New Deputy Commander Driving SSC’s Next Phase Published March 13, 2024 By Lisa Sodders, SSC Public Affairs EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- With the wisdom of a tenured professional and the unbridled enthusiasm that comes with a space career where the sky actually is not the limit, Col. Michelle Idle brings a breath of fresh air and a creative mindset to her new role. With the installation of Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant as SSC’s second commander last month, Idle was named deputy commander for Space Systems Command. During a recent interview, Idle shared her excitement about the opportunity to help shape SSC as it continues to grow as a U.S. Space Force field command. She explained how the role of deputy commander – much like SSC and the Space Force – continues to evolve, to keep ahead of the threat. The Space Force will celebrate its 5th birthday in December, and “SSC will celebrate year three in August, so we’re still figuring out roles and responsibilities and make that pivot from a center to a field command,” Idle said. One example is how SSC, under its first commander, Gen. Michael Guetlein, began pushing certain decision-making authorities down from the three-star general level to individual program executive officers in order to increase speed, reduce bureaucracy, and create a system-of-systems integration that’s better able to counter the threat from China and other adversaries. “It’s the right way to get after the threat,” Idle said. “Having program executive offices each with one leader who is responsible for a specific range of capabilities, making the right business decisions: exploit what we have, buy what we can – either commercially or partnering with another agency – and build what we must.” That organization in addition to other changes – also affects Idle’s position as deputy commander. “In the past, this job has been primarily focused on issues internal to the command: taking care of people, making sure everything is in place to execute the mission,” Idle said. “I’m the primary interface with the Los Angeles Air Force Base installation commander, and any issues we have with infrastructure.” “If you ask Lt. Gen. Garrant what his job was when he was a deputy, it was very acquisition focused,” Idle added. “He worked a lot of personnel issues, but overall he had more acquisition responsibilities. That’s not how it’s going to be anymore.” “Acquisitions PEOs don’t have to go through the field command to do their acquisition jobs – they report directly to (Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration) Frank Calvelli,” Idle said. “So, our job, the roles of commander and deputy commander, are to ‘organize, train and equip’ the PEOs and directors - and the workforce overall - to make sure they can execute their mission.” The new Space Force Personnel Management Act, which was recently passed in the 2024 NDAA, will incorporate part-time service members into the full-time force, “which is something our country hasn’t done,” Idle said, and one of the things she’s most excited about in her new role. “I have a real passion for engaging our part-time force,” Idle said. “Looking at what skills our people have who have chosen to go part-time and making sure that we’re leveraging those talents and expertise. That’s a huge soapbox for me – to make that work.” As a reservist, Idle knows that firsthand. In fact, she is the first reservist, and quite possibly the first 0-6 (Colonel) to serve in a deputy commander or vice commander capacity. “When you’ve worn a uniform for a while, it’s really hard to take it off,” Idle said. “And there are people who have done that, and two or three years later said, ‘Nope, I need to go back.’ That patriotism and the other things that go with being a uniformed service member get ingrained in you.” “Our reservists all serve part-time for different reasons: it may be family, it may be a civilian job opportunity – they get a chance to lead a start-up or manage a program on the contractor side,” Idle continued. “There are a lot of part-time members with good ideas, and the fact that we are trying to do something different with the Space Force is really motivating.” When we ask, ‘What if we do it this way?’ – we don’t get, ‘Sorry, this is the way we’ve always done it.’ There’s not going to be another chance to create a brand new military service like this for a while. We have a huge opportunity, right now, to take the skills and the knowledge that people have from their civilian expertise and create an effective, efficient new force. Idle said she’s also excited to see all of the new partnerships being created by SSC’s International Affairs Office as well as through the new Commercial Space Office (COMSO) under Col. Rich Kniseley. SSC’s Warfighting Integration Office (WIO) is now sending members “on orders, deployed to support exercises that we’ve never had acquisition professionals in before,” Idle said. “The value from the way we’re operating is just immeasurable, and this is just the infancy.” “Our collaborations with Space Force’s new Integrated Mission Deltas and operators are unprecedented from where we came from,” Idle said. “It’s been exciting to see all the changes in how we do business, how we make acquisition decisions, and how we work with the joint force and our international allies.” Other challenges (which are synonymous with opportunities) include continuing to build the Space Force culture as a new field command. This includes new approaches as the leadership team and the workforce move past the Covid 19 lockdown, which changed so much of what people used to take for granted about work. “That’s a big challenge: how do we build the culture that we need, when people are so dispersed, but we also need that flexibility,” Idle said. “What does the future of work look like?” On a macro scale, there’s also the challenges of how USSF’s three field commands - SSC, SpOC, and STARCOM - will work together most effectively. “Force design across the entire Space Force is critical as we all pivot to focus on an era of Great Power Competition. Determining how this will affect SSC; what will each field command continue to do, what might we each do differently; how we will continue to remove silos and work together is something that I am incredibly passionate about and proud to be part of,” Idle explained. “Part of my job is to help close the seams between SSC and the other field commands. I have regular touch points with those deputies, and we are always looking for ways to be more collaborative, and address issues before they become major sticking points. The changes coming from the Great Power Competition are driving an even greater need for us to work together. The development of Integrated Mission Deltas is also driving cooperation and enabling greater mission readiness. When Idle was a high school student in Colorado, the stars were not her initial destination. Her classwork was heavy on math, science, French, and Spanish, and her dream was to go into international business. But she was familiar with the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., having visited the campus many times for football games and Olympics trials. With the lure of wanderlust, Idle knew that if she became commissioned in the Air Force, she would get to travel internationally. The fact that the Academy had a ski team – Idle competed in ski racing in high school – was also a plus. “It turns out when you go to the Air Force Academy, everyone gets a bachelor of science degree – even the English majors have to take an aeronautical engineering class, an electrical engineering class – everybody takes these basic engineering classes,” Idle said. “I was a poli-sci major – for a semester – and then I discovered I preferred numbers to writing and I switched to an engineering mechanics degree. So, my pivoting capabilities started really early.” Idle was commissioned in 1993 from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and spent eight years on active duty prior to transferring to the Air Force Reserve. Idle has held a variety of positions in research and development, program management, technical intelligence, space operations and academics. Her husband, Win Idle, also served in the Air Force. The arrival of their son, Gabe, now 21, made planning her career path challenging at times – but also led to some amazing opportunities, Idle said. “I always tell people, the job-change ledge can be scary, but then you step over and you go, ‘Oh! The view over here is really neat!’” Idle said. “All of the different things I did, the connections I made, really built my network for me.” She directed the United States Strategic Command’s Joint Reserve Intelligence Support Element, a unit of Navy, Air Force and Marine Reservists - developing intelligence products for the Joint Space Operations Center. It was while serving as IMA to the deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, VA, that she started working for Gen. Michael Guetlein, now vice chief of space operations for the U.S Space Force. In 2021, when Guetlein was named SSC’s first commander, Idle joined him in El Segundo, California and became SSC’s Mobilization Assistant to the Commander. As SSC’s senior Air Force Reserve Officer, she provided direction for the organizational policy strategy and governance matters related to the reserve component for the command as well as across the space acquisition career field. She also led special projects and acted on behalf of the commander as needed. Idle said she knew the Space Force would eventually stand up a different type of reserve force, which is what made the move to SSC so appealing: “For that reason alone, I couldn’t say no. I was offered a senior leader opportunity to be a senior acquisition reservist on the Space Force side; building this new construct in addition to standing up a new command. You don’t say no to that! You don’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch other people build something when you’ve got ideas.” “We have an opportunity to look at how we do things and do something very different,” Idle said. “It’s pretty awesome.”