Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
Yes. General Hatch was talking about the importance of speaking the same language.
A:
Yes.
Q:
He said, "When we get EForce, it will be because we all spoke the same language."
A:
Right. Exactly.
Q:
I think that's an important point.
A:
It is, and my having been his deputy this year has allowed me to be a networker and help the
whole process. Certainly, Colonel Tom Sheehy, over in the ACE's office, has been very
effective in working with DCSOPS in all the details of what's going on.
Q:
Is he in the Military Engineering and Topography Division?
A:
Right. That division has had a bigger and more influential role this year than I've ever known
in the past. I think, with his aggressive, can-do nature, he's really taken on the correct
context. That's why I've stayed back and strategized and networked.
Q:
Now, I want to turn to strategic initiatives a little bit. Of course, now General Hatch has just
named an Associate Chief for Strategic Initiatives. What has been your role, then, in that area
in the last year?
A:
Well, I've been a very active player. Bill Robertson and I have talked lots of times. I've been
involved with them. He carries the work basket of pushing things, and he's networking and
doing all of those very valuable things for USACE.
I think it was a very good stroke by the Chief in setting up that office and getting somebody
who's not burdened with an in-box of daily operational problems to be able to look ahead
and try to articulate and network important things.
A long time ago, when I first became knowledgeable of the Office of the Chief of Engineers,
he had, I'm not sure what it was called, a planning cell or strategic planning cell. I know
Ernie Peixotto was in there at one time. During one of the position cutting drills, they did
away with that office. It had just been a small office; I don't know its size. It certainly wasn't
in the very aggressive, direct role that Bill Robertson plays today, but, I mean, it was the
Chief's ability to go out and do thinking and planning things.
I'd been in a similar kind of organization when I was in the Office of the Army Chief of Staff
on what was called the Special Actions Team. We would do whatever the Chief of Staff or
Vice Chief of Staff or Director of the Army Staff wanted. It was not specified. We could go
out and chase various initiatives and try to help congeal staff thinking because they had to do
all kinds of things every day and couldn't spend time looking at a particular area. If the Chief
or Vice Chief of Staff had something, we could go out and develop that issue for them and
bring it back in.
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