Today, I assume command of the Air Force Research Laboratory. I’m both excited and in awe of the impressive track record of Air Force laboratories, responsible for many of the advances made during the initial century of manned flight.

At AFRL, our mission directs us to lead the discovery, development, and integration of affordable warfighting technologies for our nation’s air and space force. Successful execution of this mission comes in two components—the rapid transition of today’s technologies to the user while simultaneously keeping an eye on the technologies of tomorrow necessary for an uncertain future. To keep pace with a changing and complex world, we rely upon world-class scientists, engineers, and support personnel executing and assisting world-class research.

AFRL’s workforce provides valued outcomes to both present and future customers—our operators and our partners in industry and academia—none of whom can afford to wait for us to reactively adapt to change. For success, AFRL employs “agility.” Agility within AFRL means that we must identify future needs and anticipate the changes required to accommodate a new environment. Moreover, agility means anticipating change and, therefore, being proactively adaptive. This is a tall order but necessary for delivering effective combat capability in an era of accelerated change.

In 1996, the Air Force officially recognized the need for agility, and by consolidating our predecessor labs into the ten present-day directorates, made sure that we were all tugging on the same rope. Gone are the days where multiple directorates are working on similar projects in multiple ways. The AFRL of today is an organization with a single, focused, vital mission equipped with the right people, in the right place, doing the right work.

In the midst of this culture and bolstered by the world’s top scientists and engineers working on the world’s best equipment in support of the world’s most powerful air and space force, we are confident that our tradition of success will continue.

Success begets success, and all of our successes begin with vision. We share in the Air Force vision and work hard to develop the right technologies in support of that vision. That makes our contribution and our Air Force successful! We are proud of our accomplishments and their importance to national defense. Accordingly, I want the women and men of AFRL to say with pride, “We'll help deliver clear skies and dominant airpower for the next 25 years."

I’m eager to lead the Air Force Research Laboratory in the dawn of manned flight’s second century. I proudly take command of a tremendously important and exciting organization packed with great people, and can only imagine what the future holds as we continue to turn the impossible into reality.