Maj Gen Darren McDew of the U.S. Air Force

“I developed a disciplined method of thinking, identifying and resolving problems and applied it from the very beginning,” he says

This two-star general was just named a vice director for the J5 director of strategic plans and policy on the Joint Staff.

Air Force Major General Darren McDew believes in empowering people by communicating a vision for the organization.

“Everyone should understand what you expect and the direction you’re going,” he says. “But you have to communicate that you have mileposts for the vision.

“You want to hire the best people you can find and empower them. If you effectively communicate the vision and direction and put talented people with the right experience in the right jobs, they can fill in a lot
of gaps that you would never have time to fill yourself.”

Lifetime vision
McDew, a civil engineer and Air Force pilot, has held that philosophy since the late 1970s and early ‘80s, when he was a minority student proving himself at Virginia Military Institute (VMI, Lexington, VA), the former training ground for the Confederacy. He graduated in 1982, and later completed a 1994 MS in aviation management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

This two-star African American general has just been named vice director for the J5 director of strategic plans and policy on the Joint Staff. In his previous assignment he was director of public affairs for the office of the Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon. He provided guidance to 3,000 Air Force public relations professionals and advised the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force on public relations matters.

Always technical
McDew has applied his engineering training to many situations during his career. “I trained as a civil engineer at VMI,” he says. “If I had been in the Army I would have been in the Corps of Engineers, which has often been run by VMI graduates. That’s why a lot of general officers in World War II were engineers,” he notes.

“The CE program of study was effective for me,” he recalls with pleasure. “I was able to surround myself with professors who were disciplined in their approach to life. I developed that disciplined method of thinking, identifying and resolving problems. I applied it from the very beginning, as a new engineer graduate in pilot training.

“Engineering: an odd choice”
McDew’s dad is a retired Air Force master sergeant. McDew and his brothers moved in with their Georgia grandparents when he was about ten. Growing up, he gravitated to mentors and sports coaches who were serving in the military. But when he finally decided to go to VMI, he was at a loss about his field.

“Engineering was an odd choice for me,” he says. “I had never even met an engineer.

“I was a kid who was told all his life he did well academically, and I had a strong interest in math and science. I was starting to get interested in computers, which were new then, but VMI didn’t offer computers and I had a scholarship there. So I looked at all the options I did have and thought civil engineering sounded interesting.”

VMI graduated its first black student in 1972, but when McDew arrived in 1978 there was still plenty of racism around. His classmates, McDew recalls, “were not used to a guy who looked like me being their academic equal.”

They got used to it, though. McDew started college with 420 classmates, twenty of them African American. Just 247 of the class graduated, and three of them were African American.

Into piloting
McDew segued into piloting, attending undergraduate pilot training at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona in 1982 and 1983. He moved on to standardization and evaluation copilot, aircraft commander and instructor pilot. From 1984 to 1989 he was a flight commander at the 42nd Air Refueling Squadron at Loring Air Force Base in Maine. He also completed a three-month tour at Squadron Officer School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

“I knew the basic principles of engineering, so when I got into aerodynamics and had to learn about lift and drag and forces, it was easy to translate,” he says with a smile.

A busy career
McDew’s current assignment is the fifteenth of his twenty-six-year career. He was Air Force aide to President Clinton from 1994 to 1996, and Commander of the 14th Airlift Squadron in Charleston, SC from 1997 to 1999.

Of all his jobs, he most enjoyed being a squadron commander. This involved close contact with the 170 people in his command and their families. “I was an instructor pilot and could lead formations and see the impact I was having in the lives of airmen every day,” McDew says. “I tried hard to know the names and match spouses with the right person, and I even knew a few of the kids’ names. I had a great model in my own squadron commander, and he made me want to be just as good.”

Running a business
In 2000 a unique educational opportunity came up, when McDew participated in the Secretary of Defense corporate fellowship at Sun Microsystems Inc (Palo Alto, CA). Sun’s William Perry created the fellowship, which was to teach future generals not only about the profession of arms but also about running a business.

“As you get more senior, you find you have as many business decisions as war decisions to make,” McDew explains. “So I and my classmates were sent to businesses across the country and inserted as executives to learn best business practices.

“I was inserted in Sun’s IT organization as a VP without even an IT background. But I learned that people in uniform are greatly valued. They bring discipline, a good approach to building teams and an ability to work with all kinds of people, and that is valued on the outside.

“It was a great lesson to learn. I was a brand-new colonel, and the experience convinced me to stay in.”

Command experience
McDew was commander of the 43rd Airlift Wing and installation commander at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina from January 2005 to July 2006. Part of the time he was also director of mobility forces in Southwest Asia.

He was vice-commander of the 18th Air Force at Scott Air Force Base from July 2006 to November 2007, just before he took over his current job.

Balancing needs
McDew has a daughter who works in technical communications in Seattle. When she was a child and her father was just getting into command, she and her mother sat McDew down and demanded he spend more time with them.

“I told them, ‘You guys have to realize that my family has grown by a few hundred people, and they rely on me as well. I shouldn’t neglect you but I can’t neglect them, either.’ So we discussed what was important to the family. My daughter was a big soccer player and wanted me at some of her games, and for my wife, it was important for me to be home for dinner.

“As a result, I made the unit more open to families and started up some family-friendly events there. Non-service people could visit their husbands and wives at work. We even built a family room in the squadron with kids’ furniture.”

How to succeed
Today, younger minority officers will often ask the major general about how to succeed in their Air Force careers. “I give them the same advice I gave my daughter,” he says. “You want to challenge yourself academically and socially, and at the end of the day, you want the option to be your option, and you want to have as many options as possible.

“You don’t want a door closed for you just because you didn’t want to try it. If you’re nervous about something you’re not good at, then that’s where you should be spending some time.”