Donley Eyed as Wynne Successor

Donley Eyed as Wynne Successor: Breaking wire service reports, including this Reuters article, are announcing from the Pentagon that Defense Secretary Robert Gates likely will name Michael Donley to take over as Air Force Secretary in place of Michael Wynne, who resigned yesterday (see below). The announcement could come later today, Reuters said. Donley, currently director of administration and management within DOD, has nearly three decades of experience in the national security community, including stints on Senate and White House staffs and in the Pentagon. (Click here for his full bio.) He is no stranger to the Air Force, having served for seven months in 1993 as acting secretary between the tenures of Donald Rice and Sheila Widnall. Prior to that, he was USAF’s assistant secretary for financial management/comptroller from 1989 to 1993.

6/6/2008

Verbatim

Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.