Well, good morning. This has to be the best job in the world that somehow i felt into when i looked across the room at our air force family is incredible. Believe me, the chinese would not like what were going to talk about and what were doing and what were here focused on defending this nation all of us together. Special thanks for everyone in the room attending. Of course our sponsors, our Defense Industry partners. When we can put Defense Industry in the same room with our war fighters and go as rapid as we can from requirements to delivering combat capability to the enemy, thats good. Also thanks to the media to be here. You wont get criticized sometimes more than you deserve. If we dont tell the story about the most lethal combat force in the world, were going to miss an opportunity to finish this nation. The media is directly involved here. The good news is this morning we have the leader of the most lethal conventional combat force in the world, general mike mobile holmes. Its incredible, when you think about whats going on across our combat air forces supported by air combat command around the world, were taking the fight to the enemy 24 7 and we should never ever forget our officers and enlisted personnel, warrior arab men who defend the station. Its about airmen. Its about platforms. We looking forward to hosting i hope everybody in the room at the cyber conference here in three weeks. Its focus just like i tried i think outline here, strengthening our war fighter and Industry Partnership to stay head of what might be the most competitive set of enemies with the most advanced technology weve ever asked our airmen to face. Its a challenge and we wont continue to deter enemies and defeat them decisively unless we have a strong war fighter and Industry Partnership or so thanks for being here. Again its an honor for doug and be certainly as a new guys supporting all of you and air force association and our staff to be with you. And so general holmes, 38 years plus doing this, supported by sarah. Theres a young man named stab sitting alert in his f16 this morning, its a Family Affair. Thanks for being with us, and leaves join me in welcoming general holmes. [applause] can you hear me okay . A little different today because im talking to what is usually kind of a home team it doesnt need a lot of explanation about air combat command but we also have the cspan audience with us this morning some going to stand over here next to the slide so we can do all this at the same time. Im happy to see everybody. Thanks for the invitation. Its good to see old friends and new friends, and thanks for taking the time to come up this morning. We did a session with the Defense Writers Group on monday. We here with you guys this morning. Ill leave this morning and well go talk to women and defense conference over at the convention center. Happy to do that. We have our expeditionary Senior Leaders out briefed today over at the pentagon which is what we bring last years commanders that were deployed after they had a chance to come home and regroup a little bit, bring them back together to get advice from them and see what we can do to better support the folks that are over there now. And that i have a session with some professional staffers this afternoon. So busy day. We try to fit in as much as we can when you come to town, and so lets go ahead and get started. I know this is a home team, but with the audience out there, we wear a patch on our shoulder that says People First Mission always in error, command. Its about airmen, our airmen operate platforms in the systems that make us a great air force. We could have a phd dissertation about Mission First people always, People First Mission always for our heritage goes back to kind of started by general creech and his disciples that if we get our airmen the tools and equipment and the right training, if we empower them with responsibility and authority for their mission, hold them account for that will be effective and so thats our first slide. Go ahead. You know those three on top. There should be a bill here quickly that it wont spend much time on except to say uniquely among the services the air force is organized in functional 4star commands. With air combat command and air Mobility Command and airSpace Command. The army has force calm. And it has Fleet Forces Command of that meets we do business a little bit differently. Slide please. And we start off with this mission statement. Ill let you read it. Ive been going back and force a couple of times with our commanders and others. The main thing is our job is organized trade and quit airmen to be presented to our Service Components all over the world for our airmen fight on the ground and in the air and in cyberspace, in the electromagnetic spectrum domain to control the airspace and cyberspace. No matter what happens as we go forward, our unified Space Command standing up against her at the end of the month come discussions about having a separate space force under the department of the air force or separately. There are a lot of terrestrial threats to our space forces so well have to have a Close Partnership with air combat command, however we end up organized with the space force. Antisatellite technology, launched from the ground, directed energy lunch on the ground, Cyber Attacks launched from the ground up in the air. Its going to take a Close Partnership among all elements to control the air space. Ive come to believe we are not going to be able to control the airspace without exerting some of them out of control on the electromagnetic spectrum, which cyber is a component of that. Slide please. Underneath air combat command we have numbered air forces which is the next echelon and commitment our comanche, chief gateway dave wade is sitting back you. Raise your hand. Hes waving at you. Dave came to us from ninth air force, one of our numbered air forces. Hes a career maintainer with a great ability to connect with airmen across our command. I wont dwell on this except to tell you that im going to come back to it a little bit. So we have numbered air forces that are Service Components, First Air Force as a component to northcom norad. 