Major General Thomas D. Reese
MG Thomas D. Reese was born on 20 April 1935 in Mooreland, Oklahoma. He received a bachelor's degree from Oklahoma State University and a master's degree from Shippensburg State College. His military education included the completion of the Basic and Advanced Officer Courses at the Field Artillery School; the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College; and the U.S. Army War College.
General Reese entered military service in 1957, when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant after completing the ROTC curriculum at Oklahoma State University. During his career, he held a number of command assignments, including B Battery, 692d Field Artillery Battalion at Fort Sill, Oklahoma; the 32d U.S. Army Missile Detachment in Germany; the 1st Battalion, 31st Field Artillery, 2d Infantry Division, and the 6th Battalion, 37th Field Artillery, 2d Infantry Division in Korea; and the 7th Division Artillery, 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, California.
General Reese also served two tours of duty in Vietnam, worked as an instructor of tactics at the Command and General Staff College, and was on the Army staff in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development and Acquisition. From 1982 to January 1985, he served as the Deputy Commanding General for Research and Development at the U.S. Army Missile Command (MICOM). General Reese was then assigned to Fort Polk, Louisiana, as the Assistant Division Commander (Maneuver) of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized). On 12 May 1986, he returned to Redstone Arsenal and assumed Command of MICOM, a post he held until 13 July 1988.
General Reese was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal (with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters), the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal.
Interview
MR. BAKER: This is an end-of-tour interview held on 6 July 1988 with MG Thomas D. Reese, Commander of MICOM, by Mr. Michael E. Baker and Dr. Kaylene Hughes of the Historical Division.
MR. BAKER: To start off, could you tell us a little about your background? Are you from a military family?
MG REESE: I grew up on a farm in Oklahoma, one of 14 kids. I attended Oklahoma State University, a cow college, for an agricultural degree, am not from a military family, had no intentions of being in the military. I enrolled in the ROTC program when I arrived at Oklahoma State because, being a land grant college, ROTC was a requirement for all able-bodied males at that time for the first 2 years. I enrolled in the senior program because I enjoyed the ROTC duty and, secondly, I got married at the beginning of my junior year and the senior program paid me $27.88 a month. That helped pay the rent and put some food on the table.
MR. BAKER: Before you became commander here you served in the DCG position. Do you think having a familiarity with MICOM helped better prepare you for the job as commander?
MG REESE: Certainly it is not a requirement by any means, but I think having served as the Deputy Commander I have benefited from that and I think that the organization has benefited from it, too. I knew many of the people that were still working here who had worked here previously since I was only gone 15 months. I knew about the programs that were existing when I left and still in progress when I returned. I knew a lot of the people in the local community and by virtue of having served as a DCG R&D, I knew people in DA and other places that worked the kinds of issues that I was faced with when I got here. So clearly, it was to my benefit and, I think, the command's benefit but certainly no prerequisite.
MR. BAKER: Were you charged with any specific objectives when you came here?
MG REESE: I had a session with General Thompson before coming down to assume command and he briefed me on what his priorities were, and the implied objectives, of course, were to support those priorities and objectives, and all things MICOM-related. He reiterated to me one aspect that I was intimately familiar with, the "not-invented-here" syndrome that attaches to the command, and charged me, as I went about my business, to keep that in my mind and to work to try to dispel that. The "not-invented-here" syndrome I view as an outgrowth of the intense pride our people rightfully take in the quality work they do and the quality products that they provide our soldiers. They believe that they're the best and I believe they're the best, and they believe what they turn out is the best thing that any command or any group of people can turn out for soldiers, and I endorse that. To the extent that that relates to a "not-invented-here" syndrome, I can't do anything about that and I'm not inclined to. But if the "not-invented-here" syndrome indicates that there is no room for other views; there is no room for other options; there are no other solutions than what originates within the boundaries of Redstone Arsenal, then I don't agree with that. And to the extent that we may have had that here (and I don't think it was very deeply ingrained), but to the extent that we may have had it here, I think we have worked hard to dispel that. I think we have a very good working relationship with the other commands. I'm satisfied that we're open to options and alternatives that are posed either on the government side or industry side, so we will not shed the "not-invented-here" image, there are lots of reasons—positive reasons—for the image to exist. When there are less than positive, productive reasons for it existing, then we work to try to be bigger than that, and I'm satisfied that we've made progress in that regard.
