Long-time AEDCer visits with renewed mission

  • Published
  • By Janaé Daniels
  • AEDC/PA
Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn. --  McMinnville native Dave Bond made his first visit last week to Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) after becoming the Air Force Materiel Command's (AFMC) director of engineering and technical management. In this position, 

In this position, Bond leads the development and implementation of engineering policies and practices spanning science and technology, research, development, test and evaluation and sustainment. His focus is on achieving fleet operational safety, suitability and effectiveness. He also directs development of new initiatives designed to improve the recruitment and career management of military and civilian scientists and engineers. 

"Since becoming director of engineering and technical management in October, I wanted to go out to each of the AFMC centers and talk to the engineering leadership," he explained. 

Bond has first-hand experience on AEDC's mission working here from 1978-2000, but he also wanted to learn about the other centers within the command. 

"By design, I knew I needed the visit to AEDC the least because of my previous knowledge of the center," he said. "But, I am also out learning the command and trying to understand what are the things that I am responsible for." 

Bond says having a former AEDCer at the command level can be beneficial to AEDC 
policies and practices. 

"What I am trying to do is understand the challenges and understand the things the center is dealing with from an engineering perspective," he explained. "Then, I will see how I, at the headquarters level, can provide assistance, guidance or change policy that will help engineers do their mission in support of the developers or test customers." 
Bond says his job basically revolves around two things - people and processes. He admits he does not want to go back to command and just issue policies that are irrelevant to AEDC, making it harder for engineers to do their job. 

"For example, AEDC is trying to develop and sustain a technical work force. How do you recruit that? What can I do to help you recruit the kind of skills AEDC needs to have in order to complete the mission?" 

Bond says things have changed since he left in 2000, but for the better. 

"I learned here that the center's system engineering processes, in fact, have advanced significantly in the last 10 years," he explained. "I am going to be able to take back some things the center is doing and I will share those with the rest of the command to help make the rest of the command better. And I in return, will share things the other bases in the command are doing to make the center better." 

The biggest challenges Bond thinks the command is going to face in the future is delivering to the warfighter the equipment he needs to best accomplish the national mission and doing that on cost and on schedule. 

"We must deliver to him [the warfighter] the new airplanes, the new weapons systems on budget and on time," he said. "We have to do better than we've done in the past."