12 air force is a component to u. S. South. Air force central is a component to u. S. Central command. We support and project those capabilities out, 20foot air force as a component to your cybercom. Ill come back to the 25th air force provides Global Integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to all the socoms all around the world. As a look at our structure one of the things are interested in is how to invest prepare our air force and air combat command for the environment of competition, deterrence and if we have two, conflict with your adversaries. What needs to change in the way we organize, train and equip airmen as we move into this new world. Slide please. The last step is underneath our numbered air forces we have wings, thats the next level down for an air force organizational structure. We have wings, some centers, and everybody and air combat command can find themselves under this structure somewhere somehow. Orville talked about the Holmes Family are gluten holmes sitting alert across town at andrews today defended the National Capital region. In an f16. His big sister rebecca is a physicist that works at a National Laboratory atlas a la post, and one of their highest divisions and a lot of her work is one of our organizations under 25th that responsible for doing the nation monitoring of Nuclear Capabilities and events all over the world. So still a Family Affair for me and my family. Slide please. And were spread all over the world. Largely in the United States but a lot of the red dots across the middle east and then since air combat command through 25th air force provides the bulk of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for all of the Service Component commands, the distributed, grand systems out there around the world. A part of air combat command, the Weather Support is part of air combat command. We do that so we can federated and so that in time to search would result enterprise together to support the cocom thats in contact with the enemy. I visited our dgs in europe this summer. Theres a digest at langley, there are two Macon Pacifica one in korea and one in hawaii and one out it deal. All can Work Together to provide the intelligence that we need around the world. Slide please. We have three priorities we focus on for the last two and half years. We want to improve the readiness of our unit. We have a mandate to do that from our nation again as we enter into competition with peter adversaries. We think to do that with a focus on ready airmen, ready families and then ready weapon systems to put that altogether. I can tell you were making progress. We are grateful for the sustained spending that congress has invested in our readiness issues and were putting that money to good use. Over the last year as the money started to come to us really inn 19, in 18 with pot back about 4000 patent positions. So you have to go i i wouldve told you we were short about 4000 maintainers and air combat command. Now i can tell you were not sure maintainers. We are training young maintainers to be experienced maintainers but we have been in place. Because we laid the groundwork, then when the additional money in the budget in 19 golding, we were able to start applying that to air force Material Command to lay in the parts, to lay in the sustainment come to lead the extra dapl intervals, the things those miracle workers do to keep our aging fleet ready. As result of that we retained about 15 readiness across our air combat for. If you go back and look at history, and about 1978 and 19n out of another period of extended how use of our equipment which drove Lower Readiness and general creech was sitting in my chair at tactical air command, were able to gain about 12 a year for five or six years to get back to the readiness with what to get you and we made a a good start alog that same curve before the guys that were my commanders and mentors in that time. Who were in the room were going at a pretty much the same with you without it and getting results i think that linux with the methods that you taught us. And power are folks can give them authority and responsibility for the mission, hold them accountable for it, put them in competition with each other and off they go. We start to get results. Build the computer to fail in joint war fights this kind are part of the joint build leaders idea. We are training leaders outer wings down at the shop at white commander level and the superintendent level, we are running an approved Squadron Commander forced at air combat command which is part of our focus. We have had three years so we all our commanders through this course. Were doing some focused deeper education generating sorties and the way we Work Together to fly more to be able to train more. We are making progress there. Accepting