May 30, 2023 • 17 mins
Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly, USAF (Ret), is a native of New Jersey. He earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame and holds two master’s degrees, one in national resource strategy from National Defense University and another in military operational arts and sciences from Air University.
Kelly joined the Air Force in 1989, as a graduate of Notre Dame’s ROTC program. In his 33-year Air Force career, Kelly served in a number of key command and staff positions, including commander, 92nd Mission Support Squadron, Fairchild AFB, Wash.; deputy director, manpower and personnel, Multi-National Security Transition Command, Iraq; director, manpower, personnel and administration, U.S. Southern Command, Fla.; commander, 31st Mission Support Group, Aviano Air Base, Italy; commander, 501st Combat Support Wing, RAF Alconbury, U.K.; director, manpower, personnel and services, Air Combat Command, JB Langley-Eustis, Va.; director, military force management policy for deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services at the Pentagon; and commander, Air Force Personnel Center, JB San Antonio-Randolph, Texas.
At the time of his service retirement in 2022, Kelly had completed 3½ years serving as the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services at the Pentagon.
Kelly took over as MOAA's president and CEO in January 2023.
Kelly joined the Air Force in 1989, as a graduate of Notre Dame’s ROTC program. In his 33-year Air Force career, Kelly served in a number of key command and staff positions, including commander, 92nd Mission Support Squadron, Fairchild AFB, Wash.; deputy director, manpower and personnel, Multi-National Security Transition Command, Iraq; director, manpower, personnel and administration, U.S. Southern Command, Fla.; commander, 31st Mission Support Group, Aviano Air Base, Italy; commander, 501st Combat Support Wing, RAF Alconbury, U.K.; director, manpower, personnel and services, Air Combat Command, JB Langley-Eustis, Va.; director, military force management policy for deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services at the Pentagon; and commander, Air Force Personnel Center, JB San Antonio-Randolph, Texas.
At the time of his service retirement in 2022, Kelly had completed 3½ years serving as the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services at the Pentagon.
Kelly took over as MOAA's president and CEO in January 2023.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
M ANDT Bank Prisons CEOs you shouldknow. Powered by Iheartadia, Let's meet
Lieutenant General Brian Kelly. He isthe President and CEO of the Military Officers
Association of America, also known asMOA, which is a professional association of
United States military officers. It isa nonprofit organization that advocates for strong national
(00:21):
defense but is politically nonpartisan. Theassociation supports government policies that benefit military members
and their families. Before we talkand learn more about MOA, I first
asked Lieutenant General Kelly to talk alittle bit about himself, where he's from
and his origin story. I'm originallyfrom New Jersey, and I grew up
in central New Jersey, and youknow, worked as most kids do in
(00:43):
claiming sports and the doing different thingsin high school and thinking about my future.
And as I started to find waysto get to school and my future,
as many of us do, Ilooked for opportunities to get help.
Funding wise, how do I getsome finances to help me to school?
And so I was lucky enough tobe accepted at the University of Notre Dame
Mount in Indiana, and also luckyenough to get an Air Force ROTC scholarship
(01:07):
which helped paid my way, andso off I went for four years of
school in Indiana, and because ofthe scholarship, I had a natural payback
time and that payback was to comein the United States Air Force after I
finished Notre Dame, which I didin nineteen eighty nine. I want to
talk a little bit about your militarybackground with the Air Force, because it's
thirty three and a half years,and thank you for your service from the
bottom of my heart and all ourlisteners. Do I have a right that
(01:30):
Kelly is Irish? There's got tobe some Irish, all right. Kelly
is definitely Irish on my father's suredone. All right, So get this.
So we got an irishman. Hegoes to Notre Dame and in nineteen
eighty eight, his last year,Tony Rice and the Fighting Irish win a
national championship with Lou Holtz. Hementioned lucky. It doesn't get luckier than
that, Lieutenant General Kelly Holy smokes. No, that was pretty fantastic,
(01:53):
and certainly when you have those things, you'll always remember. Having that opportunity
to be there and see those kindof things was pretty great. Dennis,
I've got some friends that have servedin all the different kinds of military sex.
There's something special about the Air Forcethat I'd like you to share.
