Update from the brief:
He talked for about an hour, then took questions. I've never met the man before, just heard about him from others. I left quite impressed with him and proud to be in his MAJCOM. The bro's I talked with afterward are hopeful that he'll be CSAF one day. He talked about alot of topics, but I'll just hit the highlights. If you've got questions on a particular topic or answer, please ask and I might be able to remember more of what was said.
Problem: Fighter pilot retention. Pilot retention overall isn't ideal, but not bad. 11F trends however anticipate by 2020 there will be a shortfall of over a 1,000 fighter pilots. That's why he had the focus he did. I interpreted the stats to say that he heard from more than 200 people, but only about half were 11Fs. He said he did read every single response, and he's putting them into a booklet form that he will give to other MAJCOM CC's. He said since many of the responses were from other commands, those 4-stars might want to know about them too.
Trends: He said there was no overall one trend. Many people wrote in saying "Boss, here's the one thing you need to fix to make everything better". However they were all different and in some cases contradictory. He said one person wrote saying that WIC grads are being passed over for rank and gucci assignments because they're too busy in the vault for PME and AAD. Another person from the exact same squadron wrote in saying that the problem was WIC grads get all the good deals and the rest of us get the dregs. He didn't comment on the validity of either point, only mentioned it to show that everyone had a different perspective and different reason.
Overall there were 7 main trends, the top three being PME&Masters, Assignments, and Manning. He said he was interested to find that only 3-4 people mentioned the RIF.
PME&Masters: He agreed these were bullshit. He said he though the same when he was a Lt. He polled 13 other 4-stars and all but one of them agreed that AADs before Lt Col were right out. They presented this to the CSAF and are pushing the change, but apparently it requires SECAF support. Standby to standby. He claimed credit for getting rid of ASBC. He's aware the length of SOS increased. AU had the excuse that they have a list of 149 different required learning objectives that must be taught in BDE, which is why SOS had to grow. He told them to give him the list because he's "pretty sure I can trim that down some for you". Expect SOS to change as well. He is pushing for your records to only reflect that you completed SOS, not whether you went in res or not. To prevent group and wing leadership from making people do it twice, he is trying to place a block in the system that will prevent someone with a slot for in-res to enroll or complete SOS in correspondence. His goal is 100% in res completion with no correspondence. This one is still in the works, but he claims other 4-star backing and is taking it to Corona.
Assignments: He's aware TAMI21 was a kick in the nuts. He said the AF didn't lie to anyone, but the truth changed. The scope and need for the UAV changed drastically from the 2006 to now. The need isn't going away, so the only way to immediately solve the UAV manning problem is to reduce supply. The SECDEF emphatically told the CSAF "thou shalt not reduce supply". He said the CSAF is stuck in a tight spot and it eats him up that he has to do this to people. There isn't much he can do about this one.
Manning, or doing more with less: Manning draw downs are the nature of the beast. This will not change. What can change is what we're required to do. He has assembled a list of taskings in USAFE that people think are BS. He made a top 10 list and has his vice working on them. Common kickbacks from queep masters were "We'd love to not do that, but AFI69-### says..." He said "I'm the USAF CC, I'm pretty sure I can change an AFI". If he thinks it's a bullshit tasking that is costing dudes on the line time, he wants it gone. He knows there's a disconnect of yes-men in the middle, so he's having regular meetings with wing cc's to stay on top of this.
He's going to take all these things and keep pushing them. He said he's not afraid to keep bringing them up to higher ups because "I'm a 4-star general, I'm not worried about getting promoted anymore".
There was a lot more he talked about with many other interesting comments, but these were the highlights as I saw them. Was there anything else someone was looking forward to hearing about?