Acquisition leader plans retirement

  • Published
  • By Lois Walsh
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  She's stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the top leaders in the acquisition field and now, after 30 years of service, Judy Stokley is entering the next phase of her life. 

Mrs. Stokley will retire March 12, from her position as Deputy Air Force Program Executive Officer for Weapons and Executive Director, Air Armament Center. She has served the Air Force both here and at the Pentagon as the Air Force Program Executive Officer for Weapons, and has been on the cutting edge of weapons technology her entire career. 

Mrs. Stokley's many awards are a testament to her dedication to the warfighter, including being an elite member of the AF's group of senior executives. She is the recipient of the Meritorious Executive Presidential Rank award in 2002 and 2007 and is adamant that "enough cannot be said about our war fighters who put themselves in danger, and the families back home. We enjoy so much in this country because they're willing to do that and I'm honored I've gotten to work with a lot of them." 

Lauded as the Dean of Acquisition, "not just at Eglin, but the Air Force," by Blaise Durante, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Integration, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Mrs. Stokley said she couldn't have found a better path in life. She was teaching school and pursuing a graduate degree in mathematics from the University of West Florida when fellow students steered her toward working for the government. 

"The work sounded very interesting; I was majoring in math and the people in my class told me how they used the mathematics we were learning in missile simulation," she said. "I got a job and found out I loved it and never thought of leaving." 

During her career, weapon technology took quantum leaps, and delivering new products continued to be the top priority. Mrs. Stokley said delivering more accurate weapons like the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and the Joint Direct Attack Munition to the warfighter was "why we get hooked on this business." 

"That was a heady moment," she said. "They (the warfighter) gave us very positive feedback when we delivered the first AMRAAMS. They now had this missile that was autonomous and they didn't have to make themselves vulnerable." 

Mrs. Stokley said that when the warfighters first used JDAMS in Kosovo, it became their weapon of choice. 

"We had to quadruple production because it was so accurate and so easy to use that both the AF and Navy didn't want to use anything else," she said. "Instead of many sorties, airplanes, bombs to take out a target, it was one airplane and one weapon to get one target." 

Mrs. Stokley credits the revolution in electronics and global positioning systems as the main technology advancements that transformed weapon systems. 

"Advancements in electronics allowed us to package very sophisticated radar and infrared seekers into small air superiority missiles," she said. "Global position systems allowed us to make our air-to-ground weapons very accurate." 

While these were giant leaps in weapon development, Mrs. Stokley said there are other revolutions ahead. "Eventually micro technologies and directed energy technologies will create non-lethal deterrents and surveillance which will again revolutionize the way we fight," Mrs. Stokley said. "I think we're about to go through another wave in acquisition business practices because we're likely to change the types of contracts and incentives we use." 

Mrs. Stokley said that being a part of the new technologies on the horizon will be under someone else's watch, but that doesn't mean she won't miss the challenges she's faced in the past three decades. 

"Yes, I will miss it, absolutely; and I'll miss the people," she said. "I think we take for granted the fact we work all day in the presence of brilliant scientists, there are many areas where we have world-expert scientists, and we work with very smart people from all walks of industry who care passionately about the defense of our country, who are committed to what they do," Mrs. Stokley said. 

Mrs. Stokley said retirement is going to be a learning experience. She plans to exercise more, paint and write a book, perhaps on acquisition, although "a lot of people have told me that's not a book people will want to read." But what she has gained during her career is a deep gratitude for her career. 

"I'm unable to express my appreciation to the Air Force, the Department of Defense and the people and companies I've worked with," she said. "I worked with a lot of good people."