And you put a whole lifetime forthirty three and a half years and got
up to a lieutenant general, andI went out to I lived in Denver,
(02:15):
so I knew the Colorado base reallywell, beautiful football stadium by there,
and it's just amazing. You know. I always talk to military people
about this and the plans that theyhave. Nobody can plan for the next
ten, twenty thirty years. Yeah, there must have been something special for
you to stay in that long.Maybe just tell us a little bit about
that journey. Yeah, I think, Dennis, you know, for me
(02:36):
in the Air Force, and Ithink this is true of all of our
uniform services. Many of us start, and I certainly started with an idea
of I have to pay back thistime I've spent at Notre Dame, and
so I thought four years into theAir Force and I would make a transition
and go out and do other thingsin the world. And what I soon
discovered was I loved the people,I loved the mission, and every time
(02:57):
I was done with a four yearstint or so, I would say well,
I'll try one more, and thenI'd get there and I'm like,
wow, this is really great,and I love the mission. I love
what we're doing. I love howwe take care of people and how we
give back very fulfilling. I say, Okay, one more, and then
sooner or later I looked up Dennis, and I'm at thirty three and a
half years of service. And asyou said, you know, I'm a
lieutenant general, three star general,United States Air Force, and you know,
(03:20):
all the great things I got todo, all the people I got
to meet, all the people Igot to help, right, And it's
really about that helping piece. Andreally I got to spend my last four
years in the Pentagon as what Iwould call the Vice President of Human Resources
for the Air Force. I wasthe guy who was in charge of manpower
a personnel for the Air Force.And my day to day passion and my
day to day responsibilities were, youknow, taking taking care of that human
(03:44):
capital for the Air Force, takingcare of all the people, all their
families, all the programs that wentassociated with everything from bringing them in and
recruiting and training them to retire andseparate, and all the care and feeding
in between, so just a greattime for me and that Air Force just
moved me along from one job toanother and kept me there. You know,
we talked a little bit about footballNotre Dame, and for people who
know sports a little bit, mostplayers don't get to the NFL, so
(04:08):
they have to plan on their nextjourney to the workforce. And that's something
that you had to do after thirtythree and a half years in the Air
Force. And it's a really bigdecision because we're talking about a lifetime serving
and what you wanted to do next. So we've got the Military Officers Association
of America right now currently you're thepresident CEO. Tell us about the journey
and the decision with you and yourfamily to do this. Yeah, like
(04:30):
many others, as you said,as I was transitioning out of the military,
I had to think about what wasgoing on and there was lots of
different directions to go, and assome of us often do, you know,
you seek advice from a mentor.And I went to one of my
mentors and asked, you know,how did you make your transition out of
the military and what did you thinkabout? And he said, you know,
you're gonna have a lot of differentoptions. But at the end of
the day, you know, givenwhat you've done already in your background,
(04:51):
you're gonna want to be proud ofwhatever you're gonna do. You're gonna be
around a group of us again,We're going to be at a picnic,
or we're going to be at agathering of Air Force people, and they're
going to come up and, youknow, say, what are you doing
now? What's going on? Andwhen they approach you and you give that
answer, You're gonna want to beproud of whatever that is. You're gonna
want it to come out of yourmouth really easy, and you're gonna want
to be, you know, excitedabout what you're about to say. And
(05:13):
so, as I thought about thatand I was searching for things, this
opportunity came up to join the MilitaryOfficers Association of America. They were looking
for a president and CEO. Ithad a lot of the same mission sets
and things that I saw my lastfour years in the Air Force. In
fact, the mission of the MilitaryOfficers Association America is uh to preserve and
protect the earned benefits of military members, are veterans, retirees, their families,
(05:39):
and surviving spouses, and I thought, boy, what a great way
and a continuing mission. And thenas I investigated more and began to put
my name in the in the inthe ring, if you will for the
job, I found out the motto, the motto at MOA is never stopped
serving. And I thought, youknow, here's something I could really be
proud of. Here's something that reallymakes sense. And I get to con
(06:00):
tinue to give back and continue tohelp people and continue to do the things
I was doing while I was servingin the Air Force. And luckily for
me, MOA and the acronym iseasy to pronounce. So that's what we're
going to do now for the MilitaryOfficers Association of America. So it's not
a big mouthful for me to getthrough that. So at MOAH and a
good military man that Lieutenant General Kellyis. He's already talked about the mission
statement. I was going to askhim about that, so he's way ahead
(06:21):
of me. So why don't wedo this Because there are a lot of
different things that MOA does, ButI'd first like to talk about overall the
thirty thousand foot view with the capabilitiesof what you actually do do. Yeah,
you know, we're three hundred andfifty thousand members that are officers.