risk, we rely on again miracle workers at air force Materiel Command in the Lifecycle Management center that keep asleep that averages 30 years old functional and capable and that strikes fear into the heart of the people that would line up against. And we rely on the acquisition system that his government, industry hair together to be able to equip us. What we need to do i think is go faster alternately. I dont have any concerns about our system except weve all got to learn to go faster in a world where our adversaries are going fast and we dont have the luxury anymore of setting a light at the 20th in the future that were going to provide a new capability. Weve got to focus on what can we do in the next two or three or five years. One of our parts of that is how do we work operational testing, we are kind of responsible for with developmental testing. To see how can overlap those and make those go faster. I can report you were making some progress there and artie as he takes over at air force Materiel Command his guys on air force test and are working with the one percenter and working on some proposals to take that to the next step. What can we do to get things done faster. Slide please. And theres a reason why. In 2008 i was Wing Commander at bagram and among several decision we made as a nation was we decide to cancel the f22 program there in 2008 and 2009, ecologically used to did the logic we used to did it was our adversaries would not be able to field systems that were competitive the things we fielded not until the end of the 2030s. We were wrong, right . Our adversaries are Fielding Systems already that pose. Level threats to things we put out in the field. And so well have to go faster. Notches in the platforms but as a chief says focus in on the highways that we try our trucks on. How do we connect, how do we learn, and we share, how do we get ready for the future thats going to rely increasingly on new capabilities, on Information Warfare, on electromagnetic spectrum, and ill talk a about that. Slide please. So i i showed you a picture ofr combat command in the number air force is, and why did they do that . As we go forward after some changes we want to drive in air combat command and ill talk to you about. Those Service Component numbered air forces would be out there on the left so guinness First Air Force to know red northcom, uscentcom. 12 air force we has to do two things pick we asked him to be a Service Component to southcom for about half of our conventional forces. We are working to see if we can put almost conventional forces under one of our number air force is and focus on its role in central and south america in support of u. S. Southcom. Our National Defense strategy asked us to concentrate on pure threats first, russia and china, then rogue states, iran and north korea, then violent extremists and, frankly, all of those things arent central and south america. Russia is in central and south america, and china is in central and south america. Iran is certainly an central south america. We want u. S. Southcom through our eric edelman to focus more on that role and so were proposing not a done deal in air force but were proposing to life our conventional fighter rescue committee control forces. Nice air force is also the home to a Standing JointTask Force Headquarters capability that we build so that we can take on if a cocom want to to that the air force can provide headquarters to correct the task in support of a cocom like the army is help to provide a core headquarters. We are building a capability at night air force, favorites and initial operational capability. They will eat and exercise a small this spring with u. S. European command thats kind of the next step on reaching a full operational capability. So that will be responsible for both force generation and presentation of our conventional forces, and then driving come working with the Wing Commanders to get the readiness thats required. Under the iw forces, this fall we will combine 24th and 25th air force. So. So 24th has been air force at cyber. 25th has been our Global Integrated isr numbered air force. We will put those together this fall, nomination package is working through the process. They will know exactly when the date will be attending that nomination process but we will put those together. That new numbered air force will have slide. Then we will continue to maintain our advanced training tactics and test function at the air force Worker Center out at dulles. Slide please. Walking back to this conventional forces and bringing them together, why do we want to do the . If we can align the up under a single command, we can take advantage of strike eagle wing at mount hope and Seymour Johnson being under one command and help them Work Together to achieve the readiness goals come rescue, we can pull those things together under one commander. We will be able to optimize their training and support and help them Work Together. It will be a Single Service force provided in those capabilities that works tasking and makes trade when so someonn go and substitute skins somebody who can. We will be able to advocate for all those forces and at one ig looks across all of those. Slide please. For Information Warfare, this is a big job were going to ask this new numbered air force commanded to do but its important we think to bring these capabilities together. This new numbered air force commander will be air force cyber. It will be our Service Compon