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Government Leader home > news stories
12/14/05
Executive manages munitions, mentors his ‘charges’
By John L. Guerra
Special to Government Leader
Ernie Parada has a big “to do” list when he arrives each day at Ployer Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah.
As director of the 84th Combat Sustainment Wing, the 53-year-old senior executive service officer oversees 1,800 military, civilian and contract employees who test, maintain and deliver a smorgasbord of engineering systems, equipment and munitions in the Air Force stockpile. Because so much of his group’s mission is classified, Parada can speak of only a small part of his wing’s mission.
The wing delivers much of the punch in the war on terror, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but in other parts of the world where U.S. military units operate. One group Prada oversees, for instance, oversees supply-line management for both laser-guided and traditional munitions cradled under the wings of F-16 aircraft and other fighters, as well as the powerful 30mm shells that spew from the beak of A-10 Warthogs. “And these barely represent the number of programs we’re responsible for,” Parada said.
Parada is a rare and valuable breed of government leader—his most important secondary mission, he said, is mentoring employees of different backgrounds, temperaments and achievement.
“Mentoring is one of the tools I use to make sure folks know what the leadership expectations are across the [Defense Department],” Parada said, including rights that women, Hispanics and other minority employees have in the Defense Department.
Parada meets with his charges in well-structured groups as well as in less formal ways. “We range from scheduled seminars to brown-bag lunches and personal counseling sessions. I schedule groups by grade ranges, such as GS-5s through GS-7s, and mentor them [to] motivate them to want to increase their educational opportunities,” Parada said.
“Employees below the GS-13 level learn what the expectations are based on the experiences I and other mentors have had in their careers, such as moving around the country, working at various military installations and taking career-enriching classes,” he said.
Indeed, it’s difficult to grasp how Parada ever caught a full night’s sleep, much less raised a family of two boys (and now, a grandchild on the way), but he did.
After earning a two-year degree in physical education and enlisting in the Marines in the 1960s, he’s earned a master’s degree in business administration with a focus on human resource management and another master’s of science degree in national security strategy from the National War College. He’s also taken systems program manager’s courses, the flag officer course and the Office of Executive Management’s Leadership in a Democratic Society course at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Va.
“I even took a mini-course on ‘leadership development from team-building through dealing with difficult people,’” he said.
The mentoring at Hill AFB also continues during monthly bowling outings, golfing and barbecues with senior executives and their charges and families.
Parada has a piece of advice for younger personnel: Don’t turn down the offer of a new position by higher-ups. They may be trying to mentor you for an unexpected but rewarding career path you haven’t yet imagined.
“To be an effective mentor, you really, truly have to want to do it. You have to have a passion for it. If not, it will become very obvious to your employees that it’s not genuine,” he said.
And here’s a final leadership tip from Parada: “A good manager makes sure he trains his people to replace him. The good employees are positioning themselves to replace a guy like me.”
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