COMMENTARY>>An ode to Col. Adam Dickerson

By Col. Kirk Lear

314th Airlift Wing vice commander

Early in the oncoming tide of Airmen moving in and out of Little Rock this summer, our base will lose a veteran C-130 maintainer as the 314th Maintenance Group commander, Col. Adam Dickerson, once again leaves Little Rock and heads off to the Middle East for a year’s duty ... again. He’s been my friend and less-athletic road-biking partner for nearly two years now; as he departs, I’m fully aware that his group’s notable successes in the past few years - convincing scores in logistics compliance assessments and unit compliance inspections, command-leading mission capable rates on 40-plus-year-old aircraft, a tight-knit team and the like - have all hinged on his influence, and the leadership of the team he built and enabled.

I’m really proud of both him and our maintenance group team, and while sorry to see him go, I know that another great Airman will take the group guidon in May and surely build on Adam’s successes. Like Adam, he’ll surely talk until he’s blue in the face about his “knucklebusters’” work ethics, their commitment to producing a healthy fleet, and their “get ‘er done” esprit-de-corps. He’ll set high standards and occasionally be forcefully convincing to a few in his group who aren’t living up to those standards, foster partnerships that help his team better do their mission, and be innovative when his team doesn’t have the resources they need. Oh, and that next commander will surely vent to the 314th’s vice commander about the occasionally “unnecessary crap” -- most of which the vice is responsible for -- that his maintainers have to do, that detract from their ability to keep the “air” in “airlift.”

So here’s to Colonel Dickerson -- for an immensely successful command of an immensely capable team - but one that both he and I would agree has been on the shoulders of the “knucklebuster” Airmen and sergeants he’s been privileged to lead. May we all be this successful as we pass the torch to our successors, and may we also put in the work and the self-sacrifice to make our Air Force better than we found it.