One of the other, at least implied, objectives was the importance of spending our money wisely, spending it well, and maintaining an awareness of our obligation performance. Obligation rates are always a mark on the wall, but I viewed that if we are spending our money wisely and well; if we keep up front the focus that what we spend our money for goes to provide equipment, parts, and services ultimately to soldiers; if we just keep that focus on what we do is for soldiers, the obligation rates are going to take care of themselves. And we try to impart that philosophy throughout the command, and I think we are successful in doing so. Our focus is not on obligation rates specifically—our focus is on doing what's right for soldiers, buying the parts they need so that 2 years from now when some PLL clerk turns to a parts bin to provide a part that is needed to bring a system back operational, those parts are going to be there because 2 years earlier the good people in the Log Center, good people in project offices, good people in the Procurement Directorate, and good people elsewhere throughout this command did their jobs.
MR. BAKER: Well, in that line, did you have any special goals of your own?
MG REESE: Of course. Having understood what the AMC Commander's focus...his priorities...were, then naturally a part of my goal was to ensure him that MICOM and all of its people—all of our people—did what was right to support those priorities and that focus. I wanted to make sure that the people who work here understood where I was coming from and that was again, soldiers. Everything we do is to support soldiers. And I had as a goal making our people not only understand that but believe it. I think that as you walk and talk throughout the command, you'll find that that focus is there. Our soldiers and our Army will be better off, I believe, because of it. One of the other goals that I had relates back to our motto in MICOM, "Excellence in Missilery," a long historical standing of excellency in missilery. I certainly wanted to do everything that I could to help maintain excellence in missilery and I'm satisfied that we've done that. Along the way towards emphasizing our reason for being—SOLDIERS!—and excellence in missilery that is related to soldiers, I wanted to help provide our workers the opportunity to "be all they can be," and I'm hopeful that we did that. We may not know for the next few years, but I'm satisfied that we made significant strides towards that end.
MR. BAKER: Now, this is a core question that they ask us to ask, your personal philosophy of leadership, command, and management.
MG REESE: You'll understand if I don't try to separate those.
MR. BAKER: I understand.
MG REESE: Some may draw distinctions, but I have a hard time separating them because I believe they're all so closely intertwined as to make that a not-necessary-drill. But again, I think...I know...one of the overriding philosophies that I try to operate under and try to cause the people that work with and for me to operate under, too, is doing things right. People want to do things right and 99 point several more nines percentage of people will do things right, and if we do things right, then those obligation rates that I talked about; those spare parts that I talked about that a PLL clerk is going to need; a missile system that (heaven forbid we ever have to fire in anger) when fired, will work and do what it's intended to do; if we do things right, then we have served our soldiers well. In the business that we're in, there's an awful lot of things to do and not nearly enough resources or time to get them done; and if we do things right the first time, then we don't have to back up and do them over; and invariably when we come up with problems, it's because somebody either didn't know, didn't take the time, or, I hope that it's not that they did not, care enough to do things right. But doing things right is one of the cornerstones of the way I try to operate.
I believe in giving people a reason for what we are about, a reason for what we do, a reason for what they do, an understanding of the broader scope of the entire command or organization so that they can place their part of what they do every day into that broader context and understand that what they do does make a difference. I think giving people a reason for what they're doing helps motivate everybody back to the first element that I mentioned—doing things right. Consistent with both of those, you have to build teamwork in the organization; people have to understand the roles that other people and other organizations play; they have to work together as a team. People understand, as I indicated earlier, that what they do does make a difference and they themselves make a difference, and I try to tell people that so that they'll know their efforts are appreciated. That's a fourth element, I guess, here, you have to give feedback in any leadership, command, or management position. You have to give feedback so that people will understand if they're doing things right or if they're not doing things right. They have to understand that their efforts are recognized; that their efforts do make a difference; and that they are appreciated. Too often you'll find that a leader, a supervisor, a manager is eager to jump right on the shoulders of somebody who has fouled up; who has made a mistake; who has not done something right. We're awfully quick to give that kind of feedback, but we are much less quick and less prone to give the positive feedback. And it's the positive feedback that will pay dividends over and over and over again. While I acknowledge in the last 2 years or so we've probably not done enough in the way of positive feedback, we have done an awful lot of it. And I think people understand that and I think that they appreciate it. In fact, I know they do.
