{"id":25737,"date":"2020-07-05T18:06:54","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T18:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/07\/05\/new-shaw-air-force-base-leader-talks-readiness-amid-pandemic\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:43:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:43:19","slug":"new-shaw-air-force-base-leader-talks-readiness-amid-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2020\/07\/05\/new-shaw-air-force-base-leader-talks-readiness-amid-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"New Shaw Air Force Base leader talks readiness amid pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SUMTER, S.C. \u2014 Col. Larry Sullivan thinks people, and airmen, bond in struggle. What better way to test that than to assume command of your first fighter wing during a pandemic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan recently took command of the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base and has used his first month or so in Sumter to get to know the squadrons, teams and airmen who comprise the Air Force\u2019s largest F-16 combat wing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first focus has been to ensure the health of the airmen. Readiness has always been the primary focus at Shaw. If COVID-19 were to spread throughout the airmen, that mission would be threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny minute, the phone can ring and we\u2019ve got to get a lot of jets and a lot of people out the door in an extremely short timeframe,\u201d Sullivan said in the commander\u2019s office last week, a room whose window offers a view of F-16s taking off, whose walls stood in that transitionary phase between occupants save for a few items and a framed photo of his wife and three daughters. \u201cSo, we need healthy, ready, trained-up people, so having a few cases on base that take up full units would stop that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readiness in the face of a highly contagious virus has meant, like elsewhere across the world, the closure of schools and activities, \u201ca lot of the stuff that makes it fun to be in the military, the team aspect of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His path toward the cockpit of a fighter jet was not innate. Sullivan grew up in the Midwest and went to high school in the Boston area. His wife may be a third-generation Air Force service member, but Sullivan only had a few nonimmediate relatives with military careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he will reiterate later, everyone comes to their service from a different background and for a different reason. The service academies appealed to him, so he applied to West Point and the Air Force Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was doing an interview with a West Point graduate, and he said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry about the location of the school. What do you want to do after?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI hadn\u2019t thought about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between sea, ground and sky, he decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The true mission: Helping others reach their potential<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has spent most of his military career overseas, especially in Korea and Japan, and his perspective has led him to notice the difference in community relations and that having a trusted command team makes him excited to be in Sumter, a place that other units and missions want to move to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardship helps a team get to know each other, he said. He knows that beyond readiness, a mission\u2019s success relies on that team dynamic and the support each member feels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of Shaw\u2019s success, both in mission and perception, is its relationship with the Sumter community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan\u2019s wife had been living in Washington, D.C., working in the Air Force Reserves with the Pentagon while caring for their 7-year-old, 9-year-old and 11-year-old daughters as Sullivan was deployed on a year-long remote unaccompanied tour as vice commander of the 8th Fighter Wing at Kunsan Air Base in Korea. They visited for Christmas. Within hours of finding out the family would be relocating together, Sullivan received an immediate email welcome from Steve Creech, a stranger who happened to be a former mayor of Sumter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Positive community relations don\u2019t exist everywhere. In Japan, he exerted effort in preventing the government from building a windmill next to the base. In Sumter, local government leaders bought an old family farm to transform it into a welcome center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In getting to know the base, Sullivan wants to find out what each unit needs and to offer support and resources toward solving problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe base has been so well-run for so many years. It turns out everyone knows what to do. You don\u2019t have to come up with every solution yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s an entire structure here and specialists for every crisis we could have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of realizing he doesn\u2019t have to come up with every solution involves realizing he won\u2019t have the best answer to every problem. Surround yourself with the people who do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I can provide broad guidance for what the priorities might be in the wing, if I can make people feel like it\u2019s OK to toss up potentially bad ideas, to think openly and discuss stuff collaboratively without fear of immediately getting shot down or a negative judgment right off the bat, then I think the good ideas will actually come to the surface. And we can pick the winners out of those and then run with them and take care of the people who are actually going to do the work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t