Tobin Family Website

I just checked the Tobin Family Website and realized that I hadn’t posted here in quite some time.  I guess with hockey season well underway, I have spent most of my free blogging time over at http://NHLPens.com and have neglected keeping the family site up to date.  Additionally, I have been engaging with family and friends through Facebook (http://www.facebook.com), which is quite a great application for reconnecting with people and keeping up to date with them.  Since I last posted, I have turned another year older and supposedly wiser, and we also ate some Thanksgiving turkey (good for us, not so good for the turkey)!  Unfortunately, we still haven’t won the lottery, but it is still high on our list of priorities!

With time winding down on my Air Force career, I officially submitted my retirement application last week.  It will take four to six weeks for the Air Force to review and approve my application, but I have requested an effective date of retirement of 1 November 2009.  That means that the clock is now ticking.  What a wonderful time to join the ranks of the unemployed….right when the economy is going down the crapper!  Better judgement would dictate that maybe I stay in a bit longer and ride out the recession, but I think it is time to turn the page and continue the next chapter in our lives and in my career.  The big question remains, what will that chapter be?  Only time will tell, but I continue to scope out the options and have some leads. 

Karen has been working a fair amount lately as she continues to substitute at Delaney’s school.  Somedays she absolutely loves it, somedays not.  A lot depends on the class that she gets and whether they are controllable or not.  This past week one of her students put liquid soap in about half of the other students water bottles.  I guess she ended up having to have all the kids shake their bottles, and if they bubbled up they had to toss them.  I think that was one of those “love it not” days for Karen.  This past week she taught in Delaney’s class which she really enjoyed.  Delaney also loved having her mom as the sub. 

Speaking of Delaney, she continues to grow and is becoming a wonderful young lady.  It blows my mind how incredibly smart she has become.   She has adapted quite well to Virginia and has developed a number of good friendships.  Tonight she is staying at a friend’s house and will be going to a Christmas party with her in the morning.  She has stayed over at this house once or twice before, and her friend has had a couple of sleep overs here as well.  This past week she helped me decorate the yard with Christmas lights.  We hung the icicle lights from the front porch and wrapped three trees in lights in the front yard.  We also put some lighted wreaths on the porch and on the front windows.  It looks pretty good….we just need some snow now!  Delaney is a very smart and creative girl.  She is also very artistic and loves to draw pictures and make things.  Her penmanship is flawless (unlike Ben) and her drawings are all very good with lots of interesting details.  We try to encourage her to keep drawing. 

Ben is continuing to grow like a weed.  I think he grew over an inch in the last two months.  He is starting to look like a young teenager, and he is not yet 12 (January 20th).  Ben continues to play the trumpet and has gotten very good in a short period of time. I don’t remember picking it up that fast when I was his age, but maybe my memory fails me.  He also wants to learn guitar and has been playing around with my electric guitar.  He has also taken an interest in making videos with the video camera.  So much so that he has offered to get ME video editing software for Christmas.  I actually just bought a new video camera a couple of weeks ago and will surprise he and Delaney with the older (but still very good) video camera that we used to have.  The old one runs on 8mm tapes, while the new one has a built-in Hard Drive.  He can still move the videos from tape to digital pretty easily, but it will be an added step.  I think they will like the old camera because it is a fancy Sony Handycam with lots of features. 

With Christmas rapidly approaching, we are looking forward to some restful time at home with each other.  While I would love to get home and see everyone in Vermont, I am trying to save up my leave for my upcoming retirement.  I have to admit I also like the idea of not going anywhere during the holidays.  We do think we will need to take a week off around winter break time and take a breather, but for right now we will

Tags: Family, Family Update, Vacation, Work/Professional

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?!

Image details: South Korea & US Air Force Conduct Combined Training Exercise served by picapp.com

Image details: Air Force Dedicates Memorial At Arlington served by picapp.com

Tags: Work/Professional