But we're not about officers. It'snot an association that's about officers. It's
(06:42):
an association of officers currently serving andformer officers who serve veterans in those families
and spouses who keep up the responsibilityand the understanding that we're there to take
care of everybody. You know,when we were serving as officers, those
are still serving as officer. You'reresponsible for everybody in unit, taking care
of everybody, the families, theenlisted in folks, everybody, and so
(07:04):
MOA advocates, educates, does philanthropicwork, and does engagement work on behalf
of the entire military community. Sowe go over and make sure we're working
with our partners at Capitol Hill,our legislators to make sure we're protecting those
earned benefits that folks have. Youknow, how do we take care of
those families? How do you takecare of their pay? How do you
(07:27):
take care of their healthcare? Howdo you take care of you know,
the support that's provided each family asthey move around their military career. There's
a lot into that and it's reallyimportant in an all volunteer force which we
have in America. We're lucky tohave. You know, if you think
about other places where folks don't havean all volunteer force, you know,
watch the TV and see what's goingon over in the Ukraine. You'll see
what the results of that are.You know, we're lucky to have that
(07:49):
all volunteer force, and so MOAreally make sure that we're advocating for those
folks. In addition, we runtwo charities dentists right we want. We
run a charity that's a scholarship wherewe give out about eight million dollars a
year a year to scholarships for childrenof military members. Recognizing that there is
you know, sacrifice made as militarymembers move from place to place and go
(08:11):
from place to place, it's notalways easy for them to garner scholarship money
for their children. So we giveout about eight million dollars a year in
scholarships to military military children of allranks, all services that are out there.
And then we run what we callthe MOA Foundation, which is a
foundation worked about how to help folkstransition, how to help spouses with employment
(08:31):
in the military area, and probablymost importantly, we work out in crisis
reliefs. So military members who mightbe going through a catastrophic situation hurricane,
fires, floods, those kind ofthings who need some extra help and need
some support, you know, intheir most trying and dire times. We
reach out and we have a charityability to give them some help and just
(08:54):
let them know that people care aboutthem, people are thinking about them.
So these are all the kinds ofthings that we do it MOA. And
then out there we have a fewchapter what I call chapters and councils tennis,
which are local MOA units, localMOA affiliates who provide the ability to
engage in the local community, carrythe MOA banner, do things in their
local community. Just to make surewe stay connected. Lieutenant General Kelly for
(09:18):
some contexts for some military that they'relistening right now and didn't know a lot
about MOA, let's talk about membership. How do you become a member and
what's the criteria. So you haveto either be a currently serving our former
officer of any of the eight uniformservices, and the best way to get
in touch with us is to goto the website at MOAMOAA dot org dot
(09:39):
org. And there's lots of opportunitiesto become a member, and there's multiple
levels of membership. You can becomea basic member for free, and in
that you get to keep up oneducation, keep up on the latest advocacy
events, keep up on news stories, those kind of things. And then
where we really asked folkses and wherewe need help is do the things that
(10:00):
we do, to do the advocacywe do, to do the philanthropic and
engagement work that we do. Paidmembership matters to us. And so there's
two levels of paid membership. Wehave a premium level membership and we have
life membership. And right now wehave, you know, somewhere around one
hundred and sixty thousand life members anda number another seventy thousand or so premium
members that we have in the organization, with the balance of the three hundred
(10:22):
fifty thousand being in basic membership.Tennis Lieutenant General Kelly, there's no better
person to talk about this, becauseI chat about this with just about every
person that we have on with CEOs. You should know, and that is
a leadership. And obviously there wasa lot of structure in your life for
thirty three and a half years andthen some and With all that said,
with your new role as president andCEO of MOWAH, I'd like for you
(10:43):
to discuss with our current leaders itmay be the future leaders that are listening
to this right now, about thetransition of leadership from the Air Force to
your new role, at what it'slike to do what you do now and
advocating and being a leader, butalso delegating as well. I'd love to
hear the story about that. Yeah. So, we have a staff about
eighty four people at the Military OfficersAssociation, and you know, we handle
(11:07):
all aspects of our association from ourchapters and councils and supported them out in
the field, to our marketing folks, to our membership folks. You know,
we have a full information technology department, everything that you would have in
an organization to run. Certainly,my time in the military and the different
positions I held gave me some experienceto be able to run those kinds of
(11:28):
things and run them at a sufficientlevel. But I think from a leadership
perspective of the most important thing Iprovide to the organization, Dennises. You
know, I provide vision, Iprovide direction of where we're going, and
I provide the experience that I've hadto be able to translate that to the
mission that we have and be ableto be a spokesperson for the MA and
to be the advocate over on thehill because I've lived some of these experiences
(11:52):
and I can carry that voice.And one of the biggest leadership things that
I make sure I do every day, Dennis, is make sure that our
people who serve, the volunteers whoraised their hand, have a voice and
have a voice in in you know, making sure we have a strong national
defense. And strong national defense forus is about having you know, great
equipment and great stuff for our soldier, sailors, ammon marines, coast guardsmen,
(12:15):
guardians, everybody to use. Butthe most important thing we have in
the military is are people, andso somebody has to be the voice for
them. And so my leadership isabout making sure that our organization day to
day works hard to make sure we'rerepresenting all those people and make sure they
have a voice outstanding. Thank youfor sharing all that, Lieutenant General Kelly.
