Brigadier General Read's Promotion
Story & Photos by SPC Charles Ames - Posted Aug, 2000
 |
Although BG Read has been in command of the 81st Brigade for many months, he had to wait for the paperwork on his stars. Isn't that just like the military? As commander of one of the most important organizations in the state's National Guard, he is responsible for the training of thousands and a budget of millions. His focus, however, is on his soldiers and on the future.
Brigadier General Richard Read hails from a very strong family military background. His father commanded battalions as well.
BG Read likens the Army National Guard experience to a family. On active duty members are continually arriving from or being transferred to other units. It is not uncommon for Guardsmen to serve in the same unit for decades, if they so desire.
While BG Read lists many influences on his leadership style, he attributes retired Major General Greg Barlow, the states former Adjutant General, with his key prioritizing philosophy; "Members, Mission, Me".
 |
He says of his new assignment, "The brigade has two primary challenges facing it right now. One is to achieve the personnel readiness goals established by the National Guard Bureau. But more importantly, we need to meet our Duty MOS qualification requirements, and our senior grade requirements. On those, we're not doing as well as we should. I've told all the commanders within the brigade that our challenge is to achieve those readiness levels and that we should do that internally, within our own command, and not be dependent on some external cross-leveling to meet our own standard. That means we've got to do better job of retaining people who are coming up against their first enlistment, we've got to do a better job at controlling attrition particularly of those people who leave before their obligation is even completed. But across the board we've got to do a better job of taking care of our people and making them want to be members of the 81st brigade."
 |
"Our next big challenge is to prepare ourselves for the our National Training Center rotation due in fiscal year 2004. It's not an easy task, particularly for a Reserve Component brigade that doesnt have 365 days a year to train... we have only 39! So were really only about 130 training days away from NTC."
 |
 |
|
|