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Vice Adm. Architzel: NAVAIR is a large organization, thirty-seven thousand people. The strength of this command is its people and the more we can be
inclusive and understand the value that each member brings is the strength that will come out of that.
Rear Adm. Jaynes: Diversity for me is all inclusive, anything you can think of to come together creates a diverse organization
and I think we need a little bit of everybody from everywhere.
Stephen Cricci: Diversity allows us to bring together differences: different thoughts, different ideas, different opportunities and produce a better result.
Leslie Taylor: When I talk about differences, we think about the obvious ones: gender, race, age, but less obvious ones, our degrees, our backgrounds, our skills,
our cultures, where we grew up, so diversity to me really encompasses all those types of elements about people being different.
Jesse McCurdy: When you integrate people and their ideas that improves your product number one, plus it makes people feel comfortable in participating on a team.
Ed Foresman: Since I am in a wheel chair I have found that once people get past the notion that here’s a person in a wheel chair, they accept me.
If I am judged, I am judged on my ability to perform and my character and not my appearance or disabilities.
Stephen Cricci: There’s a tremendous strength and value in pulling together diverse folks, pulling them into NAVAIR, putting them onto teams
and it’s a challenge that we are dealing with right now in the Command.
Vice Adm. Architzel: NAVAIR’s diversity council is our senior leaders who are committed to our people and our goals. We need to come together and
talk about what are issues, what our concerns and what are we as senior leaders doing to enhance that climate of embracing diversity.
Garry Newton: As an organization we should always look for two attributes in anybody: the brightest thinkers and the hardest workers and
if the population of the country is changing to where there is more people coming up through the educational system out of a different race, ethnic background,
you name it, where do you think the smartest and hardest working people will be?
Leslie Taylor: We need people to look at NAVAIR and see America, but we need it more importantly because it is critical to our ability to do our jobs.
Selina Vik: To reach out to different cultures, to different races is a terrific opportunity in this command.
Rear Adm. Winter: In that balance of the organizational activities and the fighting of our wars, there’s a need to ensure that we have the right people
with the right skill sets in the right jobs.
Jesse McCurdy: So you have to look forward and understand where you are going to find that pool of diverse pool of students to interview and recruit
and bring here to NAVAIR.
Ed Foresman: Since they value diversity they want to give everyone an opportunity, but you need to be able to do the mission of course.
Dan Nega: What’s more complicated than trying to land an aircraft on an aircraft carrier. We need to have the best and the brightest with a broad diversity
of background to help us solve those problems. Not just when it comes to building an aircraft, developing an aircraft, testing an aircraft, supporting an aircraft.
We need to have the best ideas for our Warfighter.
Vice Adm. Architzel: When I look at the flight deck from the bridge of a carrier, you can see the rainbow colors of the shirts that are out there.
You can see the plane captains and the fuel department guys, the grapes if we will, the quality assurance people, the ordnance folks.
Watching is like a ballet in motion, behind those shirts and in those shirts are all different walks of life of people and those shirts are emblematic
of our diversity is within the Navy and how it works when people know they have a common goal and mission, they value what each one does,
they depend on each other and they grow to appreciate those differences and why they have to have those other folks around them to strengthen them personally.
Capt. Guidry: Being able to use those differences to our advantage is key to a diverse workforce so that we can get things
done as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Gary Kessler: I know everybody in this organization comes to work day in and day out wanting to contribute in one way or the other and we value that diverse
input to deal with the complex systems that we deal day in and day out with naval aviation.
Rear Adm. Jaynes: You need to insert some other opinions, some other ideas some other thought processes so that you can get a true, well-rounded organization.
You need to include thought, you need to include individuals and you need to be open about the conversation you are having within the workforce.
Leslie Taylor: We have the right people focused on diversity and we have great initiatives in place. I think the most powerful thing we can do now
is foster inclusion and stamp out any behavior that doesn’t incorporate inclusion into our culture or we will not survive.
Vice Adm. Architzel: If you don’t value each other then no one else is going to mandate that you do. It has to come from a core value that says I respect other people
and I want to be around those people and you will get strength from that.
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