Next CAF named

By Leesha Pitt

AVM Geoffrey Shepherd checks out his new office come July 4.

Photo by CPL Simone Liebelt

Interests | AVM Shepherd's Career

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* AVM Geoffrey Shepherd becomes the new Chief of the Air Force on July 4, replacing AIRMSHL Angus Houston, who becomes the CDF.

THE Air Force’s next chief dreads desert islands.

“I’m a person who needs to talk and mix with people,” Air Vice-Marshal Geoffrey Shepherd says.

“I don’t like sitting in my office all day by myself. I’m not a hermit and if you put me on a desert island all by myself, well ... the movie Castaway fills me with horror.”

In life, he says, “you catch more flies with sugar than you do with vinegar”.

“I used to be a fairly aggressive, thrusting sort of person, very quick to jump to conclusions and outcomes and I’ve learnt to take things more slowly, appreciate the value of other people’s advice and input and to not be so sure that I, and only I, know the answers all the time.

“I don’t mind people who make mistakes when they’re trying hard – people will always make mistakes; I make lots of mistakes – but what annoys me is people that just honestly don’t care, people who are just negative about things or people who are always down in the dumps and always looking to find the worst aspects of everything.

Thankfully, these types are few and far between. To me, the glass is always half full, not half empty.”

The Defence Minister announced AVM Shepherd’s appointment on May 23. Upon his appointment as CAF on July 4, AVM Shepherd will be promoted to air marshal. He never thought he would get the top Air Force job.

“If you do your job well, the rewards will come,” he says. “I just stuck my nose down and did my job.

“I joined to be a [fast jet] pilot ... and I suppose I just took each hurdle as it came. You just go up each step and as you gradually get higher in the organisation your horizons expand.

“I can remember consciously thinking as a squadron leader, ‘It’d be real nice to be a CO’, and eventually I got to be a wing commander CO. Then it was, ‘It’d be real nice to be an OC’ and in time I was a group captain ...

“Did I sit there at an early age with a burning ambition to be Chief of Air Force? Well, no. I probably haven’t been that overly ambitious in recent years. But you’re aware the more senior you get, the more possibilities there are to become chief.”

AVM Shepherd is excited to be heading up a “fantastic” organisation of 13,380 Service personnel, though he is also “slightly apprehensive”.

“It’s a big organisation, and it’s a big step up. I think I’ve been well trained. I have a great deal of experience and a wide background. So I feel confident that I’ll be able to step up to the mark, and, most importantly, I’ve got great people working with me who’ll be able to help me to do that.

“I’ve learnt something from every CO I’ve ever worked for. Invariably, in very much large measure, those things have always been good things ... occasionally there’s been a negative, but that in itself has been a positive when you say, ‘Well, I shouldn’t do that when I get to be in that position’.

Now 18 months into his ACAUST role, AVM Shepherd believes the Command continues to produce great operational outcomes.

“I think the biggest single improvement initiative we’ve bedded down in my time as Air Commander Australia has been enhancing the operational level of command and control. Things like the Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) concept and the air operations centre – we’ve really got that up and running.

“In my current job as Air Commander, in charge of the operational forces, I’ve done a fair bit of travelling around the world ... and without a doubt I believe that we’re the best air force in the world.”

AVM Shepherd's Career

• Completed RAAF Academy No. 24 Course in 1971
  
• Has flown more than 4500 hours, on the Mirage with 3SQN and on the F-111 with 6SQN and 1SQN.
  
• QFI Point Cook - 1 FTS
  
• 6SQN Training Flight Commander
  
• Assistant Defence Adviser Singapore
  
• 6SQN CO
  
• Force Development - Canberra
  
• 82WG OC
  
• Chief of Staff - Headquarters Air Command
  
• Director General Operations at Defence Signals Directorate
  
• Director General Joint Operations and Plans - Strategic Operations Division
  
• Air Commander Australia

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Interests

Music
All sorts of music, except modern jazz and rap. “I like pop, classical – both sorts of music – country and western, but more Steve Earl than Slim Dusty.”

Books
Currently reading The Da Vinci Code but it’s “forgettable enjoyment”. Has just finished Going Solo ”a real good read”. “It’s an autobiographical book by Roald Dahl, the children’s author, about flying, when he was working as a colonial bureaucrat in Africa and how he joined the RAF and fought in the Greek campaign and up through Syria.”

Hobbies
Gardening. “My only concern about moving to Canberra is that my collection of bromeliads and succulents may die in the cold, so I’m going to have to get them up to Queensland to give to my mum ... and all my palm trees are going to have to live inside. I have 200 pot plants because it’s hard being a gardener when you move house all the time.”

Sport
Football – rugby league, union and AFL. “I’ve always subscribed to the theory that you follow the team where you live ... so when we live in Canberra we’ll follow the Raiders. We now live in Penrith so we follow the Panthers. I support the Waratahs this year ... next season, I’ll go to some Brumbies games.” And AFL? “My brother-in-law is a mad Collingwood supporter ... [but] I followed Carlton ...”

Food
“My wife Anne and I are quite eclectic with food ... I love Asian and Italian food. I love steak and seafood on the barbie.”

Fashion
“I dearly would like to spend the rest of my life wearing shorts, boat shoes and collared shirt when it’s formal and a t-shirt with a round collar and thongs when it’s not.”

Holidays
Owns a house near Noosa in a town called Eumundi. “Last year I had a week down at the RAAF units at Merimbula. They were great, one of those quiet, family, beach sort of holidays. If I was to go overseas, we love Asia because we lived there and I’ve been to Rome but I haven’t taken Anne. We used to like camping at Fraser Island. I have a 4WD and used to do a lot of 4WD driving.”

Family
Is married to Anne and has sons Rohan, 22, and Jarvis, 20 “who will be coming back home to live with us – for as long as we can stand them, that is!”

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