CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
The Charleston AFB family offered a warm welcome to the new commander of the 437th Operations Group Dec. 21 during a change of command ceremony here.
Col. Robert Holba, formerly the chief of the Air Mobility Division for the 617th Air and Space Operations Center, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, assumed command of the 437 OG from Col. Joseph Mancy. Colonel Mancy's next assignment will station him overseas, serving U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany.
Colonel Holba graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science degree in International Affairs and received a Master of Aviation Science degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1996. Additionally, he is a graduate of several military education institutions, including the Air Command and Staff College and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
His career as a pilot began in 1986 attending undergraduate pilot training at Williams AFB in Arizona, in the same fashion as any Air Force pilot, he might say, because behind the colonel's evident commitment and commanding appearance, the virtue of humility resides in his words - a compliment to his avid support of the military family, starting with his own.
"I'd like to say I'm nothing special," he said. "I suppose in some respects I think I am, but there is no way I could have done what I have today and helped other people without my immediate family and some influential mentors along the way."
The impact the members of his family have made on his life is considerable, he said, and in gauging the past, there were many irreplaceable figures in his family who helped shape his future.
"Looking back over the years, and looking how I grew up ... how fortunate I was to have people like that ... I just thought everyone was like that," he said. "[There was] a lot of love and a lot of support which continues to this day with my wife Jane and four children."
"Early in my life and my Air Force career, it was my parents' support and a lot of my relatives', [like] my two grandfathers who served in World War II," he added. "I also had very strong support from a lot of the females in the Holba and my mother's families."
The colonel harbors a clear commitment to family and country, and he also encourages the same for the Airmen who serve under him.
"The Air Force can be a tough life, and I think in some respects it's even tougher now because of recurring deployments and what our country demands from us," the colonel said. "And your family and your friends ... all that is just so vital to have a successful career and to do your job, your profession, well."
The Air Force family couldn't be more relevant to the colonel's views on dominate mobility air power. To the Airmen of his unit, he offers another of his down-to-earth philosophies, glazed with a hint of the "tough love" he said received from his family growing up.
"Our mission of rapid global mobility is very complex, there are a lot of pieces," he said. "A breakdown in any one of those pieces can have a significant impact. It shouldn't take our folks in the operations group much creativity, to understand where they fit in the bigger picture.
"Our folks are very, very good, and they don't want to let the team down," he continued. "They don't want to fail, and they don't want to let their buddies down."
At the end of the day, all the teamwork that exists in his unit brings strength to each individual, creating a stronger family which relies on family.
It ultimately boils down to "mission effectiveness," said Colonel Holba, but for the candid commander of the 437 OG, his family doesn't compete with his mission - they enhance it and propel him forward.
"I am a living example of having a really strong family ... I can't state that loud enough."