Leading Air Force Logistics

The Air Force is not developing enough senior officers with multi-functional logistics experience. Furthermore, the segregation of maintenance and logistics under the dual-track concept is not beneficial for maintenance or logistics in the long run. Maintenance officers will not be well prepared to assume the leadership positions in logistics that they will be placed in due to over specialization. LROs on the other hand, are too generalized in the early part of their career and this will likely inhibit their development as a leader. Additionally, the lack of command positions for LROs and therefore fewer promotion opportunities means that maintenance officers will continue to dominate both wing and staff positions. Whether or not the Air Force decides to keep maintenance and logistics segregated, the fact remains that the logistics functions of supply, transportation, and logistics plans have as much to do with MC rates as do aircraft maintenance.