Sheila E. Widnall is no stranger to an Air Force base. In her hometown of Tacoma, Wash., Widnall lived next door to a airfield. As a young girl she would run outside and wave to the low-flying planes as they took off and landed at the nearby McChord Air Force Base.
Now Widnall is flying those planes, and every month her job takes her to one of the 88 bases the Air Force operates throughout the world.
Whether it’s flying an F-16 fighter jet, riding along with an AWACS crew on a mission over northern Iraq or bicycling with Air Force personnel at an overseas base, Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall is on the move.
Since President Clinton appointed her the first woman to head any branch of the military, Widnall, 56, has averaged 20 to 25 speeches or base visits a month.
On a recent morning Widnall walked swiftly through the halls of the Pentagon. She had just returned from the funeral services of Air Force Col. S. Nelson Drew, a member of the U.S. negotiating team who had died in Bosnia when its French armored car tumbled off a road.
In an hour she would attend the funeral of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph J. Kruzel, another member of the negotiating team.
After the stock market closed in the afternoon, Widnall would announce the awarding of four space contracts for launch vehicles.
The next day she would leave for a tour of bases in Japan, Korea and Hawaii that would include a quick stop in Alaska.
“The fun part of my job is to get out of this building,” said Widnall as she sat in her spacious Pentagon office overlooking the Potomac River. “I think it’s the best job in Washington.”
She is an educator and an engineer by profession and one of the world’s foremost experts in fluid dynamics, specializing in aircraft turbulence. But it’s people, not just technology, that Widnall wants to emphasize during her tenure as secretary of the Air Force.
“It’s not a new emphasis — it’s a renewed emphasis,” she said.
As part of her spotlight on people first, Widnall takes a special interest in the quality of life of the more than 400,000 active-duty members of the Air Force so they can “do their job and know their families are well taken care of,” Widnall said.
When she became secretary in 1993, Widnall pledged to be a “widely seen and accessible secretary.”
Her duties take her out of town at least once a week. An avid cyclist, Widnall logged some 3,000 miles on her bike in 1994. She also enjoys whitewater rafting, sailing, backpacking and camping. When she travels overseas she carries her own bike and often invites enlisted people and officers to go riding with her.
“I don’t consider that these (activities) take away from energy,” Widnall said. “I’m firmly convinced they give you energy. If I didn’t bike or do the other things that I do, I wouldn’t have the energy I need to do my job.”
Although she has never served a day in the military, the secretary was no stranger to the Air Force when she was picked for her current position. She has had a long interest in aeronautics and the Air Force. Besides growing up next to McChord Air Force Base, during her summers in college Widnall worked at the Boeing plant in Seattle.
She served on the United States Air Force Academy board of visitors from 1978 to 1984 and on an advisory committee to the Military Aircraft Command and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
“I always wanted to be secretary of the Air Force,” she said.
As the top civilian in charge of the administration of the Air Force, she is responsible for and has the authority to conduct all Air Force matters, including those related to recruiting, organizing, training, administration, logistical support, maintenance and the welfare of almost 600,000 military and civilian personnel.
A professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 28 years, Widnall stresses the importance of education and preparation as the Air Force enters the 21st Century.
“We need to really ensure that we never lose sight that the decisions we make today are going to shape the Air Force 20 years from now,” Widnall said. “We need to invest in our people.”
She finds herself in the pilot’s seat of the Air Force during a time of transition from a Cold War military machine whose mission was primarily readiness to a leaner military that often is responsible for providing humanitarian aid as well as fighting around the globe.
Widnall explains that since Desert Storm, the Air Force has averaged three to four times the level of overseas deployments as during the Cold War. Almost 10,000 men and women are deployed overseas to support operations in Bosnia, Iraq, the Caribbean and South America. The Air Force is flying as many as 200 missions a day in combat zones around the world.
At the same time, the Air Force budget is down about 50 percent from the peak years of the mid-’80s. It has a third fewer people, and 27 stateside bases have been recommended for realignment or closure since 1988.
Staying on the cutting edge of technology while dominating the air is a juggling act during a time of shrinking budgets and personnel. She also has to switch constantly from topic to topic to take care of the vast array of things that come across her desk, she said.
But Widnall is used to juggling many responsibilities and demands on her time and attention. She is also used to being the first and sometimes only woman in male-dominated fields.
“Sheila’s a woman who’s got a lot of firsts,” said her husband, Bill Widnall, when Clinton nominated her for secretary of the Air Force.
Widnall met her husband, who is also an aeronautical engineer, during her senior year at MIT. They were married in 1960, the year she received a bachelor of science degree. A year later she had a master’s degree. In 1964 she received a doctorate and had her first child, also named Bill. Four years later a daughter, Ann, was born.
She said she never doubted she could have a family and a career because of the example of her mother, Genevieve Evans, who worked as a juvenile probation officer while taking care of Widnall and her younger sister, Sharon.
“She always worked,” Widnall said of her now 86-year-old mother. “She is still a woman of an amazing amount of energy.”
Her other major influence was her father, Rolland Evans, who died in 1991.
“My father was particularly supportive of anything I wanted to do,” Widnall said. “He had a very technical mind, and we built things together. We did everything together. I was grown up before I realized you could hire people to come to your home and fix things.”
Building things with her father was important preparation for a woman going into the male-dominated field of engineering. When she entered MIT in 1956, Widnall was one of 20 women in a freshman class of 900 students. She was the first MIT alumna appointed to the faculty in the School of Engineering and the first woman to serve as chair of the entire MIT faculty. She was the director of the Fluid Dynamics Research Laboratory at MIT from 1979 to 1990. In 1992, she was appointed associate provost at MIT.
Widnall is the author of more than 70 publications and has won several awards, including the Lawrence Sperry Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
And although Widnall said she has not initiated specific programs to advance women in the Air Force, she said, “I take personal delight in the accomplishments of women in the Air Force. I feel that my visibility as the secretary is kind of a motivator for women in the force.”
The population of women in the Air Force has increased from 33,000 in 1975 to 64,580 in 1995, almost 16 percent of the total Air Force. About 25 percent of the new recruits are women.
Widnall’s advice to the new recruits or any young woman?
“Strive for excellence in both your personal characteristics as well as your professional goals. I think excellence is its own reward.”
