airmen of Joint Base...... read more read more
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Even the simplest of military flight operations requires professionally trained aircrew members to follow precise procedures. During training, aircrew members are given checklists to follow step-by-step, required to conduct a successful safe flight.
For U.S. Air Force Col. Neil R. Richardson, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and 87th Air Base Wing commander, this was his life. He started his Air Force career in 1995 as a C-130 Hercules navigator. The job process was straight forward and clear, there was no gray-area in the process.
As Richardson advanced in his career, he moved up the ladder of leadership roles throughout multiple Air Force entities – squadron commander, group deputy commander, wing vice commander, etc. – Finally landing the installation commander position at Joint Base MDL in 2017.
“It was certainly going to be a new challenge,” Richardson said. “I wasn’t really sure what to think of the joint base commander dual hatting piece, so it took me quite a while, to fully grasp what that meant; the authority and the responsibilities of the job itself.”
Rodrick Davis, 87th ABW executive director, said it was interesting to see Richardson’s thought process transition from an operator mindset to a new supporting entity role. Davis stated the balance of the joint base and 87th ABW command position while also understanding how they blend within each other, is complicated. The dual-hat position does not always have “black and white” problems and solutions.
As Richardson was educated on the history of the 87th ABW, it was clear to him that the wing needed to change.
“I knew that I wanted to operationalize this wing, so when I got here I started to recognize that there was not a lot of processes. I’m a process guy, right? I’m a checklist guy. I realized there was not a lot of that here,” said Richardson.
Although the wing still is a customer service-based organization, Richardson pinpointed areas that previously had not been focused on. He wanted to get the Airmen ready for what was next: sending them out to be successful in contingency environments. Richardson said getting back to that mindset was not something he was expecting to do, but welcomed the challenge since most of his background fell under that aspect.
Being an installation commander comes with many responsibilities. Richardson’s joint base command position gave him plenty of projects that coincided with these tasks, one of which was to advocate what the base stood for and represented.
“One of the big things that he really pushed in the two years he’s been here is for everybody across the board to acknowledge that this is Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and to identify themselves as “I work at JBMDL,”” said Davis. “He has really tried to get us to identify as one entity, not three separate ones. Even though we are only ten years into being a joint base, Col. Richardson has made some big successful strides in the identification of the installation. To me, I think that was one of his bigger successes.”
Joint Base MDL was faced with the challenge to have its community recognized as a whole rather than its annexes seen separately.
Since the creation of the joint base in 2009, the memorandum of agreement between the three installations had not changed. It was originally written to merge the bases together and build a foundation for the services to begin a cohesive working relationship.
“It was War and Peace written for the stand-up of a joint base, not the sustainment of a joint base,” said Richardson. “I started to realize very quickly that we had to address the rewrite of the MOA. That’s one of those things that I wish I could’ve gotten across the finish line. There is so much to rebuilding that thing and so many hands in the bowl that it’s hard to do. I don’t know that I fully understood what I was getting into coming here.”
Having a 20 year operational background gave Richardson an advantage from previous Joint Base MDL installation commanders. This enabled him to address the same reoccurring issues and proposals in a new light which directly affects working relations and the outside community.
“He was a breath of fresh air in the job because we are both operators and think the same way,” said Davis. “In my conversations I’ve had with him in the last couple months, I know he feels there is so much more that he thinks he could do for this base if he had more time, but I also think he is ready to start this new chapter in his life.”
Richardson completed two years commanding America’s only tri-service installation housing all five services whose missions and training blend into one another, demanding him to drive his ambition, innovation and motivation at full speed. As his last week wraps up, Richardson prepares for his change of command ceremony here and marks off his last box in the mission checklist as commander of Joint Base MDL.
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 10.02.2019 16:37 |
| Story ID: | 333882 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 18 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, An operator navigates a world of leadership, by SSgt Ariel Owings, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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