FLIGHT TEST CENTER GETS NEW DIRECTOR.

Byline: Daily News

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - David C. Bond has been named executive director of the Air Force Flight Test Center.

Bond describes his Edwards assignment as the chance of a lifetime. He said he leads by being an enabler, knocking down barriers, providing training and vision, and allowing those who work for him to excel. He also said he believes retention is an important part of leadership.

``We have to structure our jobs so we allow those who want to serve to grow, to produce and leverage the positive,'' he said.

Bond formerly was deputy director of operations at Air Force Materiel Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and before that he was a program manager and program director for the Navy at the Naval Weapons Laboratory in Dahlgren, Va., and at Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee.

He earned a master's degree in electrical engineering in 1971 from Tennessee Technical University.

Bond said he believes the test center's greatest challenge is the budget. He said cuts and changes that are going to come out in defense over the next few years are going to be more dramatic than any in the recent past.

Another huge challenge he said he sees is evolution into a Test and Evaluation enterprise - viewing Edwards as part of a bigger entity, working with partners such as Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and Arnold in Tennessee.

Bond said he is not worried about an aging work force, feeling it has been overstated.

``You hear various figures like 50 percent of the work force will be eligible for retirement in five years. It is an issue needing to be dealt with, but the reality is that many of us choose not to retire as soon as we are eligible,'' he said. ``We are an aging work force, but we have to keep it in perspective and work through it, deal with the reality and not the hypothetical, and not create imaginary mountains.''