Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for ISR, visits 102nd Intelligence Wing

by Mr. Timothy D. Sandland
102nd Intelligence Wing Public Affairs

6/16/2015 - OTIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Mass. -- Lt. Gen. Robert P. Otto, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance for the U. S. Air Force visited here, June 3, to learn more about the mission of the wing and the Airmen who make it possible.

Otto is the U. S. Air Force's senior intelligence officer and works directly for the Director of National Intelligence and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

It was the general's first visit to the 102 IW, and the second distinguished visitor in a month, following Lt. Gen. Stanley Clarke, Director of the Air National Guard's visit in May.

Otto received a mission brief from Col. James LeFavor, 102 IW Commander, on the broad scope of the federal and state missions the wing is responsible for. They include providing worldwide precision intelligence and command and control as well as expeditionary combat support, homeland security and numerous domestic operations support.  The wing, as with any Air National Guard unit, has both a federal and state mission.

Discussions revolved around the potential challenges of mobilizing a predominately part-time force to Title-10 Active Duty and how the 102nd balances the appropriate status of personnel who support the warfighter.  The general also shared his thoughts on the wing's potential of gaining an additional mission set in the Cyber ISR realm.

"It was a huge honor because General Otto is the lead officer of all United States ISR for the Air Force and former commander of AFISRA," said Col. Virginia Doonan, 102 IW Vice Commander. "It is a real rarity for someone of his position to take the time and speak to our relevance as an intelligence wing and the potential of standing up a new Cyber ISR mission in the near future."

After the mission brief, Otto visited the Distributed Ground Station-Massachusetts (DGS-MA) facilities and the Airmen who directly support the ISR mission - Airmen who are an integral part of the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS), the information fusion center for collected data that is provided to the warfighter in the field.

During the facility visit, Otto took time out of his schedule to have lunch with some of the wing's outstanding and award-winning personnel. The general finished up his day with a tour of the new intelligence facility, as well as learning about the other intelligence missions the unit conducts within the Air Operations Group.  He recognized the enthusiasm and professionalism of our Airmen conducting the mission and presented several top performers with his personal military coin.

During an Air Force Times interview in 2014 Otto was quoted as saying, "The Air Force is investing quite heavily in cyber, in support of these national mission forces that we are standing up for U.S. Cyber Command," and went on to say, "there are assets and capabilities in space that we have been either underutilizing or that we have not integrated as well as we could into this holistic [ISR] picture."

The U.S. Air Force ISR enterprise is vital to the national security of the United States and its allies, providing an unrivaled capability; focused, integrated ISR is inseparable from operations and enables mission execution.

The Air Force operates the world's premier ISR enterprise with unique capabilities that are fundamental to the nation's security and defense.

Air National Guard units such as the 102nd Intelligence Wing are vitally important to that mission.