She’s done about everything you can do as a civilian working for the Air Force: Installations, energy, housing, safety and health. Now she’s the director of staff at Air Force HQ and oversees. A full plate. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Jennifer Miller, a recent recipient of a Presidential Rank Award.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin
And what exactly does the chief of staff for the Air Force, you don’t oversee uniforms, I’m presuming. What do you actually do?

Jennifer Miller
We have long had a chief of staff, of course, of each of the services. And those are our four stars, the chief of staff of the Space Force now, with Gen. Saltzman and the chief of staff of the Air Force with Gen. Brown. And they each had a director of staff, and that person was responsible for running all of the staff within the Air Force and the Space Force. So when our new secretary, Secretary Kendall came on, he wanted to create director of staff for the department. So for the secretariat, and the primary focus of that would be to integrate, both the Space Force and the Air Force, so that every time we have something owing to the Hill or to the Secretary of Defense, it would be an integrated position that would reflect both the Space and the Air Force positions to wrap up into the one Department of the Air Force. So it’s really a reflection and a representation of the two services existing under one department.

        Join us Jan. 27 for our Industry Exchange Cyber 2025 event where industry leaders will share the latest cybersecurity strategies and technologies.

Tom Temin
Got it. And the topics or the facilities or the functions that you oversee the staff of, they do procurement, installation work, that kind of thing?

Jennifer Miller
That’s right. So we have, of course, the secretary and the undersecretary, and then we have the political appointees, who are the assistant secretaries. And they help and run the policy for the department, both, for the Air Force and the Space Force. And my team manages all the inquiries that come over from the Hill, all the requirements that come out through the Secretary of Defense’s Office, and then helps manage the staff for everything from acquisition to Manpower and Reserve Affairs, installations, environment and energy, space acquisition. So kind of all of the Assistant Secretary department’s diversity and inclusion. So we have a broad reach of, pretty much, every policy related matter that the Secretary is interested in. And then we also have the protocol team. And then we have a team on the director of staff called the [Executive Secretariat (Exec Sec)], which runs all of the taskers that come through over a thousand taskers a year, just in the department, that run through our tasking system to make sure we’re responsive to the public and to the Hill and to the Secretary of Defense.

Tom Temin
It’s a complicated apparatus. But yet, it sounds like then that you have influence or have some way of helping, not just the back office functions or the tail of the Air Force, but ultimately, the elements that fly in orbit and shoot kinetic things.

Jennifer Miller
Right. And that’s one of the neatest parts about the job, is that I meet with the secretary and the undersecretary and the political appointees who manage the Air Force, pretty much well, for sure, weekly and often daily, and help ensure that his and her intent are reflected and understood across the staff. And to the extent that there’s inconsistencies or confusion on a topic or direction from senior leadership. I manage the staff meetings and run and bring different offices and organizations together to make sure that we have a unified message, or that everyone’s position is reflected to enable informed decision making. So I would say if I had a bumper sticker for the job, it would be to enable informed decision making. Make sure the secretary and the chief have all the information that they need from their staff to make the best decisions.

Tom Temin
And it sounds like over the years that you and the department now, of the Air Force have honed the way that uniforms and civilians interoperate and interact in a way that everyone does feel like they’re pulling on the same team here. Is that a fair way to put it?

Jennifer Miller
That’s right. I actually feel very lucky, because I think all services have their strengths and weaknesses, and one of the strengths of the Department of the Air Force is collaboration. And we are very much a valued member of the team and civilians, as well as uniform. So you won’t hear in the department like, oh, that’s the uniform to position. We very much collaborate, try to make sure that we reflect the best military advice of our uniform members, and then ultimately, civilian control of the military concept and that we reflect those positions to the secretary to then make an informed decision. So I do feel lucky and feel very much part of the team. More so, I think, than probably any of the other services, that’s one of our strengths.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Jennifer Miller, she’s director of staff at Department of Air Force Headquarters and a recent presidential rank award recipient. And why do you think you got a presidential rank award?

Jennifer Miller
So in my last job, I had a pretty unique opportunity to address one of the biggest challenges that we had. We had a big portfolio and I was the acting assistant secretary for, it’s a long title, but installations, environment and energy. And one of the pieces of that, was we decide, for the secretary, we tee up for secretary decision where new missions go. So every time we have a new airframe or weapons system or any kind of cyber mission, anything, we put a package together to decide which installation should this go to, which state. And there’s obviously a lot of interest, both by military members, and then also Congress, because it usually involves a lot of military construction and potential new jobs. One of the things that we’d heard is that there’s places that we have higher retention rates and lower retention rates across the United States, depending on schools and spouse, job employment opportunities. And we would hear from people, hey, I know if I go to this location, I’m not going to be able to bring my family, because they just don’t have the educational opportunities my family needs, or my spouse won’t be able to practice dentistry right away, because of licensure requirements. So we were hearing these kinds of things. So we said, well, let’s tackle this. Do we have any authoritative source on this? So one of the neatest things that I got to initially brainstorm and then put together the program for it and eventually implement it and defend it to the Hill to Congress, was this initiative we called Supportive Military Families.