I believe a part of my philosophy is keeping the command on a common azimuth, a common course, a common direction and providing the priorities that are necessary to help those doers out there sort out what's important and what must be done first when they have so many conflicting things that make demands on their time, their energies, their resources. And sometimes, that's not a very easy thing to do but it is an essential part, I believe, of being a commander and a manager. I strongly believe in the power that is generated among the work force by delegation to that work force the things for which they have responsibility. In delegating that responsibility, one also has to delegate the authority to get the job done. Sometimes we don't do the latter often enough. I believe it's essential. One must then provide the resources to get the job done as you delegate that responsibility and authority. Consistent with that, I'm a believer in holding people responsible for the end result of whatever task may be given and try to avoid mandating, dictating, directing how the specific jobs will be done. If people understand what they're charged with doing, they have the authority to do it; they have the resources to do it; they want to do things right; and they can determine the "how" much better than I can tell them "how." Know what's expected and they'll produce.
I believe that included in the role of a commander, a leader, or a manager, is also to be a buffer: to take the heat, if you will; to take the guidance and the directives that come from above and translate them...operationalize them...into actions that we need to do; and not let our people be subjected to things on which I ought to act as a buffer. Above all—in fact, I think, included in all—one can sum up that the total philosophy that I try to operate under is one built on mutual trust and confidence. People know that you have trust and confidence in them; that you've given them the leeway, the authority, and the wherewithal to get a job done; that you will be back to them posthaste if they have not done it right; that at the same time you'll take the time to give them a pat on the back if they have done it right (or sometimes maybe it wasn't done right but they did their damnedest and tried). Positive feedback for that simple effort of trying can pay great dividends. I don't know if that's a total philosophy—it's not a total philosophy—but at least it gives some kinds of guideposts to the way which I like to operate.
MR. BAKER: Well, can you describe for us a typical day?
MG REESE: Which day?
DR. HUGHES: No "typical day" really.
MG REESE: Not really. There are certain things that take place every day, but there's no typical day in the life of a MICOM Commander. Common things that take place, of course, are morning staff meetings; the message traffic that comes in the night before. I try to get in here and get through a lot of my reading beginning about 6:30 or so, so that before the others are in and their first meeting starts (I don't say I cleaned out my box because I never clean out my box), I've at least taken care of the new message traffic, the new correspondence that has come in either late the previous day or overnight. We start each day with a meeting—myself and the principal staff members—a couple times a week, as well as members of the rest of the command group. And a couple times of the week we do a similar meeting about 8:00 in the morning with the four PEOs and members of the command group. Then on the fifth day of the week we have our weekly command staff where we bring everybody together.
Then the rest of the day is taken up with issues; with problems; with grievances; decisions that are needed; reviewing briefings or acquisition strategies that are being developed; planning for implementation of things like Matrix Management and functional support; PEO implementation; planning and coping with and discussing how we're going to take resource cuts—dollars or people; and how those should be spread, hopefully, to minimize impact on the work force and on things we do for soldiers, and ultimately to minimize impact on the soldiers out there in the field. It extends to VIP visitors both from our country and from different foreign countries. It extends to community affairs activities downtown—just a whole host of activities. That's what makes the job exciting and rewarding because there is no standard day.
Standard in every day, though, and in everything that comes up, I go back to the professionalism of our people and the motivation to do things right regardless of the issue; regardless of the problem; regardless of whatever may come up. The MICOM Commander, whoever it is, whenever it is, can rest assured that he can bring together the people in a room; people that live and work here in MICOM; that have the expertise, the knowledge, and the motivation to address that issue, that problem, or whatever may have come up. It's a real warm, comfortable feeling.
