Who is Gen. Norton Schwartz?

[CommunityEditor]

Gen. Norton Schwartz, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, will be nominated to become the 19th Air Force chief of staff, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Monday.

And Mike Donley, a career civil servant who is presently the Pentagon’s Director of Administration and Management, will be the next Air Force secretary, Gates announced.

The announcements come just days after Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael W. Wynne were forced to resign Thursday as the result of problems with the Air Force’s nuclear weapons program.

If confirmed by the Senate, Schwartz will be the first nonfighter pilot to lead the service since 1982, marking the end of an era during which the so-called fighter mafia has dominated the Air Force.

Gates also announced that Gen. Duncan McNabb, Moseley’s vice chief of staff, will be nominated to replace Schwartz at the helm of TransCom. And Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, currently serving as assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will be nominated to take over as vice chief of staff.

Gates recommended that Donley take over as acting secretary on June 21. No timeline has been announced for when Moseley will step aside, or when the president will formally nominate the new Air Force leaders. The Senate must then confirm the nominees before they can take office.

Schwartz was set to retire at year’s end as boss of TransCom. He came up the ranks as a conventional and special operations C-130 pilot. Previous posts include director of operations for the Joint Chiefs and deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. He will be the first special operations pilot to lead the Air Force.

Donley was acting secretary of the Air Force for seven months in 1993 and served as the service’s top financial officer from 1989 to 1993.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...ements_060908/

[CommunityEditor]

The general nominated to be the next Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, rose up through the ranks as a special operations pilot who also succeeded in Air Staff and joint assignments.

A 1973 political science graduate of the Air Force Academy, Schwartz flew his first operational C-130E Hercules mission in 1975, including airlift missions evacuating people out of Saigon that year.

In 1980, Schwartz joined the world of Air Force special operations with an assignment to the 8th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla., flying MC-130E Combat Talons. The position came a few months after the failed Iranian hostage raid mission highlighted problems with joint special operations.

“There are seminal events in all our lives,” Schwartz said in an April 2000 interview with Air Force Times on the raid’s 20th anniversary. “This was one of the momentous events for my generation.

The aftermath of the raid eventually led to the creation of the Air Force Special Operations Command, creating structure where Schwartz and others could gain experience as group and wing bosses. In June 1995, Schwartz took command of the 16th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt and in 2000 became deputy commander of U.S, Special Operations Command.

While Schwartz advanced up the ranks in special operations, he also held plum assignments at the Air Staff, serving as deputy director of operations in the mid-1990s and as director of strategic planning in the late 1990s.

As the head of strategic planning, part of Schwartz’s focus was on how the Air Force would fight an urban war and make use of AC-130 gunships and satellite-guided bombs. “Don’t go downtown without us,” was the general’s advice in a paper he co-wrote for Air University.

In a 2000 forum on air power and urban operations, Schwartz said it was the lack of AC-130H firepower over Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993 that led to the battle documented in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.”

“In fact, had AC-130 gunship support been available in theater for the final Task Force Ranger operation against fugitive warlord Aideed, events of that fateful day would most likely have taken a completely different direction with minimum U.S. losses,” Schwartz said in 2000.

In September 2000, Schwartz left special operations to lead the 11th Air Force in Alaska, a job primarily held by fighter pilots.

Since 2002, Schwartz has held high-level joint positions, as the director of operations for the joint staff, director of the joint staff and since 2005 commander of U.S. TransCom.

At TransCom, Schwartz focused on improving the efficiency of air, land and sea transportation.

When quizzed by lawmakers in 2007 on how many C-17 Globemasters the Air Force needed, Schwartz said 205 was enough to handle foreseeable contingencies.

In April, the Defense Department announced that Schwartz would retire from TranCom by the end of the year and be replaced there by Lt. Gen. William Fraser, after Fraser was confirmed by the Senate and promoted to general.

Now, Schwartz’s retirement plans are set aside. Fraser, a career bomber and mobility pilot, is nominated to serve as Schwartz’s vice chief of staff.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...z_bio_060908w/


Sheila Vemmer / Staff
Gen. Norton Schwartz, currently commander of U.S. Transportation Command, has been nominated to be the next Air Force chief of staff.

