“So we can really care for our folks, but we can also challenge them, if things aren’t going where they should be, figuring out what challenges they’re facing and what barriers they have.”
Richards said his top priority as wing commander is making sure that every “airman” — and here he said he included civilian personnel, not just uniformed Air Force members — is “prepared for the future and the challenges that the great power competition really is bringing to the Air Force, and that we as an installation are ready to meet those challenges.”
Since 2018, the Pentagon has focused on the threat posed by “great powers,” identifying China as the nation’s principal adversary. More recently, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said the Air Force must more urgently “reoptimize” for that fight.
At one point in the video, Richards said Wright-Patterson is “squarely in the sights of our adversaries because of the capabilities we bring to the Air Force.”
Richards was officially welcomed to Wright-Patterson early in April in an “assumption of command” rather than a “change of command” ceremony at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.
The wing’s previous commander, Col. Christopher Meeker, was fired in December.
The “mantra” for the 88th — “strength through support” — hasn’t changed, Richards said in the new video.
“We’ll be looking at the requirements for all of our mission partners and the installation itself to understand what is needed for great power competition, and then start to address those challenges,” the colonel said.
Wright-Patterson is home to the headquarters of Air Force Materiel Command, the huge command responsible for equipping and planning to equip the Air Force with the weapons and tools the service needs.
The base, the largest concentration of single-site employment in Ohio, also is home to the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.
The 88th itself is one of the largest air base wings in the Air Force with more than 5,000 Air Force uniformed, civilian, and contractor employees.
Before coming to Wright-Patterson, Richards most recently served as senior military assistant to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Energy, Installations and Environment, at Air Force headquarters.
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