SALT V works to solve Digital Transformation Published Aug. 21, 2023 By 2nd Lt. Morgan Searcy, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Public Affairs WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio (AFLCMC) — The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) Strategic Acquisition Leadership (SALT) Cohort V, recently completed the six months in the program. SALT encourages the development of leaders while challenging them to solve some of the most complex problems facing AFLCMC. This cohort of ten individuals focused on the Digital Transformation of each functional organization. Digital Transformation will provide the Air Force with cutting edge tools and remedies to support modernization efforts and will empower organizations to design, develop and test different weapon systems in a shorter timeframe. This means using model-based enterprise decision-making, enabling automation and institutionalizing open architectures while leveraging authoritative models and data to ensure collaboration across the acquisition lifecycle. “We started out with just asking questions, doing interviews, trying to learn as much as possible about the Digital Transformation,” stated Jetta Rackleff, Deputy Engineering Lead for Numerical Weather Modeling with the Aerospace Management Systems division of the AFLCMC Digital Directorate. “And [we also explored] how to solve it between different functionals and then present some of those ideas to [AFLCMC Commander] Lt. Gen. Morris,” she continued. During their time on the SALT V team, members traveled to the National Institute for Aviation Research in Wichita, Kansas to observe the digital transformation in practice. “Seeing a real-life application where they make it work, it was eye opening to know what this is what the end state is supposed to look like,” Rackleff further explained. Normally a SALT cohort is given a problem they can solve during the course of their time in the program, but this year was slightly different. “[Digital transformation] was such a large problem, we couldn’t really gain a perfect solution,” explained Christian Ryan, Chief of the AFLCMC Contracting Integration Division. “The hope was just to move the ball down the field a little bit.” SALT VI will be tasked with the continuation of working on Digital Transformation, using work and research collected by the V cohort. SALT V team members: Alexis Alejo, Logistics Management Functional Deanna Askins, Logistics Management Functional Timothy Canady, Engineering Functional Carllise Krawczyk, Program Management Functional Jetta Rackleff, Engineering Functional Sara Riley, Contracting Functional Chris Rose, Financial Management Functional Christian Ryan, Contracting Functional Nathan Stevens, Program Management Functional Cody Trebil, Engineering Functional