If you reside in the West Valley, you likely know that some of the nation’s top pilots, crew chiefs and intelligence specialists — in addition to the F-35 training program — are all synonymous with Luke Air Force Base. What you may not be aware of is that Luke has a direct economic impact of $653 million, an indirect value calculated at $1.1 billion, and a total economic impact totaling $2.17 billion in Arizona. While Luke’s economic contributions are undoubtedly invaluable, the value added in perpetuating a healthy, skilled and impressive West Valley workforce is priceless.
“Luke has tremendous value as a workforce,” says WESTMARC President and CEO Sintra Hoffman. “As a result of Luke expanding the F-35 program, there is a is a tremendous opportunity to maximize capital investment. It also allows us to build and tap into our pool of defense contractors and talent that comes out of that base.”
According to Hoffman, Lockheed Martin, although downsizing in some areas, is growing operations on the base with 750 personnel working at Luke and continuing to grow.
“The relationship and benefits between the F-35 program and Lockheed Martin are exponential,” says Glendale Economic Development Director Brian Friedman. “Luke is a $2 billion industry that moves the state, not just the West Valley.”
Indeed, but there’s no denying the force of Luke’s contribution in moving the West Valley workforce ahead. In addition to contractors, each year 400-plus members separate from Luke’s military population. These individuals are highly skilled and prepared to meet the needs of a range of professional occupations.
“This talent pool is an asset to the West Valley in two ways,” explains Hoffman. ”Typically, they stay in this area once they separate and invest in homes as well as integrating into and adding value to the workforce.”
With aerospace as one of the West Valley’s target markets, this makes Luke personnel all the more coveted once they’re ready to enter the workforce.
To get a closer look at the impact Luke AFB has on both the military and on the surrounding communities, Az Business sat down with Brig. Gen. Brook Leonard, who took command of the 56th Fighter Wing from outgoing commander Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus one year ago.
Az Business: What does it mean to you to return and lead Luke Air Force Base after completing the F-16 Qualification Course at Luke back in 1995 as a distinguished graduate?
Brook Leonard: It is an honor to return to the 56th Fighter Wing that in many ways formed the foundation of my family and flying career. In fact, over the July 4th weekend in 1994, I drove to Colorado Springs to get married to my bride of now almost 23 years. This was our first home together and we love being back.
On the professional side, for more than 75 years, the 56th Fighter Wing has been building the future of airpower. It is in our DNA. We build the future by fostering skills and habits into our students that graduate and quickly use those skills in combat and into our instructors who spread out across the Air Force and make it a better place to serve. So it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve and give back to the Wing that gave so much to me and my family.
AB: How has Luke Air Force Base changed since you were first there more than 20 years ago?
BL: In many ways, the base has not changed and in others it has changed a lot. One thing that has only gotten better, and in fact is the best in country, is the relationship the community has with the military in general and specifically Luke Air Force Base. Only through teamwork and an incredibly strong relationship can you combine the world’s largest fighter wing inside the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the country.
On the other hand, 20 years ago, Luke was an established and mature F-16 training base and now we are the largest F-35 base and on the leading edge in maintaining and operating the newest fighter in the Air Force inventory, the F-35A. We are still learning a lot and are not even halfway in our journey toward having six F-35A squadrons at Luke in the future. So we have a strong focus on daily operations, but also a campaign mindset with an eye on the future implications of each one of those decisions.
AB: What do you see as the strengths of Luke Air Force Base?
BL: The strengths of Luke Air Force Base are its incredible capability to develop airmen and train fighter pilots and its action-based, difference-making community relationship. If you averaged out what we do in a year, you would see we fly more than 100 sorties (flights), teach more than 200 hours of academics and graduate four students every day. Over the last 76 years, Luke has mastered the training of pilots across numerous different types of aircraft. Most recently and ongoing is the F-16, and now we are doing that with the F-35A. Developing airmen and training fighter pilots is in our DNA, but we could not do any of that without the support from the community.
AB: How is F-35 training going so far at Luke?
BL: Currently, we produce more than 1,200 graduates a year from multiple specialties, including pilots, nurses, maintainers, air battle managers, lab technicians and intelligence officers, to name a few.
On the pilot and maintenance side, we are currently training personnel from many partner countries, including Singapore, Australia, Norway, Israel and Japan, in addition to U.S. personnel.
Every day for the next three to five years, you will see F-35A training increase dramatically as we build from 55 F-35As currently at Luke to 144. Otherwise, the other training that we do will stay the same, with the F-16 training slowly decreasing over that time, but not going away entirely.
AB: President Trump said he plans to increase defense spending. How could that increase impact Luke Air Force Base and the surrounding areas?
BL: Increased defense spending would most likely be seen in terms of manpower, readiness and modernization. Additional manpower, is our most critical need to relieve the strain placed on our airmen after more than 26 years of being engaged in conflict across the globe. Even as we grow the F-35A mission at Luke, the manning and infrastructure that supports that mission’s growth has not been commensurate. Hopefully, increased defense spending would go to improving the infrastructure that enables everything we do on base. Even without an increase in spending, Luke Air Force Base will continue grow as we grow the F-35A mission.
AB: You’re currently remodeling a building at Luke to become a veterans support center. Why is that important to those serving at Luke and what kind of impact do you hope the center makes in the communities surrounding Luke?
BL: Developing airmen is our top focus and the Veteran’s Support Center is one of many initiatives under that focus. This center will not only support those who are no longer serving, but will also help those currently serving develop themselves for increased responsibility while on active duty, as well as higher potential if and when they are no longer on active duty. The center will support skills development, as well as professional planning programs. Overall, I see it as a commitment to continuously develop all our airmen — past and present.
AB: What is the biggest challenge you’re facing now as the commander at Luke?
BL: Our biggest challenge is to say “no” to some good things in order to say “yes” to some great things. Every airman I have ever met will expend every ounce of energy to get everything done. The important part is to get the most important things done, especially in a resource-constrained environment. To get there, we have three “shaping” objectives focused on developing leadership, communication and continuous process improvement. To get to great, we plan to empower and entrust everyone as a leader, let everyone know what we value and the direction we need to go and give them the tools to prioritize and make the right decisions.
AB: What are your primary goals as commander at Luke?
BL: Our vision is to lead the Air Force in developing airmen and training fighter pilots. To do that, we are focused on developing airmen and teams, increasing the quantity and quality of training and strengthening mission support processes and infrastructure.
We have 10 more specific objectives underneath those “lines of effort,” with three of them that primarily describe “the how” and we call them our shaping objectives. The three “shaping” objectives are intentionally and consistently developing airmen as leaders, establish robust communication and strategic alignment, and create an integrated, wing-wide process improvement system.
Another, critical piece is our objective that focuses on community. We not only want to be in the community, we want to be a part of it. We focus on showing our community their Air Force and building a relationship of trust with them. One way we seek to demonstrate how much we value our relationship with our community is what we are calling our Luke Service Blitz. On June 16, the entire base spent the whole day in the community doing service projects and saying thank you for the outstanding support we receive every day.
