Sheppard Live

29 July 2010

Eye On Sheppard Launches

Sheppard launched the first edition today of what will eventually become a weekly video news update: Eye on Sheppard.

The program will be produced monthly through September, then twice monthly for October, November and December. The goal is to produce Eye On Sheppard weekly beginning with the new year.

28 July 2010

Brig Gen Burke: Setting Clear Priorities

The third in a series of articles setting forth the 82nd Training Wing commander's leadership philosophy was published today on the Sheppard public web site.

(If you missed Brig. Gen. Darryl Burke's first two articles, you can find them here and here)

This week's topic: Priorities.

General Burke uses the Air Force priorities laid out in the latest Chief of Staff Vector as an example:

"The chief then lists the five priorities one by one. Notice that they are simple, clear and easily understandable—five straightforward lines set the priorities for an organization as large and complex as the Air Force.
"General Schwartz explains each priority, why it’s important and what he needs us to do. Air Force people are an intelligent group; they are not easily fooled by platitudes or the clever turn of a phrase. But they are also determined and innovative—explain why something matters and what needs to get done and they will find a way to make it happen, no matter what the obstacles."

Other key clips:

"One common mistake leaders make is failing to use their own priorities as a leadership tool. There is no point in setting priorities if you don’t use them to make decisions about how to use time, money and other resources..."
"The leader’s job is to sift through the noise and focus on what’s most important, or we will confuse and frustrate the people we lead. We’ve all had the experience of working in a 'crisis of the day' environment—don’t do that to your people.
"It’s also a mistake to make everything a priority. Leaders, by nature, tend to want to succeed at everything all the time, but the fact is that we simply can’t do everything—or at least we can’t do it by close of business tomorrow. If everything is a priority, then nothing is."

General Burke closes by asking for your input. So what do you think? Whether you have a comment about setting priorities in general, or about what the wing's priorities should be--he wants to hear from you. Use the comment function below to let your voice be heard.

17 June 2010

82nd Training Wing welcomes new commander

Brig. Gen. Darryl W. Burke took command of the 82nd Training Wing June 16 during a change of command ceremony officiated by 2nd Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog.

"AETC is an important command that is critiqued every day by every supervisor in our Air Force as our new Airmen arrive at their first duty assignments," General Burke said. "The expectations are high and Sheppard plays a vital role as the largest technical training wing in our Air Force and the home of Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training."