81st CS welcomes civilian director Published Jan. 12, 2010 By Keesler News Staff KEESLER AFB, Ms. -- The 81st Communications Squadron has a new leader -- and he's a civilian. John McKinley assumed leadership Monday as the first civilian director of the squadron. Mr. McKinley assumed leadership from Capt. Andre Johnson, who became the squadron's commander in July after serving two years as commander of its operations flight. Captain Johnson has been selected for promotion to major and is going to be the command and control program manager on the J-6 staff for U.S. Forces in Korea. Mr. McKinley, who completed enlistments with the Air Force, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, entered civil service in 1996 after earning a bachelor's degree at Ohio University. He served as a contractor negotiator at two bases before attending Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to earn a master's degree in electronic commerce. He spent another year in graduate school studying information assurance and public policy before resuming his civil service career in 2002 with the Defense Department Computer Forensics Laboratory. In 2005, Mr. McKinley moved to the communications and information directorate at Air Force Special Operations Command headquarters on a career-broadening assignment where he rotated through the requirements, information assurance and budget and manpower branches before being selected as chief of the programming, budget execution and force management branch in 2007. So, why is the leadership of many communications squad-rons across the Air Force transferring from military to civilian? Mr. McKinley, who is a graduate of the Air and Space Basic Course and Squadron Officer School, says it's something that has been coming for some time. In the not-so-distant past, the 81st CS had about 140 military personnel and relatively few civilians. "Soon, the unit will be manned by about 90 Department of Defense civilians and 25 military personnel, most of the latter being client service technicians," he said. "We will also continue to have a few contractors, who are another important part of the team." This change has been driven by world events of the past decade and evolving doctrine, Mr. McKinley added. "The bottom line is the Air Force trains and equips its military Airmen to carry out missions downrange; they are the primary deployable force," he stated. "Our Department of Defense civilian Airmen, while deploying in greater numbers, remain largely the in-garrison, or home station, force. "Why have our military members performing duties and training at the home station on equipment or for scenarios they are not likely to encounter downrange? These military members can now be placed in units with deployable missions. As the composition of the unit goes from primarily military to primarily civilian, it follows that the leadership would as well."