Air force secretary under president obama was among the speakers at a womens Leadership Conference in washington, d. C. This is two hours and 15 minutes. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. All right. Good morning. Honored to bem able to moderate you this morning. We will be talking about secretary janes new book. I have read it and listened to it. That is what we going to talk about. , first and foremost, to break the ice, what inspired you to tell your story . Throughout my life i have in the business of our National Security closer to 40 years. I have always been a civilian and i have worked in congress, worked in the pentagon for several tours and been in private industry always working on defense issues. , ile i was making my way up would always look up to the people above me and there were very few women at that point to look up to but there were a couple. And some men. I would wonder to myself about how their lives were perfect. And here was my life which had some successes but plenty of failures and i felt like a hot mess compared to these role models. I know now that was not true. That everybody has something. I wanted for the next generation of women who may look to me and think wow, she has this perfect career and a problem free trajectory. It aint so. I am trying to share my challenges. That was. 1. I also was a great beneficiary coming up through the ranks with mentors. I believe strongly that it is incumbent upon all of us who pointa certain leadership to pay it forward and help others. And putting book the story out there, it was a way of mentoring at a higher level. That and i had time on my hands. The 20 third secretary of the air force to do when she gets out of office . The first thing i would like to say is when those if you get the book it is broken down into three main parts. The first is charge and navigate your course. Develope you insight to a roadmap in charting your course . Explain that the book is laid out in three main parts and there are strategies under each one. When i was in my 20s and 30s, this was not some formula that i instinctively knew about or followed. S was something that the this is something that i was trying to put down my lessons learned. Was instinctual. Others came to me through trial and error. Things i did right and they work or failures. I tell stories of failures and what i learned. It is also from being an observer on the scene and being a careful watch all watch her er and observer. You haveand navigate, to take control of your own life. Everyone ought to have a plan a. Here is where i want to go. Here are my ideas. At the same time, be prepared to put it. Pivot goal and may your you may notge it or reach your goal. Plan b may be better. You dont know what you will be inspired by until you try. Secretary, as you spoke about how your plan a did not quite work, can you share . Book, the secretary recounts how she wanted to work at the state department and how she was not able to do that. I think it you used the term rejected. You recount wanting to Say Something to secretary kerry but you did not. You said that was a big turning point in your career. When i was a young person, i to be plan a and i wanted a diplomat. I wanted to travel the world and work on diplomacy issues. Throughout high school, college, and graduate school i took all , learned at classes foreignlanguage and lived abroad. I was even able to secure a highly coveted internship with the state department. When i got out of grad school and moved to washington and applied come i thought i had everything going my way. What more could anyone expect . Say, i applied and i was rejected and it was the first had in lifen i had and i remember crashing. I remember going to bed for the better part of a week and crying. I was so depressed and dejected. Course, one has to eventually get out of bed because i needed a paycheck. I started applying elsewhere. Job, only one offer did i receive, as a civilian with the department of army. Where is the army contention contingent . [cheering] what did i know about the army or the military at large . No real exposure or even thought about it before and i was still feeling dejected from the whole state department experience. Did my bestob and and after a few months, the most remarkable thing started to happen. I was engaged in really interesting work so i felt a sense of purpose. In my own little way, i was working on major issues. I had a great team i fell in with where there was great camaraderie. Boss. Had a first rate after that, one thing led to the next and led to the next which became what i think has been a fantastic and hugely fulfilling career for me all focused on the military. Yearsfore you know it, 35 have gone by and i get to be the second woman ever to lead a military service. And all of this started with a big failure. And a plan a that turned into plan b. I waskerry story hobnobbing with the big people then secretaryet of state john kerry. And it was all i could do to contain myself and not say to this man thank you, thank you, thank you that you rejected me 35 years ago because you know what . Life turned out pretty doggone well for may. But of course, i said none of that. I think we talked about the weather which is what diplomats talk about. Thank you, maam. As you briefly highlighted, your first job with the army which turned out to be an amazing job. I was also the first time that you got a great mentor. Can you articulate how you have paid that forward as you have meant toward many in your career . I have meant toward one on one mentored oneonone. Launch formalt we mentoring programs when i was secretary. I spent about a dozen years with a Company Called saic. Of my had a Business Unit own and was leading a team of people, i required of my direct reports that all of us mentor others. I did it myself and i rated my people on the requirement to do it and how well they did it. Program. A we launched something in the air force called my vector. We beefed it up. Heard of it, it is a match. Com like approach to people all over the world in the air force and they can go online to say they want to be meant toward on certain subjects. , people