I didn't want to ask you aboutsome success stories but also challenges and
(12:35):
we all know when you're leading,it's the windiest at the top there's not
a lot of people you can discussyour problems with. But right now,
when this new role as president andCEO of MOA, what kind of challenges
are facing you today? Yeah,I think many of us in the association
world, you know, always havechallenges with membership, you know, attracting
new members right there, these manyof these organizations have been formed many years
(12:58):
ago. In fact, you know, mo O, we're on our ninety
fourth year in existence, and youknow, how do you attract a new
group of folks to the organization andhow do you stay relevant to a new
group of new generation of folks wantsto be there. So attracting members and
making sure that we're seeing as aplace where people want to be, an
association that they want to join asone challenge for us, for sure.
(13:20):
Another challenge for us that goes handin hand with that is making sure from
a revenue perspective, we have allall the revenues that we can get to
do the kinds of things we wantto do right our philanthropic activities and fundraising,
just our revenues from dues and advertising, the things that we do as
a business model that are required inall order for us to have the revenue
(13:41):
to do the things we do.The advocacy, the education, and the
engagement, all of those things requirerevenue. And that's another important aspect and
frankly a challenge for us that wework on every day. All Right,
Well, you don't have to getspecific about this, but I always love
to hear about a nice success story. Two, whether it was a family
that was taken care of or somethingthat's really special, will happen that Ky,
your titch in and you said toyourself and your team that day,
(14:03):
you know what, we knocked itout of the park that day. That
was a good one. Do youhave a story for us? Yeah?
You know, our our MOA Foundationhas a thing we call the Crisis Relief
Fund, uh. And you know, when people are in trouble and they
they're in their their most down point, they're most dire situations, the ability
to reach out and we have afoundation that that's allowed to give them very
(14:24):
quick five hundred dollar grants. Youknow, they can contact us and within
a day or so they're getting thatmoney. And it doesn't seem like a
lot, but what we find is, you know, when you're in your
your you know most most difficult spot. Finding out that somebody cares about you
is going to give you five hundreddollars that helps you fix your car or
helps you, you know, putfood on the table when your house has
just been destroyed by a tornado makesall the difference in the world. And
(14:46):
so as we see those kinds ofstories, Denis, boy do we get
energy, and boy do we youknow, you know, feel pretty good
about the things that we're doing andthe folks that were helping. Um,
it's just just one of the manythings that we get to be a success
story at MOA. And I thinkthat circles back to your original point and
about why you were there. It'sadvocating for people when there's nobody else there
and you feel like you're on anisland, whether you're by yourself or with
a family need needs some help.And I think that's wonderful. And we
(15:09):
should have mentioned also too that itis literally boots on the ground. I
mean, you are lobbying at CapitolHill. Other people are lobbing and advocating
for all of your membership, andI think that's a really important thing to
talk about and mentioned. Yeah,No, that's absolutely true, Dennis.
