Big Ed's Goodbye

On the brass-spangled parade ground of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio one day last week, a burly, handsome, four-star general stepped forward to face General Thomas D. White, Air Force Chief of Staff. Moments later, General Edwin W. Rawlings was sporting a new piece of hardware on his chest: a first oakleaf cluster to the Distinguished Service Medal. With this parting gift, Ed Rawlings officially concluded 30 years of extraordinary service to the Air Force, went on his way at a youthful 54 to a civilian job as director and financial vice president of General Mills. Left behind: a Rawlings-rejuvenated Air Materiel Command, the global, 200,000-man complex charged with buying, storing, supplying and maintaining all equipment used by the Air Force.

"The most important thing we've done," says Rawlings, who can look deceptively easygoing with pipe in hand and feet on desk, "is to cut the time in getting our product to its ultimate consumer." The product can be anything from a 4 1/2ton Atlas missile to a bucket of paint; the consumer can be a Strategic Air Command grease monkey in Morocco, an Air Force fighter squadron in Tokyo, a missile-testing crew at Cape Canaveral. Adds Rawlings: "Since 1951 we've just about equipped the Air Force with jet equipment. We've written contracts for $93 billion and spent about $83 billion. For that we've got an Air Force that's maintaining the peace in the world."

Unique Talent. Minnesota-born Ed Rawlings was a good pilot long before he was a management man. He got his wings in 1930, that year won the Distinguished Flying Cross for his part in the rescue of an air crew that crashed off the Hawaiian Islands. He pulled a rip cord twice to save his neck: in 1932 he bailed out of his burning biplane at 500 ft., and in 1940 he parachuted from a storm-battered fighter. In 1954, as a three-star general, he won the Soldier's Medal for helping to save the pilot of his 6-17 when the plane caught fire on landing.

Pilot Rawlings early began to show a unique talent in the management skills that the Air Corps needed more than pilot's deeds. In 1939, after a tour in the administrative branch in Materiel, he took a master's degree (cum laude) at Harvard's Graduate School of Business Administration, worked on Air Force logistics in World War II, later set up the division responsible for postwar production cutbacks and contract terminations. By 1946 he was the Air Force's first comptroller; he took command of the Air Materiel Command in 1951.

Shorter Pipeline. In quick time he and his carefully selected staff junked the outdated system of stockpiling millions of items without much regard for inventory costs, obsolescence of models or parts. In its place they aimed at shortening pipelines from manufacturers, installed carefully scheduled air-and sea-lifts and huge computers (including the encyclopedic UNIVAC), tied their depots and control points with a network of electronic transceivers that punch cards automatically with orders.

"Largely due to his guidance and leadership," said General White, "spectacular increases in the effectiveness of Air Force logistics have been accomplished through new management methods, concepts and philosophy, and thus the Air Force is able to match the tempo of the jet missile and space era."

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