It’s been a long time coming, but after 23 and half years, my final day has arrived. No long speech, just a heart felt thanks to everyone I had the opportunity to work for and with. I don’t have the words to express my appreciation for all the opportunities I was given by so many.

Smart people doing hard things for the benefit of others, that’s the military innovation job. It’s not a social club for misfits, people bored with their career field, or folks just wanting to not wear their uniform. It’s being so good at your regular job, you have cycles to spare to help others. It’s knowing all the processes and procedures so well you can help guide others to efficient success. It’s having your job start at the definition of others job done.

Allow me to introduce to you a few of the best people I know doing Generative AI work in the Air Force today. As a Chief, we have all the stripes on our rank for a reason. It gives us a shield to protect our people, but also a platform to lift others up. Allow me to do just that by spotlighting MSgt Jared Rice, Capt Richard Smith, and Mr Brad Aldridge, MDE. All three shining examples of the great folks across the department doing the hard work to transform Generative AI use cases into capabilities.

Fear is a mile wide, but only a foot deep. We fill our own ocean of fear with all of our worries and concerns. We churn the storms that rage across that ocean with the winds of constant change that drive all our lives. It can be a perilous scene that strikes deep into the hearts of us all.

A defense innovator is someone who facilitates change from within the military system. This takes on a myriad number of forms, but the common thread is the facilitation of change through and within the military system. It’s not a mutiny of the willing against the tyranny of the complacent. It is an evolutionary process that takes work, coordination, and the will power of trained professionals to execute everyday.

I am not an astronaut, but I have become something so much more. When I was a child, all I wanted to be was an astronaut. I went to space events, watched space shows, and dreamed of how amazing it would be to go to space one day. But time always marches forward, and priorities have a way of changing. I found myself grown up in career I never expected, in places I never thought I would go, doing things that child I was could never imagine.

I’m getting really tired of seeing things I really want to buy, but are apparently just visualizations of someone’s very genius Generative AI musings.

Another example of using GPT-4V to perform image analysis. Bonus points for those who figure out what/where this image is depicting (and why that makes the results controversial).