MR. BAKER: What was the greatest challenge you faced as Commander?
MG REESE: I don't know if I would categorize it as a greatest challenge, but certainly one of the aspects that I felt duty-bound...professionally bound...to continue was the, as I mentioned earlier, excellence in missilery reputation of this command and the people who work here. It was one of my highest priority things I wanted to do and to maintain, but I say it wasn't a challenge because of that trust and confidence I have in our people and the pride that they have in maintaining that reputation of excellence in missilery. So it was one of my top priority activities...top priority focus...but not really a challenge.
More specifically a challenge, I think, was faced with the personnel turbulence that we've had over the last couple of years and before that, faced with the continuing decline in resources, and faced with the pending reorganization of how the Army was to do acquisition business. Those things, plus others, created a significant challenge that I guess I would categorize as keeping the MICOM family together in the face of all of it, and understanding that that would be one of the big challenges.
I think the emphasis that we placed on soldiers; the emphasis that we placed on what we do is for, because of, and in support of soldiers; and that by emphasizing that each person and each organization has a role to play in that support to soldiers; and that no one can be successful by themselves, no single project, no single organization can do their part of their job and execute their responsibilities without the support of other organizations, other projects, other people. We worked hard in trying to maintain a togetherness within the total MICOM family. The PEO reorganization could, on the surface, take away from that feeling of family. We worked hard to prevent that from happening, and I think reasonably successfully.
One of the other challenges that was clear and present, though not totally evident until a few months after I was in command, was reported perceptions in the small business community that MICOM didn't deal totally fairly; that there was an "old boy" network out there; and you had to know somebody to get an "in" to do business with MICOM. That became apparent a few months after I was in command. We set the wheels in motion to address that perception and I think that in large, large measure, that's what it was: perception. But we met through the Chamber of Commerce...asked the Chamber of Commerce...to host a series of meetings with their selection of small business representatives and myself, procurement, and legal folks, and we would hear what their problems were so that we could understand and address those problems. Then, in alternating sessions we on the Government side would address the issues; we would explain why it is we have to do things as we do; and where we could accommodate, in a good business sense, changes to accommodate those perceptions, we would do that and explain it. We've taken a whole host of initiatives to address that total issue but that was a challenge. It remains a continuing challenge that may never be totally solved—probably should not be totally solved—because there has to be an arms length relationship there. But certainly we've come a long way in improving communications, in opening that dialogue, and that’s a challenge that my successor will have to continue to press on.
I think a challenge that evolved over time—as we got into the reorganization of the Army, dealing with the PEO concept, and how we implemented that totally—one of the challenges was to simply stay up to speed on things about projects on which the total command needed to stay up to speed. There is a great tendency for DA to go direct to a PM or a PEO on project matters. There's nothing wrong with that except the MSC needs to stay informed. One of our challenges was keeping up from a communications standpoint on things that happened on a very fast pace. The twice weekly meetings I had with PEOs helped maintain that communications, but it has suffered.
I think one of the other challenges that should be mentioned is the sanctity or the integrity of the procurement process. One has to be ever vigilant in that regard. We let probably 20 or 25 thousand contract actions a year, and a lot of good people work on those. We deal with an awful lot of contractors and spend a very substantial part of the Army's budget in the missile world. Integrity of the procurement process is absolutely essential to what we're doing. I think we've maintained a really fine track record in that, but one always must keep that up front as a challenge to make sure that we don't let situations develop that would detract from that.
MR. BAKER: You mentioned just then you think that your successor's challenge will be to continue these.
MG REESE: I think he's going to be faced with the same kinds of challenges I've just talked about except I think his job is going to be tougher because they're going to intensify. The challenge that I talked about of keeping the MICOM family together was made much, much easier because those who were initially designated PEOs were already living and working here and we knew each other. They, the functionals and the project management people, knew each other. We all brought with us the excellence in missilery motto and understood the role others played in maintaining excellence in missilery. There was already the family existing and it was kind of natural that everybody worked together to maintain that, because I believe our people value that feeling. Now as you see PEOs change, for instance, and new project managers come in, maybe new functional directors come in, those faces that we implemented with will change and the challenge to General Cianciolo is going to be intensified, as I said, in keeping the MICOM family together. I think it is something that he will want to do; I think it's something that is essential be done, but it's going to have to be something that is worked on on a daily basis.
