Communications director prepares to leave Air Force

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Rick Burnham
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  When William C. Bodie leaves his job as director of communications to begin work for the private sector, he will do so with an elevated appreciation for the Air Force and the challenges it faces daily.

In return, the Air Force comes away with a level of strategic communications capability that many are calling “unmatched” in the history of the service, and with a team of communicators in place that is “as good as it has ever been,” he said.

Mr. Bodie came to the Air Force in 2001, serving initially as special assistant to Secretary of the Air Force Dr. James G. Roche before becoming the service’s first director of communications a year later. He will depart in mid-May to assume a position with a Washington-area national security consulting firm.

The New York native characterizes his time in the Pentagon as “astounding,” working beside not only communicators, but operators, managers and planners as well all with a high level of talent, dedication and esprit, he said.

“I did not realize both how large and varied the talent base within the Air Force really is,” he said. “The technical, scientific and humanitarian skills that are embodied in the people in the Air Force -- officer, enlisted and civilian -- have been a revelation to me.”

For his own part, Mr. Bodie said he leaves behind a communications directorate that has taken on -- and flourished in -- the enhanced role of strategic communications advisers to commanders at all levels.

“We envisioned strategic communications as being more than something you turn to when there is a problem,” Mr. Bodie said. “It should be something that can help you achieve your core business objectives. The men and women in the communications directorate have demonstrated this capability, and we feel it has been accepted across the Air Force.”

To take the program a step further, he said, those Air Force leaders whose backgrounds are in other areas should truly understand effective strategic communications. Paraphrasing former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, he said their understanding is critical.

“Strategic communications is too important to be left only, exclusively, to those of us who work in the field,” he said. “To be successful, we need to have every commander in the Air Force, every staff leader in the Air Force, become an exquisite communicator.”

Some of the best and most important communicators, he said, can be found far away from the Pentagon and other higher headquarters levels.

“The most effective ambassadors for our Air Force, and ultimately the most effective spokespersons for our Air Force, are those Airmen out on the flightline, those staff sergeants who are out there working with the maintenance crews, the first sergeants, the master sergeants [and] the young company grade officers,” he said. “That is because we have taken additional efforts in the past couple of years to ensure that we are flowing down the main messages from the chief of staff and the secretary throughout the Air Force, throughout the major commands, the wings, the groups and the squadrons.

“We feel internal communication is every bit as important as external communication,” he said. “What we say to that Airman on the flightline is as important as anything we say to the New York Times. This has a tremendous impact across the force. It raises the level of discourse that we have internally and makes for a much more engaged workforce, and, ultimately, that makes for a healthier Air Force.”

Mr. Bodie said that despite dramatic strides in strategic communication during the past, there is clearly room for improvement.

“We need to do a better job of institutionalizing a lot of the practices that have been accepted with the current leadership,” he said. “We also need to do (more) work in terms of putting into place long-term career development opportunities for all of our communicators -- officers, enlisted and civilians.”

Fortunately, he said, the building blocks are in place for even greater success.

“We will continue to place an incredible amount of attention and energy and passion on the communications discipline,” he said. “We will continue to be known as a service that recognizes the connection between a good, long-term, strategic-communications agenda and achieving the Air Force mission.”

The drive it takes to accomplish those types of objectives, in the midst of fighting multiple wars, taking on a dramatic new mission of homeland security and implementing a revolutionary new expeditionary mindset, will be what Mr. Bodie said he will miss the most when he walks away from the Air Force.

“I don’t think that any business or private organization can replicate that kind of determination and that kind of esprit,” he said. “That is the kind of thing that I will miss the most when I leave the world’s greatest Air Force.”