Komives also serves as the warfighting integration lead for the principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Research and Engineering). In this role he ensures that hypersonic technologies are accurately and credibly integrated into wargames, exercises, and analysis across the Department of Defense.
 

“Between those two jobs, my responsibilities are to ensure that the strategy that the Air Force and the Department of Defense comes up with is fully informed by the state of the possible in this technology; and that we then communicate the capabilities that are required of that technology to the S&T community,” explained Komives.
 

In his two roles Komives has to balance technology and strategy, working with operators and strategic thinkers who may understand the basic premise of a technology like hypersonics, but are not experts in the subject. “As a technologist, what I try and do is ensure that the concepts that we are developing are bound in physics, bound in science, and appropriately aggressive given the realm of the possible,” said Komives. 
 
Future Officer Technologists

To be successful in carrying out future plans, Komives believes we need Airmen and Guardians who can bridge the technical and strategic communities. As the Air Force modernizes and moves towards more innovative technologies like hypersonics, officers who are technical experts and who are also well versed in operational planning and understand how airpower has been used historically will be critical to intelligently shape capability development and force application. “That takes the right Airman who has the mastery of technology, but then also an appreciation for and study of the operational art. That combination is where the uniformed technologist plays a unique role,” said Komives.
 

How AFIT Develops Experts
 

Komives sees AFIT as a unique breeding ground for officer technologists based on its foundation of defense focused education and research. “Having an operationally informed set of priorities is very meaningful and that's a thing that distinguishes AFIT from the other graduate institutes - the impetus of this institution to prioritize the needs of the Department of Defense,” said Komives. “The junior force coming out of institutions like AFIT will be the people really running and leading operations in the future force.”
 

Having earned his master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from AFIT in 2009 and serving as an assistant professor of aerospace engineering within AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management from 2016 to 2020, Komives is very familiar with the AFIT mission.  He credits his time as a student and faculty member in developing his technical expertise to become a subject matter expert. “My time as a student helped give me some of that beginning technical development, but my time on faculty really did hone that. If you really want to understand a topic, teach it,” said Komives. 
 

As technologies evolve and mature, it will be important to understand how the systems function and operate within the current force. While the personnel system does a good job of identifying technical needs within the fielded units, Komives thinks the next opportunity is to focus on developing and utilizing officers who are technical subject matter experts, like AFIT military faculty members. 
 

The seven year commitment the Air Force invests in an officer to earn a PhD and then follow on with a teaching assignment at AFIT is a significant developmental opportunity for Airmen and Guardians. “They will get to a level of mastery and level of understanding that puts them in a spot where they are primed to help the rest of us understand that technology and how to integrate it into strategy and capability development in a way that that is just truly incredible,” said Komives.
 

Komives regards his time on AFIT’s faculty as an opportunity not only to deepen his technology expertise through teaching and research, but a mentorship opportunity to help shape the development of future technical leaders in the Air Force. “I'm still in touch with all of my cohorts and I’m still involved in a mentoring capacity with them to help them as they then look at subsequent assignments. It’s an opportunity to shape the leaders in your technology for the next three to four years, which is simply wonderful,” said Komives.