In fact, Tonight, this evening, we will host a reception on Capitol
Hill, a MOA reception for onehundred and eighteenth Congress. And we've invited
(15:31):
all of our members of Congress andmany of their staffs over to reception just
to build those relationships and talk tothem about these key issues. And I,
myself and eleven other of our staffmembers who are registered lobbyists, we
spent a lot of time over there. We spent a lot of time at
the Veterans Affairs Administration and with theDepartment of Defense making sure that this voice
(15:52):
of the people who have served,the people have raised their hand to be
volunteers and their families gets their voiceand gets taken care of. That's outstanding
news and good luck with the event. I did want to put a ball
in our conversation Lieutenant General Kelly andjust ask you for our listeners one more
time, if you could just kindof give a takeaway for everybody that's listening,
whether military or not, about MOAand what exactly as you do and
what you want to try and solveout there. Yeah, I would give
(16:15):
this takeaway, Dennis. I wouldsay our country has had the benefit of
having an all Volunteer Force for thelast fifty years really take care of this
country and make sure that all ofour freedoms and all of our economic capabilities
are there. And MOA's main jobis to make sure that the people who
are raising their hand for that AllVolunteer Force the benefits that they've earned,
(16:37):
the reason why they joined, thecommitments that were made to them on part
of the country, that is apayback for the service they provided, the
sacrifices they provided are there so thatthe next generation and the generation after that,
the generation after that wants to raisetheir hand and wants to be in
the All Volunteer Force as well.And that's our goal and that's our mission
at MOA. Thence all right,for all our listeners, whether they're military
(16:57):
or not, they'd like to dovolunteer, see your events everything, get
educated on your wonderfully easy to navigatewebsite. What's that address. That address
again is MOAMOAA dot org RG andyou can go on there and find ways
to donate to our charities, wayto join the organization, or just read
about the organization the things we're doing. Lieutenant General Kelly, thank you so
(17:21):
much for a valuable time it's beenmy honor to interview you. Thank you
again for your massive service and I'vereally enjoyed our conversation and thank you so
much for joining us on CEOs youshould Know continue success. Thank you very
much, Dennis. Our community partner, M ANDT Bank supports CEOs you should
Know as part of their ongoing commitmentto building strong communities, and that starts
by backing the businesses within them.As a Bank for communities, M ANDT
(17:45):
believes in dedicating time, talent andresources to help local businesses thrive, because
when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
M ANDT Bank Prisons CEOs you shouldknow. Powered by Iheartadia, Let's meet
Lieutenant General Brian Kelly. He isthe President and CEO of the Military Officers
Association of America, also known asMOA, which is a professional association of
United States military officers. It isa nonprofit organization that advocates for strong national
(00:21):
defense but is politically nonpartisan. Theassociation supports government policies that benefit military members
and their families. Before we talkand learn more about MOA, I first
asked Lieutenant General Kelly to talk alittle bit about himself, where he's from
and his origin story. I'm originallyfrom New Jersey, and I grew up
in central New Jersey, and youknow, worked as most kids do in
(00:43):
claiming sports and the doing different thingsin high school and thinking about my future.
And as I started to find waysto get to school and my future,
as many of us do, Ilooked for opportunities to get help.
Funding wise, how do I getsome finances to help me to school?
And so I was lucky enough tobe accepted at the University of Notre Dame
Mount in Indiana, and also luckyenough to get an Air Force ROTC scholarship
(01:07):
which helped paid my way, andso off I went for four years of
school in Indiana, and because ofthe scholarship, I had a natural payback
time and that payback was to comein the United States Air Force after I
finished Notre Dame, which I didin nineteen eighty nine. I want to
talk a little bit about your militarybackground with the Air Force, because it's
thirty three and a half years,and thank you for your service from the
bottom of my heart and all ourlisteners. Do I have a right that
(01:30):
Kelly is Irish? There's got tobe some Irish, all right. Kelly
is definitely Irish on my father's suredone. All right, So get this.
So we got an irishman. Hegoes to Notre Dame and in nineteen
eighty eight, his last year,Tony Rice and the Fighting Irish win a
national championship with Lou Holtz. Hementioned lucky. It doesn't get luckier than
that, Lieutenant General Kelly Holy smokes. No, that was pretty fantastic,
(01:53):
and certainly when you have those things, you'll always remember. Having that opportunity
to be there and see those kindof things was pretty great. Dennis,
I've got some friends that have servedin all the different kinds of military sex.
There's something special about the Air Forcethat I'd like you to share.
And you put a whole lifetime forthirty three and a half years and got
up to a lieutenant general, andI went out to I lived in Denver,
(02:15):
so I knew the Colorado base reallywell, beautiful football stadium by there,
and it's just amazing. You know. I always talk to military people
about this and the plans that theyhave. Nobody can plan for the next
ten, twenty thirty years. Yeah, there must have been something special for
you to stay in that long.Maybe just tell us a little bit about
that journey. Yeah, I think, Dennis, you know, for me
(02:36):
in the Air Force, and Ithink this is true of all of our
uniform services. Many of us start, and I certainly started with an idea
of I have to pay back thistime I've spent at Notre Dame, and
so I thought four years into theAir Force and I would make a transition
and go out and do other thingsin the world. And what I soon
discovered was I loved the people,I loved the mission, and every time
(02:57):
I was done with a four yearstint or so, I would say well,
I'll try one more, and thenI'd get there and I'm like,
wow, this is really great,and I love the mission. I love
