Tobin Family Website

Jul 16 2008

Time Winding Down to Retirement

It is still hard for me to believe, but I have been in the Air Force about 19 years now. What started out as a nifty way to pay for college turned into a very enjoyable and interesting career. I never planned on staying in past the 4-years I owed in return for my 4-year ROTC scholarship, but here I am with just one year to go until I can retire and start my second career. In hindsight, it is kind of interesting to look back at the events that led me down this path. While some people plan out their whole career in advance, I have taken it much more one day at a time with shorter term goals.

The events that led me to the Air Force were born out of financial necessity. In my junior year in high school, I decided that a college degree was “the right thing to do”. Knowing that my best option to get there was through a scholarship of some sort, I applied to West Point Military Academy and for an Air Force ROTC scholarship. I was just about to get screened for West Point when the Air Force offered me a 4-year scholarship. Needless to say, I liked the prospect of 1 day a week in ROTC, versus 7-days a week at an academy. I also like the career opportunities in the Air Force and thought they would more easily port into a civilian career later on. Wanting to enjoy my college years, I opted to go to the University of Vermont and join the Air Force.

After graduating from UVM, my first assignment was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where I became an acquisition project manager. I managed reliability, environmental, and acceptance testing of a low altitude targeting system called LANTIRN, a weapon system deployed on F-15 and F-16 aircraft. It was a fun program and I learned a lot about systems engineering and large scale development and production programs. Karen and I also got married about 9 months after I joined. At the 3-year point, and with 1-year to go on my commitment to the Air Force, I decided that I might need to pursue my Master’s degree before getting out. It was also 1992 and the economy was not doing so well, so I opted to stay in and applied to attend the Air Force Institute of Technology, a graduate school on the base. I was ultimately accepted and spent 18-months as a full-time student getting a Master’s of Science in Software Acquisition Management. This tacked on another 4-year committment. I pinned on Captain while at AFIT.

After graduating from AFIT, we moved to Los Angeles where I worked as a Project Manager on Military Satellite Communications Systems. The first system I worked on was an old 1960’s era satellite system called the Defense Systems Communication Satellite, or DSCS. I managed a program that was refurbishing unlaunched satellites to extend their on-orbit design life by improving their solar panels, station-keeping thrusters, and their communications transmitters. After I got that effort on contract and through preliminary design, they moved me over to another communications satellite system called MILSTAR to manage the continued development of its ground control software in advance of launching a new payload (someone found out I had a software management degree). Ben was born while we lived in the Los Angeles area.

We left Los Angeles in 1998 and moved to Satellite Beach, Florida, where I worked as a project manager on the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or Joint STARS. It is an airborne radar like AWACS (the plane with the big dish on it), but on Joint STARS the radar is on the belly of the plane like a big canoe and it tracks ground activity (not airborne activity). I worked at the Joint Test Force, which was collocated at the contractor’s facility. We were responsible for testing all development upgrades to the system, and we had a Boeing-707 test aircraft that would be flown all over the country to support testing. I ultimately became the Director of Plans and Programs and was responsible for managing the annual budget of the Test Force, making sure that we could support all of our test missions and keep our test pilots and test engineers current and proficient. I also managed a 50-head contract for all of our engineering and IT support. It was a great assignment that afforded me the opportunity to travel as a crew member with our test aircraft to participate in an Air Show in Boston (an odd opportunity for an acquisition officer). Delaney was also born while we lived in Satellite Beach. I pinned on Major while at this assignment. At this point, I could have gotten out of the Air Force again, but I was having too much fun and was over halfway to retirement, so I decided to stay in.

On to the Pentagon in March 2001, where I worked for the Secretary of the Air Force in the Acquisition office as an Air Force liaison for missile defense funded programs. I was responsible for the financial execution of over 80-programs being executed at Air Force bases worldwide in support of the Missile Defense Agency. It was during this assignment that 9/11 occurred. For a retrospective on my experiences that day, you can click HERE to read my post that I wrote on the 5th anniversary of that tragic day. The second half of my assignment at the Pentagon, I was a Program Element Monitor for the Air Force’s fleet of gas turbine engines. I was responsible for advocating and defending the budget used to fund reliability and safety programs for the entire Air Force jet engine inventory.

On to Eglin Air Force Base in late 2003 where I was the Program Manager and Division Chief for several weapons programs. While there, I was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was appointed as the first Commander of the 693d Armament Systems Squadron, which was developing multi-ship F-16 precision targeting upgrades to the High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) Targeting System as well as some other programs. We enjoyed living near the beach yet again, an really enjoyed the beautiful white sands of the Gulf Coast. While there, we evacuated 3 times due to hurricanes, but never suffered any significant damage.

Finally, in the summer of 2006, we moved back to the DC area where I worked as a program manager and now branch chief for geospatial-intelligence programs. While this is not what I expected to be doing in my final years in the Air Force, I have to say that I have come to enjoy it and am considering a follow-on career with the Agency to which I am currently assigned.

Again, it is hard to believe that 19 years have rolled by. It barely seems possible. I am just 1-short year away from being able to get out and draw a military pension while starting a second career. I am thankful to the Air Force for the many great opportunities and adventure (including a trip to Korea (with stops in Alaska and Japan), a 90-minute ride in an F-16, and travel to/through almost every state in the country). At the end of August, I will start preparing for retirement by attending a Transition Assistane Program class, a 4-day course aimed at preparing military retirees for civilian life. It is just the first step in a series of activities that will lead to my planned retirement in October 2009. The big unanswered question is…..what to do next?!