This is huge. The first time someone other than from the "fighter culture club" has been nominated for the post. With his special ops background I expect to definetly see some out of the box thinking. This could be interesting.

Obviously, the selections of General Schwartz and General Fraser puts an end to the Fighter Pilot mentality and may lead to a service where teamwork comes back into the picture. In addition, I see where Dr. Gates has stated that there will be no more manpower cuts for the AF. That ought to make our young officer and enlisted force see that there is a future in the AF and that hard work and compliance with regulations and standards will be rewarded with advancement and more responsibility. Having been retired for 32 years, I hope to see an Air Force that I am again proud of and where comradery again rules.

[intelman]

Let's see, we have a new Secretary and a new Chief of Staff coming in. What about the CMSAF? Any plans to replace him? Hmmmmm....

Sounds like Gates (who has done a solid technocrat job as DOD chief) did the right thing in picking Schwarz. Background as a fighter and a deliverer who has spent his staff time thinking about wars and their execution. Enough of the blue scarf types who are always looking to run someone in at their 6 position.

And let the Demo's decide if they want to cut the F-22 ala Jimmy Carter with the B1 bomber.

Hollomon AFB base ex--"where only the die hearts are willing to go and work"

Did Gen. Swartz spring fully formed from the head of Zeus? Where did he grow up? Does he ever go fishing?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Did Gen. Swartz spring fully formed from the head of Zeus? Where did he grow up? Does he ever go fishing?

And more important yet, what's his cat's name?

[CommunityEditor]

Collective talent, more than background, was the primary consideration when Defense Secretary Robert Gates settled on his nominees to fill the top two leadership slots in the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs chairman said Tuesday.

“In my view, you go into this kind of search and decision trying to get the best people,” said Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, speaking with reporters in Washington. “And it’s my belief — and I endorsed this decision — wholly, certainly, from the military standpoint — that that decision has been both wrung out well and made.”

The jobs were vacated when Gates on Friday forced the resignations of the Air Force secretary, Michael Wynne, and chief of staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, over what he said were significant and systemic problems with the security and handling of nuclear weapons materials.

Much has been made of the fact that neither the prospective chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, nor his nominated No. 2, Lt. Gen. William Fraser, is a fighter pilot, although both are fliers. If confirmed, Schwartz, an AC-130 special operations flier, would be the first non-fighter pilot to serve as chief in the past 26 years. Fraser, who currently serves as Mullen’s assistant, is a B-52 bomber pilot.

In a parallel move, Gates recommended that the current vice chief of staff, Gen. Duncan McNabb, take Schwartz’s place as the commander of U.S. Transportation Command. McNabb is a transport aircraft flier with time in both the C-141 and C-17.

Mullen admitted that not having a fighter pilot in one of the top two slots is “certainly an important message” but would not elaborate except to add, “That doesn’t mean fighter guys go away from the Air Force.

“I mean, you can read that a lot of different ways,” Mullen said. “But I can assure you that what drove that more than anything else was the talent search for the best combination and also the need to have somebody go in behind General Schwartz as he left.

“So it was much broader than just, well, these are the signals we want to send, let’s pick the individuals to send them,” Mullen said.

But, Mullen added, “I think it’s also very important that we have somebody like Fraser, who’s got the bomber background, given the reason all this happened, so that his expertise will be applied to fixing this problem.”

The problems cited by Gates included the incident last summer in which a B-52 was mistakenly loaded with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across the country.

Mullen also noted that Fraser once served as the vice commander at Air Combat Command. “So he’s been around both the bomber and the fighter side as well,” Mullen said.

Mullen said he wasn’t as familiar with Mike Donley, Gates’ choice as the next Air Force secretary, but noted both his background in Army Special Forces as well as his tenure as an Air Force executive — he served as acting Air Force secretary for seven months in 1993. “So he’s got a pretty rich history of serving, both on the military side and the civilian side,” Mullen said.

“So I think it’s a great team. And it comes at a great time.”


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...force_061008w/

He appears to have no home of record or family. Perhaps he's a cyborg who went straight to UPT after he was created in a Pentagon basement.