what we're doing. I love howwe take care of people and how we
give back very fulfilling. I say, Okay, one more, and then
sooner or later I looked up Dennis, and I'm at thirty three and a
half years of service. And asyou said, you know, I'm a
lieutenant general, three star general,United States Air Force, and you know,
(03:20):
all the great things I got todo, all the people I got
to meet, all the people Igot to help, right, And it's
really about that helping piece. Andreally I got to spend my last four
years in the Pentagon as what Iwould call the Vice President of Human Resources
for the Air Force. I wasthe guy who was in charge of manpower
a personnel for the Air Force.And my day to day passion and my
day to day responsibilities were, youknow, taking taking care of that human
(03:44):
capital for the Air Force, takingcare of all the people, all their
families, all the programs that wentassociated with everything from bringing them in and
recruiting and training them to retire andseparate, and all the care and feeding
in between, so just a greattime for me and that Air Force just
moved me along from one job toanother and kept me there. You know,
we talked a little bit about footballNotre Dame, and for people who
know sports a little bit, mostplayers don't get to the NFL, so
(04:08):
they have to plan on their nextjourney to the workforce. And that's something
that you had to do after thirtythree and a half years in the Air
Force. And it's a really bigdecision because we're talking about a lifetime serving
and what you wanted to do next. So we've got the Military Officers Association
of America right now currently you're thepresident CEO. Tell us about the journey
and the decision with you and yourfamily to do this. Yeah, like
(04:30):
many others, as you said,as I was transitioning out of the military,
I had to think about what wasgoing on and there was lots of
different directions to go, and assome of us often do, you know,
you seek advice from a mentor.And I went to one of my
mentors and asked, you know,how did you make your transition out of
the military and what did you thinkabout? And he said, you know,
you're gonna have a lot of differentoptions. But at the end of
the day, you know, givenwhat you've done already in your background,
(04:51):
you're gonna want to be proud ofwhatever you're gonna do. You're gonna be
around a group of us again,We're going to be at a picnic,
or we're going to be at agathering of Air Force people, and they're
going to come up and, youknow, say, what are you doing
now? What's going on? Andwhen they approach you and you give that
answer, You're gonna want to beproud of whatever that is. You're gonna
want it to come out of yourmouth really easy, and you're gonna want
to be, you know, excitedabout what you're about to say. And
(05:13):
so, as I thought about thatand I was searching for things, this
opportunity came up to join the MilitaryOfficers Association of America. They were looking
for a president and CEO. Ithad a lot of the same mission sets
and things that I saw my lastfour years in the Air Force. In
fact, the mission of the MilitaryOfficers Association America is uh to preserve and
protect the earned benefits of military members, are veterans, retirees, their families,
(05:39):
and surviving spouses, and I thought, boy, what a great way
and a continuing mission. And thenas I investigated more and began to put
my name in the in the inthe ring, if you will for the
job, I found out the motto, the motto at MOA is never stopped
serving. And I thought, youknow, here's something I could really be
proud of. Here's something that reallymakes sense. And I get to con
(06:00):
tinue to give back and continue tohelp people and continue to do the things
I was doing while I was servingin the Air Force. And luckily for
me, MOA and the acronym iseasy to pronounce. So that's what we're
going to do now for the MilitaryOfficers Association of America. So it's not
a big mouthful for me to getthrough that. So at MOAH and a
good military man that Lieutenant General Kellyis. He's already talked about the mission
statement. I was going to askhim about that, so he's way ahead
(06:21):
of me. So why don't wedo this Because there are a lot of
different things that MOA does, ButI'd first like to talk about overall the
thirty thousand foot view with the capabilitiesof what you actually do do. Yeah,
you know, we're three hundred andfifty thousand members that are officers.
But we're not about officers. It'snot an association that's about officers. It's
(06:42):
an association of officers currently serving andformer officers who serve veterans in those families
and spouses who keep up the responsibilityand the understanding that we're there to take
care of everybody. You know,when we were serving as officers, those
are still serving as officer. You'reresponsible for everybody in unit, taking care
of everybody, the families, theenlisted in folks, everybody, and so
(07:04):
MOA advocates, educates, does philanthropicwork, and does engagement work on behalf
of the entire military community. Sowe go over and make sure we're working
with our partners at Capitol Hill,our legislators to make sure we're protecting those
earned benefits that folks have. Youknow, how do we take care of
those families? How do you takecare of their pay? How do you
(07:27):
take care of their healthcare? Howdo you take care of you know,
the support that's provided each family asthey move around their military career. There's
a lot into that and it's reallyimportant in an all volunteer force which we
have in America. We're lucky tohave. You know, if you think
about other places where folks don't havean all volunteer force, you know,
watch the TV and see what's goingon over in the Ukraine. You'll see
what the results of that are.You know, we're lucky to have that
(07:49):
all volunteer force, and so MOAreally make sure that we're advocating for those
folks. In addition, we runtwo charities dentists right we want. We
run a charity that's a scholarship wherewe give out about eight million dollars a
year a year to scholarships for childrenof military members. Recognizing that there is
you know, sacrifice made as militarymembers move from place to place and go
(08:11):
from place to place, it's notalways easy for them to garner scholarship money
for their children. So we giveout about eight million dollars a year in
scholarships to military military children of allranks, all services that are out there.
