SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (Nov. 2, 2021) – The Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (SEAC), Ramon Colón-López, kicked off U.S. Transportation Command’s (USTRANSCOM) enlisted professional development speaker series outlining the foundation of a program that will deliberately cultivate tomorrow’s enlisted warfighters.
“Think panoramically,” said Colón-López. The nation’s highest enlisted leader emphasized the value of this strategy in a future operating environment which he said may not entail bullets being fired but would more likely be a series of actions that disrupt national security. “Uncertainty is the only certainty.”
Colón-López is a former U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. (SEAC is an official rank and the only joint rank that exists) and pararescueman. He will tell you that he doesn’t represent a single service; he represents all of them and he’s dedicated to the joint enlisted warfighter.
Colón-López and the service senior enlisted advisors defined the attributes needed to fight tomorrow’s wars in guidance released by the Department of Defense earlier this year.
He described a joint warfighter that maintains the core values of their service while understanding how each service’s core competencies enable mission accomplishment across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace domains.
USTRANSCOM’s Senior Enlisted Leader, Fleet Master Chief Donald Myrick, invited the SEAC to speak to USTRANSCOM to reinforce the importance of understanding the other services. Myrick is moving out on his promise to develop the joint enlisted force within the transportation enterprise.
“When I arrived at USTRANSCOM, I asked the enlisted force what they would be taking back to their respective services after their joint tour was finished. The answers indicated our enlisted force was leaving with no tangible return on investment. We’ve always offered fantastic opportunities to gain joint experience, but the formal education piece was missing,” said Myrick.
Myrick explained that joint education requirements for officers are formalized in law by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. No equivalent exists for enlisted members.
Myrick’s team, led by the command’s First Sergeant, U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. David Velazquez, aligned a formal training program with Colón-López’s and the service senior enlisted advisors’ critical leadership attributes: Intellect, credibility, accountability, agility, and discipline.
USTRANSCOM now has a robust course curriculum to support development of those attributes.
“As an example, we have formal courses in emotional intelligence to support the attribute of intellect, and courses in critical thinking and problem solving to support the attribute of agility,” said Velazquez.
Critical to Myrick’s vision was the inclusion of education on the culture and history of each of the services.
For example, Myrick saw that a U.S. Navy member supervising a U.S. Air Force member had limited understanding of the subordinate’s performance measures. And not just measures written down in service regulations, but those that are unwritten and part of their service culture.
U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Brandon Collier works in USTRANSCOM’s Operations Directorate and appreciates the training in service culture. “This opportunity is going to be invaluable moving forward. Having a supervisor from another service can and should be a positive experience that leaves a lasting impact on an enlisted member’s career. We have to get this right.”
Colón-López encouraged the enlisted members in the audience to be accountable to those they lead. “Shape them…every single one of you is capable.”