The perceptions of the small business world that I mentioned are going to continue. Those proactive initiatives that we took and are continuing have made substantial improvements. But any time you have a competitive acquisition you're going to have at least one loser and the cries of foul might very well surface. I would expect that they would surface, but as long as we have maintained integrity in the procurement process that I spoke about, we'll explain to those who want to cry foul and show and prove that's not the case. But that's going to be a continuing challenge.
Related to that perception will be the challenges of the changes in the way we have been doing business. Just take these engineering support contracts that project managers historically have done. When we implemented the PEO concept and the functional support aspects of that, the functionals became responsible for providing engineering services support. We're in a transition period now. Some functionals have capabilities in-house, plus contractually in place, to provide all the support any of our PMs need. Most, though, are still in the process of gaining that capability. That's a change in the way of doing business. There's some skepticism in the small business community, I would say, that is, in part, caused simply by change. When change happens, people are naturally a bit uncomfortable with that and they probably rightfully are asking themselves how long will this concept live before we change again. Is it a short life span or is it going to continue? So perceptions of how we do business are fueled by those kinds of things. But again, the dialogue...the communications...we've opened up, explaining what's going on, will let them posture themselves so that they can compete in the world.
The resources, again, both people and dollars, are going to continue to decline, at least as I see it, and I don't see a concurrent decline in the projects that we manage and the kinds of things we do. So the challenge that my successor will have is to continue doing those things we're charged with today, plus will be charged with tomorrow, with the resources that we currently have and with the reality that tomorrow we're going to have fewer. Penned in, he's going to have the same challenge I talked about earlier of maintaining the integrity of the procurement process. Always! That's never going to be relaxed.
MR. BAKER: We’ve already touched, of course, on the next question about PEOs, briefly on Matrix Management: how well you think these two areas are working and what you think the strengths and weaknesses are?
MG REESE: I think the PEO concept is working better here than most people dared believe possible. Now, we've made great strides in implementation, again, because the people involved recognized that that was our focus...that was our azimuth...and we set about determining how best to do it rather than wasting time and effort fighting the fact that we were going to do it. We made some significant strides in implementation. I think overall it's going fairly well, better than that. There's lots yet to do. We're in turbulence right now and the unknown of change again. The PEO concept here at the command was implemented with four PEOs and because resources are not available to man everything to the extent that most of us feel should be manned—that plus other decision factors—are causing a re-look at how many PEOs ought to be associated with each command. We need a decision on how many PEOs we have so that we can get on about doing our business.
The weaknesses...well, let me give you a strength or two first. I think one of the greatest strengths of the PEO concept is that we had a senior PEO—a senior person called a PEO—with his office, the personnel in his office, whose total mission in life was to manage the systems assigned to them so that they could get those out to soldiers and support those for soldiers. That single manager focus where they didn't have to be involved with a whole host of other aspects of the command, I think, is the real single overriding strength of the PEO concept. That strength is not gained without some penalties and among the penalties I already mentioned is the tendency of the direct line phone calls where the rest of the MSC can be left out of the loop unless the rest of the MSC and the PEO structure take the initiative to continue working together.
Change, again, as I indicated, there's a natural resistance to it. Any change is difficult and this was a significant change from the way the Army has done its acquisition business, I think, forever. Just the mere fact that the change came about created a whole host of challenges. I don't categorize that as a weakness, but the resistance to change probably caused us to not implement as quickly, as completely, as we could. But concurrent with that change and the change that I mentioned about the proposed reorganization, comes the people impact. Sometimes the real life people impact is not considered and to the extent that it is not, that's a weakness in this process.
Before PEOs, if we were to make changes within the command, we clearly would take into account people aspects. We may not be 100 percent right in how we deal with those, but we sure take that into account. As you reduce the number of PEOs or as the decision to reduce lingers, you have an awful lot of people wondering how does this affect me? Where will I be working tomorrow? I'm a GS-8 today and they're reducing two or three or four GS-8 or 13 positions or whatever, how does that impact me? That's an issue, a real life situation, that maybe the reorganization doesn’t take into account in decisions or in timeliness of decisions.