And then we run what we callthe MOA Foundation, which is a
foundation worked about how to help folkstransition, how to help spouses with employment
(08:31):
in the military area, and probablymost importantly, we work out in crisis
reliefs. So military members who mightbe going through a catastrophic situation hurricane,
fires, floods, those kind ofthings who need some extra help and need
some support, you know, intheir most trying and dire times. We
reach out and we have a charityability to give them some help and just
(08:54):
let them know that people care aboutthem, people are thinking about them.
So these are all the kinds ofthings that we do it MOA. And
then out there we have a fewchapter what I call chapters and councils tennis,
which are local MOA units, localMOA affiliates who provide the ability to
engage in the local community, carrythe MOA banner, do things in their
local community. Just to make surewe stay connected. Lieutenant General Kelly for
(09:18):
some contexts for some military that they'relistening right now and didn't know a lot
about MOA, let's talk about membership. How do you become a member and
what's the criteria. So you haveto either be a currently serving our former
officer of any of the eight uniformservices, and the best way to get
in touch with us is to goto the website at MOAMOAA dot org dot
(09:39):
org. And there's lots of opportunitiesto become a member, and there's multiple
levels of membership. You can becomea basic member for free, and in
that you get to keep up oneducation, keep up on the latest advocacy
events, keep up on news stories, those kind of things. And then
where we really asked folkses and wherewe need help is do the things that
(10:00):
we do, to do the advocacywe do, to do the philanthropic and
engagement work that we do. Paidmembership matters to us. And so there's
two levels of paid membership. Wehave a premium level membership and we have
life membership. And right now wehave, you know, somewhere around one
hundred and sixty thousand life members anda number another seventy thousand or so premium
members that we have in the organization, with the balance of the three hundred
(10:22):
fifty thousand being in basic membership.Tennis Lieutenant General Kelly, there's no better
person to talk about this, becauseI chat about this with just about every
person that we have on with CEOs. You should know, and that is
a leadership. And obviously there wasa lot of structure in your life for
thirty three and a half years andthen some and With all that said,
with your new role as president andCEO of MOWAH, I'd like for you
(10:43):
to discuss with our current leaders itmay be the future leaders that are listening
to this right now, about thetransition of leadership from the Air Force to
your new role, at what it'slike to do what you do now and
advocating and being a leader, butalso delegating as well. I'd love to
hear the story about that. Yeah. So, we have a staff about
eighty four people at the Military OfficersAssociation, and you know, we handle
(11:07):
all aspects of our association from ourchapters and councils and supported them out in
the field, to our marketing folks, to our membership folks. You know,
we have a full information technology department, everything that you would have in
an organization to run. Certainly,my time in the military and the different
positions I held gave me some experienceto be able to run those kinds of
(11:28):
things and run them at a sufficientlevel. But I think from a leadership
perspective of the most important thing Iprovide to the organization, Dennises. You
know, I provide vision, Iprovide direction of where we're going, and
I provide the experience that I've hadto be able to translate that to the
mission that we have and be ableto be a spokesperson for the MA and
to be the advocate over on thehill because I've lived some of these experiences
(11:52):
and I can carry that voice.And one of the biggest leadership things that
I make sure I do every day, Dennis, is make sure that our
people who serve, the volunteers whoraised their hand, have a voice and
have a voice in in you know, making sure we have a strong national
defense. And strong national defense forus is about having you know, great
equipment and great stuff for our soldier, sailors, ammon marines, coast guardsmen,
(12:15):
guardians, everybody to use. Butthe most important thing we have in
the military is are people, andso somebody has to be the voice for
them. And so my leadership isabout making sure that our organization day to
day works hard to make sure we'rerepresenting all those people and make sure they
have a voice outstanding. Thank youfor sharing all that, Lieutenant General Kelly.
I didn't want to ask you aboutsome success stories but also challenges and
(12:35):
we all know when you're leading,it's the windiest at the top there's not
a lot of people you can discussyour problems with. But right now,
when this new role as president andCEO of MOA, what kind of challenges
are facing you today? Yeah,I think many of us in the association
world, you know, always havechallenges with membership, you know, attracting
new members right there, these manyof these organizations have been formed many years
(12:58):
ago. In fact, you know, mo O, we're on our ninety
fourth year in existence, and youknow, how do you attract a new
group of folks to the organization andhow do you stay relevant to a new
group of new generation of folks wantsto be there. So attracting members and
making sure that we're seeing as aplace where people want to be, an
association that they want to join asone challenge for us, for sure.
