LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, Ark. -- Team Little Rock was had the unique opportunity to speak to Mobility Airmen who set the stage for how we continue to ensure agile combat airlift all over the world.
Retired Gen. Duncan McNabb and retired Chief Master Sgt. Mike Kerver discussed lessons learned throughout their careers and fielded questions from Airmen about leadership, readiness and other strategic topics during a leadership panel Feb. 9th, 2018, at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark.
McNabb ended his more than 37 years of service as the U.S. Transportation Commander and previously served as the 33rd Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Prior to that, he commanded Air Mobility Command, one of the three service commands comprising USTRANSCOM.
Chief Kerver also represented over 43,000 mobility Airmen at more than 70 world-wide locations as the AMC Command Chief before he retired after 30 years of service.
With nearly 70 years of military service between them, McNabb and Kerver were able to share insight on what it means to lead.
“I made a point to learn. You must pay attention and listen to your people because those people take care of the mission despite what the conditions are,” Kerver said. I would encourage everyone to lead with purpose and vison.”
The panel also spoke on the strength of our resilience and building on an already great foundation.
“If anybody ever asked me about taking on the U.S., I say it’s not the assets, it’s the joint force and the way we work together that makes us so far from any thing we ever thought possible and that’s what 17 years of combat operations will give you,” McNabb said.
Sustained excellence is key and is done through professionalism, training and communication, according to McNabb.
“You think about other nations, they might have a lot of money and nice weapon systems, they got all that stuff, but what they don’t have is personnel that think the way we do and quite frankly they don’t have the professionalism we have in our enlisted core, nobody has that,” McNabb said.