        Read more: Air Force

So we discovered that two of the top three retention issues for families now, were spouse licensure, and reciprocity. In other words, the ability for spouse to get a job and the quality of education, because there’s parts of the country folks go to and just don’t feel like their kids have the same opportunities that they might, say in Northern Virginia. So we started measuring it. It took us a long time to implement it, we wanted to make sure we had authoritative sources. But then we started measuring and publishing across the U.S. for every single military installation. How the school quality was, based on a number of things, mostly growth model based on national testing. And then also, what were the licensure requirements for military spouses? Did they have to wait two to three years to be able to practice in their field, based on the top 10 field? So once we started measuring this, and it resulted in real impacts to whether someone got a new mission, we saw a lot of changes. So that’s one of the most exciting pieces that I was able to work on is, over 100 improvements on public education, and 75 state law passages that really impacted spouse licensure and reciprocity. So that’s one of the neatest pieces that I was able to work at in my now, 18 years of the Air Force is something that you really knew would drive beneficial changes that would impact the military family. So I’m very proud of that work. And my team took it on, even though it didn’t really necessarily fall in our portfolio. And the fact that, everywhere we go to all the communities, they want to talk to us about it, and show us what they’ve done to improve the quality of education and make sure that military spouses can start practicing in their field right away.

Tom Temin
Plus, you’ve got some really important metrics that you can point to for tangible results in this effort.

Jennifer Miller
That’s right. And we knew that in any time you have a ranking list, the communities that did not rank as well would be very sensitive to making sure that we had the proper data, that we’re measuring fairly, that it was an apples to apples comparison. So it did take us, it was a couple years of effort to dig into the methodology and make sure we had these good sources, socialize it with all the experts in those fields, and then socialize it with the Hill. And eventually, we rolled this out. And so now, every time we’re deciding where a new mission goes, the secretary is considering those factors. And the other nice thing is, as families are ranking where they would like to be stationed, they have access. It’s on a publicly available website, if you just google supportive military families, and it will show every installation and what their strengths and weaknesses are, for both the spouse employment and for schools. So that, I think helps for Military family decision making as well.

Tom Temin
Right. So this might fall under the category of take care of the Air Force people and then they’ll take care of the Air Force.

Jennifer Miller
People are a number one asset, and I firmly believe that civilians and military. So I think that recruiting quality people and then retaining them, there’s nothing more important than we do. And you ask about the rank award, that’s one of the other things that I’ve really loved doing, is a lot of the mentorship that I’ve been able to do. And some of it has been focused through the STEM programs or executive women in government or I speak to women’s leadership groups. And I’ve loved that work as well, because I’ve sat on a lot of hiring panels, my answer is always yes, I’m happy to do that. Because really taking care of our people and recruiting and retaining people is more important than any mission or program that I can push forward.

Tom Temin
And your deep background is legal. Correct?

Jennifer Miller
Right. So I’m an attorney by background and that’s how I made my way to the Air Force, actually started because I was doing finance and big commercial real estate projects. I didn’t know the Air Force even did that, but we have an $8 billion privatized housing program. So our team down in San Antonio stood up a bunch of experts from large law firms, and I eventually became chief Counsel of that. I enjoyed the legal role, but then once I got a taste of being able to run programs, instead of support them and manage programs, I was hooked. I’ve made a decision to stay on the program side and really be able to help shape own and run a program from start to finish. And don’t get me wrong, I love the lawyers, I call myself a recovering lawyer and there integral to the team. But I really enjoy owning a program and being able to see it through to fruition.

        Want to stay up to date with the latest federal news and information from all your devices? Download the revamped Federal News Network app

Tom Temin
And being so close to where the power is and the formation of policies, plans, short-term and long-term, as you are in the Pentagon. What’s it like for a senior executive, when you read everything said in the public and published in the public about an organization like the Air Force? Everybody’s an expert, and the planes are too old, or they can’t do this, right, they can’t do that right, whatever the case might be, they can’t buy things properly. How do you deal with that? And knowing what you do know on the inside, at least the reasons behind what people might be saying, even if they don’t know the reasons.

Jennifer Miller
So I’m sympathetic to the view that anyone has about bureaucracy, especially for a large organization like the Department of the Air Force and Department of Defense. We’re an easy target for, why did things take so long? Why can’t you, as you just said, modernize your fleet faster? But I also am a huge believer, and I’ll talk to anyone who will listen about civilian control the military, meaning Congress, as well, and their proper right to oversee and direct through the budget, what we do and to ask the questions, and we have to be able to explain and be accountable. Now, the only thing that drives me a little crazy, as you mentioned, was when people will say things like, good enough for government work. And I will always tell them, I would welcome you any day at the Pentagon to see how hard the people here work. I can’t speak for anyone in the federal government, but I can tell you, my colleagues are so committed. And the people who come and our political appointees, a lot of folks don’t know this, but the pay for a political appointee is much lower than most people would think. In fact, I’ve never met one who did not take a significant pay cut to come and be a civil servant for the government. So these are well intended hardworking individuals who really are committed. And of my 18 year career, and then also, 24 years as an Army Reservist, the sole reason that I’ve stayed in federal employment is because of the quality of the people that I get to work with. And a huge commitment to mission too.

Tom Temin
Sure. And a final question, did you get to go see that bomber unveiling?

Jennifer Miller
I did not, but a lot of my colleagues did and I got to help work on the basing action for it. And it’s so neat for all of the folks who’ve been able to work on programs and the bombers, the most recent. But as we’ve rolled out fighters before, just how cool for the folks who work on the development and the acquisition, and get to be the maintainer on it to actually get to see it come to fruition. I would have loved to, I have to stay in the office a little more in my current job and make sure things are running here, but I know our leadership team went out and I’ve heard it was a great event.

Tom Temin
Yeah, I guess you might have been able to see the back end of it, which they didn’t show the public because it’s secret. Do you ever get the offer to go in a fighter plane so they could make you throw up?

Jennifer Miller
I’ve been able to be outside of them, never up in one. I understand you have to do the medical screening. Maybe someday, but then I also heard that there’s maintainers who will work on these aircraft for 20 years and as their final retirement, perhaps they get to go up in one. So given the cost associated with it, I’ll let the people who get to work on it everyday be the ones who go and I will cheer them on from the ground, and stick to my roller coasters instead.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.