“The true mark of a leader is how one professionally and personally develops the people around them. MSgt Deese has taken on the critical role as a supervisor and molded Airmen into Air Force leaders for today and years to come.” An Academy Peer

Assignment: Director of resources at Kisling Noncommissioned Officer Academy at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

Personal: Married to Shannon Deese; they have seven children; deacon at his church.

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Master Sgt. Rodney Deese is committed to doing things right — all of the time.
Just ask the airmen he works with here at Kisling Noncommissioned Officer Academy.

When Deese sees a missed salute or an untucked shirt, he calls out the offender.

He can’t help himself. He’s a former military training instructor-turned-NCO educator who has seven children of his own to keep in line.

And he wants to help foreign air forces develop the same standards that he has come to live by and respect. He has been key in bringing NCOs of other countries to Kisling for classes.

“The Air Force needs more NCOs like him,” said Master Sgt. Keith Castille, who teaches at the academy, where Deese is the director of resources and first sergeant.

Even on his own time, Deese is committed to good work. He is a deacon in his church and is active in the missionary program. When an airman lost a child in a home accident, for example, he raised $1,700 in 24 hours to donate to the grieving family.

“That’s so hard to lose a child. I can’t even imagine,” Deese said. “I just wanted to do anything we could to make it just a little bit easier on them.”

For his embodiment of the Air Force, both on the job and off the clock, Deese is Air Force Times’ 2010 Airman of the Year.

Deese, 29, is modest about his contributions. He hails the airmen deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan who clear the roads of bombs and fly harrowing rescue missions. Castille, though, is just as quick to point out the airmen outside the wire who rely on Deese and his fellow professional military educators to get them ready for the war zone.

Castille recalls how Deese — out for lunch with his wife and children — spotted an airman wearing boots without laces and the wrong rank on his coat. Deese went up to the airman and asked why he was dressed the way he was.

“This is how we do it on the flight line,” the airman answered.

Right then and there, Deese decided to find out for himself if the airman spoke the truth. He hit the road with the airman and his family to see if this indeed was how airmen did it on the flight line.

“He doesn’t take a day off,” Castille said.

Kisling is the Air Force’s largest overseas academy, serving five major bases, 10 wings and 80 geographically separated units.

Because of its location, Kisling is reaching out to foreign air forces, offering to train their NCOs at the academy. Deese has led the project from the beginning, said Chief Master Sgt. David Lawrence, Kisling’s commandant.

“Deese has been involved in our building partnership capacity from Day One,” said Lawrence, who nominated Deese for the Air Force Times’ honor.

In 2009, Deese helped enroll Kisling’s first foreign NCO — a Romanian Plutonier, the equivalent of a technical sergeant. He also arranged for a Botswana Defense Force delegation to visit Kisling and briefed Poland’s chief master sergeant of the air force on how to enroll a Polish NCO at a U.S. NCO academy.
To help U.S. airmen, Deese oversaw the installation of $500,000 worth of audio and visual equipment that allows Kisling instructors and NCOs in Iraq and Afghanistan to communicate with each other.

“I want to set this academy up for 2020 and Deese has been a point man for that,” Lawrence said. “I have full trust and confidence in everything he possibly did.”
Despite his family responsibilities, Deese is always on top of his duties, Lawrence said.

Deese attributes his focus to his wife, Shannon Deese, who he married 11 years ago.

“She is the nucleus of our family,” Deese said of his high school sweetheart. “Without her, none of this is possible. She supports me all the way and has the most important job, taking care of our kids.”

As first sergeant of a training unit, Deese has extra challenges. Not only does he have to counsel instructors at the academy, he has to learn a new group of airmen and serve as a first shirt to every class, Castille said.

One airman came to Deese after his daughter had stolen the family’s passports and money and flown back to the U.S. Deese helped the NCO sort things out and made sure he returned for the next class.

“He deals with all types of situations, from alcohol issues to break-ups to problems in training,” Phillips said. “He does it all with professionalism and makes sure the airmen always come first.”

Castille described Deese as a controversial pick for the first shirt assignment: He had just made master sergeant and there were other NCOs at the academy who wanted the job and had more rank. Deese, though, set himself apart in his professionalism and his work ethic. And Deese wanted it the most, Lawrence said.

“I asked everyone to write something up explaining why they wanted the job. Everyone else wrote up a paragraph or two. Deese wrote five pages why he wanted to do that job,” Lawrence said. “In my 27 years of experience he is probably the most professional, disciplined airman that I have ever met in my career.”
Despite the extra work load, Deese makes it look easy.

“For that job, there are a lot of straightforward decisions that some guys make more difficult than they need to be,” Castille said. “Not Rodney — he sometimes almost makes it look too easy until someone else does it and then you realize how important he is.”

By Michael Hoffman
mhoffman@militarytimes.com

MSgt Rodney Deese says his life motto is, “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.”

That motto guides not only his personal choices, but also how he mentors the next generation of senior enlisted leaders in the U.S. Air Force and beyond.

As Director of Resources and First Sergeant for the Kisling NCO Academy at Kapaun Air Station in Germany, Deese spends countless hours mentoring young NCOs, many of whom have since won leadership awards.

In the past year alone, he has helped to build multi-national partnerships with air forces and services from former eastern bloc countries, including 19 NATO allies.

Many of Deese’s achievements include noteworthy firsts. Deese led the contact team that, for the first time in Defense Department history, secured Air Force slots at the German Staff NCO Academy. As the project officer for the Polish Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, he negotiated four Polish Staff NCO slots. His personal outreach also included assisting the Botswana Defense Force build their NCO training model and paving the way for two Romanian students to attend the Kisling NCO Academy, a first for the U.S. Air Force in Europe.

In addition, Deese implemented changes at the Academy that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on various projects, including energy conservation efforts. These initiatives earned him the 2009 HQ USAFE/DS Staff NCO of the Year.

Beyond his work with his own airmen and international militaries, Deese continually seeks growth in all aspects of his life. He recently completed his Master’s Degree in Leadership with Dean’s List honors and earned the German Air Force’s Expert Marksman Award using two weapons over 22 events. A man of faith, Deese is devoted to his local church, where he teaches Bible lessons, serves as interim pastor, and is a Deacon.

In his personal time, Deese has donated countless hours to the Kaiserslautern Crisis Pregnancy Center, providing event and volunteer support to the 2009 German Special Olympics and directed volunteer and donation efforts for the Wounded Warrior Program, Fisher House and Kinder Grave, an organization that preserves and maintains the gravesites of 451 American infants buried at the Kaiserslautern cemetery.

Deese and his wife, Shannon, have a family of seven children, Cheyenne, Elijah, Josiah, Isaiah, Israel, MacKinley and Emersyn. He credits his wife Shannon with much of his success.

“Behind every service member is a faithful spouse managing the home front. My wife is the nucleus of my life. Any acts of mine considered inspiring or notable are possible because she serves right alongside me. It is a true challenge to balance family with duty. The only way I can do it is because my wife and children consider themselves members of the Air Force family.”

MSgt Deese and his family will be moving back to the U.S. at the end of the summer.

“The true mark of a leader is how one professionally and personally develops the people around them. MSgt Deese has taken on the critical role as a supervisor and molded Airmen into Air Force leaders for today and years to come.” An Academy Peer

Please join Military Times as we salute MSgt Rodney C. Deese, II, as the 2010 Air Force Times Airman of the Year.