A weakness in implementation of the PEO concept is that, with varied exceptions, there were few spaces that came along to enable implementation of that concept. It goes back to the philosophy I talked about earlier. If a command, or an organization, or an individual is given responsibility for something and authority to do that, it's incumbent upon us to provide resources to get that job done. We have, with the blessing of AMC, at least, and I think DA as well, gone ahead and overhired to provide the resources to implement the PEO structure. But there are just not real life hard spaces available within DA to fully resource what is required, and everybody recognizes that.
Another weakness not associated specifically with the PEO business is the reality of the budget decision process and how the resources are allocated. Then the different audit agencies coming in that don't— seemingly don't—recognize the realities of that budget impact on a program. An example, Line-of-Sight -Forward-Heavy, one of the projects that we put under contract here within the last year or so, had an acquisition plan that said, "We will provide Line-of-Sight-Forward-Heavy to our soldiers at X period of time, and, oh, by the way, this project is going to cost X hundreds of millions of dollars." Well, when you get a budget decision that comes down and says, "I am reducing your funding by however tens of millions of dollars," there is an impact now on total program costs: it's going up. There is an impact on the date we said we would provide that system to soldiers: it's going to extend to the right. The auditors will come in and look at the original acquisition plan, and look at where you are now, and say, "Your costs have gone up and your program has stretched out. You fouled up." There is a cause for that that's beyond the control of a PEO, a PM, or an MSC Commander to affect. That still happens today; it has happened for years; it will happen for years; not a part of the PEO concept bringing it about, but a reality.
Within the implementation of the Matrix Management concept, again, I think we've done that reasonably well. That was, again, significant change. And change, as I indicated earlier, is resisted. But given the resource situation, there's absolutely no alternative to providing adequate support to projects than to provide that support through the matrix concept. We're continually looking at how we're doing that with a view towards improving it every day. And I literally mean every day we're working towards that. One of the realities of causing Matrix Management to happen...to be...is building the trust and confidence that I spoke of earlier. PMs like to have under their direct control all of the resources they need to execute their responsibilities. They can't have it that way today. They have to learn to depend on functional support. They have to have the trust and confidence in that functional element that when they need that help, it's going to be there, and it's going to be the kinds of skills and quality of help they need to get the job done.
On the other side of that coin, the functionals have to recognize that their priority number one mission in life is to support projects. Now, they have a specific responsibility associated with their function that is separate from support to projects, but support to projects must be done. Sometimes you'll find that within a functional element they become decisively engaged in other aspects of their business that they have to be up to speed on, but not to the exclusion of support to projects. So there's a period of time that we are still going through that's one of building trust and confidence and credibility between project management offices and functional support offices that one day will happen to where the functionals are accepted by PMs and the responsibility to provide functional support is accepted by functionals. We've made some strides. We're not where we need to be yet. We're going to get there.
MR. BAKER: Let's talk about the INF treaty or the implementation of it. We were just curious what your initial reaction was when you heard the Russians would come.
MG REESE: Initial reaction was very simply, "Who asked me?" Because nobody did. I found out about it after the fact and that was my true reaction. "Who asked me about this?" It was a rhetorical reaction, naturally. But, again, recognizing that it was going to happen, we set in motion some good people here charged with the responsibility of doing it right. Understanding where the inspectors were authorized to go, we then began to develop plans as to how we were going to execute: again do things right. There was very much a dearth of guidance coming down as to what was expected. Absent that guidance, we developed our own assumptions and developed an operation plan to deal with the inspection.
We sent a host of questions forward for which we sometimes waited a considerable amount of time to get answers. And, in some cases, we sent forward what we proposed the answers to be. I think working together with AMC and the folks up in DA, we jointly developed guidance; we jointly developed answers to questions; and the operations plan that our people developed here was used as a model for the operations plans throughout this country and in Europe, too, I believe. But we had never done that before. It was a kind of reaction of shock, but once I got over that and we realized what the task was, we set in motion the right people to go about getting it done. I'm satisfied that they've done just an absolutely superb job in getting ready, and we are ready.
