Alumni Profiles in Government
Mike Dominguez, MBA ’83
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs
For Mike Dominguez, MBA ’83, his proudest moment in over two decades of government service was when President Bush appointed him to serve as the Acting Secretary of the Air Force in 2005. Already an Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Dominguez accepted the challenge.
Dominguez recalls the experience as “ awesome, inspiring, and humbling. To be the Chief Executive of this organization, to be the leader that these 700,000 people look to in wartime, there’s no feeling on earth like that.” As essentially the CEO of the Air Force, Dominguez was at the helm of a $100 billion enterprise.
For this West Point graduate, military service is nothing new. But, the analytical skills he gained at Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) have been invaluable to decision-making in the military. With the guidance of a GSB professor, Dominguez landed his first job after graduate school as an Operations Research Analyst on the staff of the Secretary of Defense.
In the years that followed, Dominguez worked up the DoD corporate ladder rising to the position of Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs in 2001 when he was appointed by President Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. Dominguez likens this position to what in the private sector one might call the “Chief Human Capital Officer.” He continues to hold this position, though also answered the call of President Bush in 2005 to be the Acting Secretary of the Air Force.
As the Department of Defense and the Air Force transitions into “21 st century management practices,” Dominguez believes this is his greatest challenge. Management changes are truly “a generational change in how we organize and assign work to people, and award accomplishments.”
Such work can be far from easy but extremely important. Dominguez explains “the things you do in public service have consequence. In DoD, we deal with life and death, with the survival of the nation, and protection of its interests. These things are weighty, powerful, and important.”
For more information on civilian jobs in the Department of Defense check out: http://www.defenselink.mil/sites/c.html#civjobs. And for other information on working in the federal government go to http://www.calltoserve.org.