(13:20):
Another challenge for us that goes handin hand with that is making sure from
a revenue perspective, we have allall the revenues that we can get to
do the kinds of things we wantto do right our philanthropic activities and fundraising,
just our revenues from dues and advertising, the things that we do as
a business model that are required inall order for us to have the revenue
(13:41):
to do the things we do.The advocacy, the education, and the
engagement, all of those things requirerevenue. And that's another important aspect and
frankly a challenge for us that wework on every day. All Right,
Well, you don't have to getspecific about this, but I always love
to hear about a nice success story. Two, whether it was a family
that was taken care of or somethingthat's really special, will happen that Ky,
your titch in and you said toyourself and your team that day,
(14:03):
you know what, we knocked itout of the park that day. That
was a good one. Do youhave a story for us? Yeah?
You know, our our MOA Foundationhas a thing we call the Crisis Relief
Fund, uh. And you know, when people are in trouble and they
they're in their their most down point, they're most dire situations, the ability
to reach out and we have afoundation that that's allowed to give them very
(14:24):
quick five hundred dollar grants. Youknow, they can contact us and within
a day or so they're getting thatmoney. And it doesn't seem like a
lot, but what we find is, you know, when you're in your
your you know most most difficult spot. Finding out that somebody cares about you
is going to give you five hundreddollars that helps you fix your car or
helps you, you know, putfood on the table when your house has
just been destroyed by a tornado makesall the difference in the world. And
(14:46):
so as we see those kinds ofstories, Denis, boy do we get
energy, and boy do we youknow, you know, feel pretty good
about the things that we're doing andthe folks that were helping. Um,
it's just just one of the manythings that we get to be a success
story at MOA. And I thinkthat circles back to your original point and
about why you were there. It'sadvocating for people when there's nobody else there
and you feel like you're on anisland, whether you're by yourself or with
a family need needs some help.And I think that's wonderful. And we
(15:09):
should have mentioned also too that itis literally boots on the ground. I
mean, you are lobbying at CapitolHill. Other people are lobbing and advocating
for all of your membership, andI think that's a really important thing to
talk about and mentioned. Yeah,No, that's absolutely true, Dennis.
In fact, Tonight, this evening, we will host a reception on Capitol
Hill, a MOA reception for onehundred and eighteenth Congress. And we've invited
(15:31):
all of our members of Congress andmany of their staffs over to reception just
to build those relationships and talk tothem about these key issues. And I,
myself and eleven other of our staffmembers who are registered lobbyists, we
spent a lot of time over there. We spent a lot of time at
the Veterans Affairs Administration and with theDepartment of Defense making sure that this voice
(15:52):
of the people who have served,the people have raised their hand to be
volunteers and their families gets their voiceand gets taken care of. That's outstanding
news and good luck with the event. I did want to put a ball
in our conversation Lieutenant General Kelly andjust ask you for our listeners one more
time, if you could just kindof give a takeaway for everybody that's listening,
whether military or not, about MOAand what exactly as you do and
what you want to try and solveout there. Yeah, I would give
(16:15):
this takeaway, Dennis. I wouldsay our country has had the benefit of
having an all Volunteer Force for thelast fifty years really take care of this
country and make sure that all ofour freedoms and all of our economic capabilities
are there. And MOA's main jobis to make sure that the people who
are raising their hand for that AllVolunteer Force the benefits that they've earned,
(16:37):
the reason why they joined, thecommitments that were made to them on part
of the country, that is apayback for the service they provided, the
sacrifices they provided are there so thatthe next generation and the generation after that,
the generation after that wants to raisetheir hand and wants to be in
the All Volunteer Force as well.And that's our goal and that's our mission
at MOA. Thence all right,for all our listeners, whether they're military
(16:57):
or not, they'd like to dovolunteer, see your events everything, get
educated on your wonderfully easy to navigatewebsite. What's that address. That address
again is MOAMOAA dot org RG andyou can go on there and find ways
to donate to our charities, wayto join the organization, or just read
about the organization the things we're doing. Lieutenant General Kelly, thank you so
(17:21):
much for a valuable time it's beenmy honor to interview you. Thank you
again for your massive service and I'vereally enjoyed our conversation and thank you so
much for joining us on CEOs youshould Know continue success. Thank you very
much, Dennis. Our community partner, M ANDT Bank supports CEOs you should
Know as part of their ongoing commitmentto building strong communities, and that starts
by backing the businesses within them.As a Bank for communities, M ANDT
(17:45):
believes in dedicating time, talent andresources to help local businesses thrive, because
when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
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