MR. BAKER: Well, this may be a redundant question for you've already touched on this several times, what are you proudest of during your tenure here?
MG REESE: Well, I don't know if it's a redundant question or not. Certainly you can read a lot of pride in some of the other things I talked about, and it's genuine pride. But in the last 2 years plus if one goes back and just does an inventory of the numbers and kinds of systems that we have fielded to soldiers, both active duty and reserve component, and you total that inventory, you'll see readily that the Missile Command has put an awful lot of combat power out in the field with soldiers and has continued to sustain that combat power that was already out there. So, if soldiers are a focus—and they are—one of the proudest things is getting them the combat power so that if they ever have to again fire shots in anger, hopefully, we'll have provided them enough combat power to help make a difference. I think we have.
Another intense pride I have is simply the honor and privilege of being the commander of and working with all the MICOM professionals that live here, that work here, and that help soldiers up front in the kinds of things they do. That's been a singular high point in an awful lot of years that I've spent in our Army. I'm proud of our people, as you know, and as I think every one of the 7,000 or so that work here know it. I 'm proud of how they give their all to do things right; I'm proud of their commitment to soldiers; and I'm proud of the role they've all helped play in maintaining that reputation of excellence in missilery. I'm also proud of the rapport that all of us on the arsenal have with the local people out in the Huntsville/Madison County community. It's absolutely super. Those people out there support soldiers as well if not better than any place I've ever served. We tell them every time we get an opportunity how much we appreciate that. There's a whole host of things to be very, very proud for, but those kind of summarize all of them, I think.
MR. BAKER: Is there any one area that you didn't make the progress you'd hoped?
MG REESE: Every area that I talked about I didn't make the progress I had hoped. I suspect if I were here for 5 years more I would answer that question 5 years from now the same way. We haven't implemented the PEO/matrix concept fully, partly because of our own slowness, maybe, but partly because that concept is still evolving and still changing. I would have liked to have presented my successor with a fait accompli that we have implemented fully and that you've got clear sailing for the next 2 years. The reality in me recognizes that's not the case. He and I will talk about that, though, as a part of our transition. I was not very successful in getting the resources that I felt were needed to get the job done, though, I will hasten to add that this command got its fair share. We, in with all of DA and AMC, faced a shortage of resources, and I'm absolutely satisfied that MICOM got its fair share of those shortages. But that doesn't say we could not have used more.
We've taken a lot of initiatives to help offset those shortages. Those initiatives can be ticked off under things I am proud of that our people did: productivity initiatives; the value engineering program, where we saved an awful lot of money over the last couple of years. There's just a whole host of things that we're doing, to include contracting out efforts that can logically be contracted out to help address the shortages. I know I didn't get as far along as we would have liked to.
While we made significant strides in the perceptions of dealing with the small business community, I'm less than satisfied with where we are now. Lots of improvements have been made, but the change that I talked about and the competitive aspects of how we're doing our business will always cause those perceptions to be there. We'll address them as they come up. We'll always have some skeptics, but if we do things right, then we can deal with those skeptics.
I think those are kind of a few of the areas to be kept up. In almost everything we did, we didn't make as much progress as I had hoped, though I'm very, very proud of the progress we've made. I don't intend by any of those comments in response to that question to downplay all of the positive aspects that have taken place in this command, because those positive accomplishments dwarf my feelings that we didn't get as far along as I would have hoped in many of our efforts.
MR. BAKER: Were there any other areas you would like to cover?
MG REESE: Two years is a very short period of time.
MR. BAKER: It certainly is.
MG REESE: It truly is. But I leave the command, as I've indicated in almost all of my comments, confident in our people; confident in their commitment; confident in their focus; and with the absolute confidence that excellence in missilery will be maintained long, long after I've gone. I look forward in the new position in SARDA with helping not only this command, but the other commands of AMC "be all we can be" together for soldiers.
MR. BAKER: Do you have any questions of us?
MG REESE: I don't think so.