likeors me, would go online and list what we were able to give advice on and then matches would be created. To do thatmy directs when i was secretary of the air force. I think there is different ways to pay it forward but the most important thing is to do it one on one. In your book, you highlight the importance of having a Diverse Network as well. You talk about the network of those you live of the community that you live in, and that you work in. I know this is obvious that everyone in this room, though there are 1000 people, and you wont be able to meet and get to know everyone in this room, but please do not leave here without at least 10 new deep people that you can keep in touch with. With the exception of the state department where as i said i was applying and then i had to apply to the department of army instead, i can honestly say that ive never applied cold to a job again and it is thanks to receives, a tip i would all of my mentors, by the way, have all been informal. Through my Network Opening the door. It would be up to me to open the door and secure the job but the a great deal to as well as for continual learning. Never rest on your laurels. You also talked about inspiring a team. We had experienced a Nuclear Incident during your tenure as secretary of the air force. Can you talk about how you rallied the team to look into that incident . Can you talk about how you transformed that team . Yes, and nothing blew up, by the way. Three weeks into my tenure as secretary of the air force, here i am, brandnew. I had plan a. Six months of a travel schedule laid out. Get an email informing me and other Senior Leaders that there has been a atating incident out west the air force base which is the site of one of our icbm units. The young officers were standing cheating were caught on a proficiency exam. Nuclear,gton, anything is worrisome. Informeddent has to be in the press is all over it. I am brandnew and i did not know exactly what to do at first. I knew it was a big deal and i had to get on top of that fast. I took a few days and became more prepared with the air force team surrounding me. We got the checks and balances and i convinced myself that Nuclear Enterprise was safe and secure. But we had this matter in front of us why did it happen . What would we do about it . We decided to go public with the information. In washington, big secrets frequently leak anyway. I have learned that bad news only gets worse with the passage of time. Get out there. Tell people and be forthright with the congress and the press. And we did it with our own air men as well. Will give you periodic updates. After that press conference, i remember ripping up that travel schedule and instead, i focused on the Nuclear Enterprise for about the next six months. And discovered that it went way beyond just a handful of air men cheating. There were cultural issues afoot. There was under manning. The way they were training was encouraging cheating. I hate to say that that they were only promoting air men that got 100 on these tests. Cheat to men did not pass but to get 100 carried a lot of changes came out of that for training, for people, for modernization which i think overall were good changes even though it all started with a bad incident. And that is so much the way life is. You have to take something bad, pull lessons, and leave it in a better position. The clock is ticking. Another thing you talked about in your book was diversity and how to create a more diverse force. At a womens are leadership symposium and diversity is a big topic, you state that women and minorities are an important tool. However, there continues to be a lack, as we just saw on the screen, a lot of firsts. Last year, dod did a report that talked about female officers and the numbers are staggering. I am an African American female and i notice that we do not have any in the air force and have not since 2005. Can you talk about what you believe are barriers to women and minority women, reaching those ranks . Morethink we need to focus on recruiting through the front door. And we do a better job of bringing new women and new minorities on board and we do ultimately in retaining them midcareer. It is better retention and how do you do that . I always go back to what i call the three ps. You have to look at your policies, prophecies, and people programmatic issues. For example, during my tenure, and some of this was broad and affected the entire military i order of the secretary of defense and some of it was specifically air force. Sometimes, they are outdated. For example, we doubled the Maternity Leave policy for women in that era. We advocated for tripling it. We did it at first. Example of worklife balance. And we extended paternity leave as well. Deployments. Y it used to be six months. We extended that in the air force for one year. Would not be deployed in the air force for one year out. Issues of flexibility. We found a process issue with respect to how we gave exceptions to people with shorter stature. In the pilot field. Hoping to open the aperture for more women pilots. Big deal. And an example of the people mentoring,his is focusing on people and their Leadership Development and their professional development. These are the three key areas that we need to do more of and i am a big believer in measuring. One of the things i did in my successioni gave goals for officers. Women entering the air force academy as firstyear students. And i said if may 30 . I pretty much made that out. Nothing magic about 30. That caused the other programs to go out and search out more qualified women. And in year one, we did not quite make 30 but we made 28 . We may not even have made that had i not set out a goal. Close, iare about to do have one question if i could take you back to the point in time when you were serving as secretary of the air force, what was truly your aha moment . When you were like wow, this is what i can do . I think it may well have been after that Nuclear Matter that we talked about earlier. Because that was one that was highstakes. Not everyone was in favor for example, of making this a public matter. They felt this was sensitive and