“I believe the most difficult part of the job was having to deal with situations where there’s no right or wrong answer,” said Devillier, a 23-Air Force veteran. “There’s lots of issues that we’ve had to deal with where there’s some gray.”
Devillier, who is headed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff office in the Pentagon for his next assignment, said often he relied on the counsel of those in his leadership circle.”And then when issues do come up, you get all those key players together, take the advice and then ultimately you have to make the decision but after you make the decision, it’s your responsibility,” he said.
In a tenure filled with newsworthy events, Devillier faced a “gate runner” breach of base security that caused the evacuation of two Air Force Research Laboratory buildings and the lock down of another, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency concerns over the pace at which the base was moving to detect groundwater contamination, and the controversial removal of a Bible that was part of a POW display at Wright-Patterson Medical Center.
“Obviously dealing with the media can be challenging because some of the issues we have to deal with are serious,” he said.
The Bible was removed after members of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation complained about the display.
“I am man of faith and that was a very difficult decision for me to make, but I felt I made the right decision for the installation overall,” Devillier said. “Some people were happy with that decision and some people were not happy with the decision and that just comes with positions of leadership in any organization.”
He also counted achievements that included a ground-breaking patient sharing agreement between the medical center and the Department of Veterans Affairs, a first-ever USO Center for troops and their families that opened on the base, and an educational training partnership between Sinclair Community College and Wright-Patterson.
The 88th Air Base Wing he commanded also gained an “outstanding” unit Air Force award in 2015. “We’ve done a lot of great things here on the installation,” he said.
Wright-Patterson is working with the EPA to address drinking water contamination concerns, he said, that caused two wells in Area A to be pulled off line this spring after the U.S. EPA set lower thresholds for perfluoroalkyl substances typically found in firefighting suppressant foam. PFAS have been linked to adverse health effects in infants. Charcoal filters will treat water in closed wells and water samples will be taken downstream to find out if contamination has spread, he said.
The base, meanwhile, took internal security measures since a Beavercreek man was accused of driving past security at Gate 22B and getting into a restricted building last November. Devillier declined to elaborate on the measures.
Next fiscal year, the Air Force faces the possibility of the return of automatic spending cuts, which could mean his successor faces tough budget choices.
The role of commander is “a big job,” Devillier said.
“You have to delegate your authority around you because there’s 26,000 people that work on this installation,” he said. “You can’t do it all.”
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