could remain private. I kind of bucked the tide on that and used my own leadership imperative on that and followed my instincts. At the end of the day, it was a bad situation but because we were able to make it better, with our transparency, we got kudos from congress. That made me feel like following my instincts and having that confidence that i was in a good place. I think that was my aha moment. The very beginning. I would like to put a plug if you would like to purchase a copy of the book, it is an incredible masterpiece. You can purchase it in the bookstore. And the secretary will be around to sign it as well. I believe we have met our time. Thank you, everybody. [applause] leadershipf of the forum, we would like to present you with a token. Thank you. [applause] like toi would introduce one of my cochairs, mr. John did never, the only man on our associations board and the founding president. Us for 26ked for years. He is an advocate for women in the military and this conference would not be as successful without you, john. I am proud to welcome john did never john dittner. I am one of this years cochairs. I am one of the founders of ssoa. And the only two reason why was because i was stuck overseas. One time in bosnia and one time in cuba. I was earning my overseas ribbons them. It has been amazing watching this Organization Grow over the years. I was remarking to one of my known fromt i have most 30 years, back in the day, we were lucky if we could get 100 people in the room and now we have over 1000. That is amazing. Of the hard work on the part of a lot of people. There is one special person i would like to thank, martha mcphee. In addition to being the woman behind the scenes, she is also a captain in the marine corps reserve. She is actually one of us. Thank you. Next, i would like to introduce the next panel to you. From the coast guard and marine placed inhave been maledominated units. And just as a personal note, i understand because i was a man and a predominately female field , so i understand there are certain ways you need to kind of blend and then work effectively in those fields. I have no doubt they will have interesting stories watching the cultures. Please welcome the members of this panel along with their moderator, hope hodge seck, managing editor at military. Com. [applause] hope thank you all for being here this morning. This is an extraordinary privilege for me, and i am very excited to hear from this panel and learn their insights as well. As a military journalist, and i think im the first female editor of military. Com. Im not supposed to play favorites, but ive been covering the marine corps and the coast guard for a long time , and you all are my favorite. If you want the full ranking, see me in the back later. [laughter] hope so both of these services have been on the frontlines of service and ongoing conversation about gender equality and inclusion and representation the military. Albeit in different ways, its been an ongoing conversation. Without further ado, lets dive into the discussion. Panelists who can take a minute to talk about yourself, so we will go ahead and start with chief carter. Ms. Carter its great to be here. This is my second year. I am a reservist and a reservist for 16 years always been a reservist. Ive been stationed to sector, and ive been deployed with the Security Unit which is our to deployable unit. And now im the senior enlisted reserve at station dustin in florida, so its great to be down there in the winter because i live in buffalo. Silvermanwise good morning. Commander nan silvermanwise. Im also a career resurface. Reservist. It was commissioned with noaa so that was the support for our office. I like to go backwards. I am currently the j3 for the Coast Guard Reserve unit at u. S. Southern command. Did i ever think id go there is a coast guardsman . Nova prior to that recommended the port Security Unit and served another command roles and a couple other Security Units around the country. Before that, Homeland Security on watch in washington, d. C. And had different jobs in the northeast, which is where im from. I currently live in d. C. And i support the department of energy and interestingly the administrator of the nsa is a woman and she speaks about many of the same subjects that are last speaker spoke about the thank you for having me. Defeo good morning. My name is major Stephanie Defeo , and i served at the dci at the pentagon in policy development. Before that, im also a reservist as well. Before that, i was stationed as part of the detachment. Before the detachment, i was part of battalion active duty , and before that, i was in okinawa, japan. I was deployed to afghanistan, iraq, and western africa for people familiar with the african continent. Sudhoff good morning. I am major katie sudhoff. Communications officer in the second ring position. I was there with division com Company First learning all about my job. After doing an employment in afghanistan, i went to a battalion and i was one of the first women there. One of the battalions the runs amphibious vehicles. And i am here. Hope thank you so much. I really hope this is a good discussion, and any question i throw out, anyone can answer. Feel free to go back and forth a little bit as well. I hope to get to all of your questions before the end. Obviously, the cultural changes that are taking place in the military, they are happening in parallel with changes in the cultural large. The military does present the unique scenarios and challenges. Lets set the table for this discussion. Could you each talk about the cultural changes or struggles that you observed in your own careers when it comes to gender equality in the military . Being attached to a unit that is predominantly allmale is tough. You dont have somebody to turn to when you have female issues. Whether it is that time of the month or getting pregnant, none of that, you are kind of alone in that fight. Also there is certain things that you just dont feel a part of the boys club, because your different, and thats okay. That is wonderful, actually, because what i realized is i brought something to the table that my male counterparts