MR. BAKER: To begin with, we would like to know a little bit about your background. Are you from a military family and did you plan on making the Army a career?

MG CIANCIOLO: Well, I am not from a military family; and no, I did not plan to make the Army a career. I planned to take over my father’s business. I would guess that was what he was grooming me for after I graduated from college. I came into the Army through the ROTC program.

MR. BAKER: Before you became commander here we know you were the MLRS PM. Do you think that background or familiarity with Redstone helped you in the job as commander?

MG CIANCIOLO: Well, obviously being here at Redstone and being associated with the various organizational elements of MICOM did help me. I think there were some other assignments I had that helped too. I was a commander…artillery commander...in Germany but also responsible for the community activities. So, I think that helped too because what comes with the job as the Missile Command Commander also is being the post commander...running the post… and the people issues; and the morale, welfare, and recreational aspects; and all that. So I think that helped too.

MR. BAKER: Now that leads to the next question. When you came here as commander, how had the arsenal changed from the time you left as the MLRS PM?

MG CIANCIOLO: Well, there were a lot of new additions when I came back here. I left in ‘83 and of course the town got larger; there was a significant change in the physical dimensions of the city when I came back in ‘88. The post itself had a lot of new additions: there was a new child care center; a new youth activities center; in fact, the youth activities center opened, I think, a month or two after I got here. I think we opened it in October. There were some other changes but none as apparent as those two additions. The characteristics of the post physically looked just as good as I remembered it when I left it. So, from that point of view it didn’t change much in physical appearance. There were a lot of plans to add and to do more things. Of course, those are starting to take shape now.

MR. BAKER: How do you feel it’s changed during your tenure?

MG CIANCIOLO: Well, I’ve only been here 14 months. There’s not very much physically that’s changed in terms that one could tell unless you were very observant to see it. The Research, Development, and Engineering (RD&E) Center, of course, has a lot of work going on with the new simulation facilities inside the building over there. Construction of the test tower on the southern part of the post, that’s all finished. The gradual reconfiguration of the offices where a lot of the offices are getting new office equipment and all that business. What I was really amazed at, that I didn’t notice when I was here before, was the tremendous use and proliferation of automatic data processing equipment. I was absolutely overwhelmed when I saw the level of commitment MICOM had to using ADP. It is significant, really significant. And, I think it’s forward-looking. I think MICOM probably leads the way right now in automation in AMC, which is good. If we are successful in getting Congressional support for the beginning of the construction of the Sparkman Center in the FY 90 budget (which I think we will be), that will be a significant change here at the arsenal and bring a consolidation of all the widely geographically spread organizational elements. It should help us become more efficient. So, that’ll be great. That’ll happen over the next 2 years.

DR. HUGHES: Now, rather than following along with our list of questions as we have them here, we had one question farther down about your contact with the civilian community. Since we’ve been talking about Redstone Arsenal and your position as influencing the community here, do you think that the presence of such a large number of civilians has special kinds of problems or concerns that you have to handle because there are so many civilians here?

MG CIANCIOLO: You’re talking about in the workforce?

DR. HUGHES: Right.

MG CIANCIOLO: Yes, I think that’s a significant departure from... it goes back to the earlier question you asked me about commanding this place. When a workforce is predominantly civilian, which is what the U.S. Army Missile Command is, then I think the commander has to consider that. One of the first things that struck me as I went around when I first got here and tried to meet all the people was the large number of women in the workforce. And, I started asking some questions of the women as I went around: if they had children and how did they take care of their children; did they have day care facilities and that kind of business. I thought that there was a need there that we weren’t addressing. So, I asked that a survey be done.

We have expanded the use of the child care center to include the civilian employees. I think that need--although right now there are only a small number of civilian employees taking advantage of that--I think that’s going to increase over time. I really do.

The other piece of it has to do with the morale, welfare, recreation business. The military provides morale, welfare, recreation funds that are directed toward military. But we have such a small military population here, that I want to include the civilians too because they increase our customer base. The Congress has decreed that we have to support morale, welfare, and recreation on a profit basis. So, it seemed to me to be a natural extension of that is to say, "Well let’s go increase our customer base by including the civilians here and then increase our morale, welfare, and recreation revenues.’ We have, I think, every opportunity in the world to make the morale, welfare, and recreational facilities here A #1. They’re good now, but we can make them even better, if we get the support of the civilian workforce.

DR. HUGHES: Well, given those two considerations--the size of the civilian workforce and the economic realities——do you think other aspects of the Redstone Arsenal facilities will be opened up to the civilians at some point in time?

MG CIANCIOLO: I think that, yes, I think so. There are some things that may be prohibited by law, I don’t know what those are. I think there are a lot of myths about what can and can’t be made available. On the other hand, though, you have to recognize that the city of Huntsville is a pretty modern city and certainly becoming more modern all the time. So, there are a lot of things available in the city for the citizens of the city that their needs are satisfied that way, and they don’t need the arsenal. So, there’s going to be some give and take as to how we do things. But I think--the commander here working with the mayor of the city——we can come to some mutual agreement on what and how we can work together to provide that kind of additional support not only to the civilians who work on the arsenal but maybe even to share arsenal morale, welfare, and recreation facilities with the citizens of the city, too. But that’s in the future, I don’t know how that would all work out.

My exposure with the mayor of the city, Mayor Steve Hettinger, has been very good. We have a very active Army Community Relations Council who are very supportive of the post here. By nature of my position here I’m invited to join the Rotary Club and consequently there are civilian contacts that are made that way. We do a lot of work with the Chamber of Commerce and expand our relationships that way. In conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce we co—sponsor an Armed Forces Week every year. So, I think that Redstone Arsenal and Huntsville are blessed with a very positive community relation atmosphere that I haven’t seen in any other place. It’s unique, I think, to Huntsville. At least that’s my experience. I’m sure there are other posts that have very good relationships, but this one is unique, because there’s such a high preponderance of citizens who have worked on the arsenal and worked in the missile or space business. So, it’s very gratifying to work here, and I hate to leave it, to tell the truth.

DR. HUGHES: Is this post kind of unique in that sense among Army posts to have such a large civilian workforce or are there others?

MG CIANCIOLO: Well, I’m not familiar with other posts that have a large civilian workforce. My experience has been on Army posts that have been primarily military populated and this post is certainly unique from that situation. I was at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, too, and Fort Monmouth had a high number of civilian employees. It was a good post too… a good relationship... but I still think this one is better. Mainly because Fort Moninouth was not the largest employer of the civilian population there like we are here. So, I think this is unique.

DR. HUGHES: That’s pretty interesting. At the beginning of your tour here as MICOM Commander, were you charged with accomplishing any specific objectives?

MG CIANCIOLO: Well, obviously, the major one was to continue to have MICOM--the U.S. Army Missile Command--support the soldier in the field with the missile systems that were out there and to continue working hard for the development of the new ones. No, there wasn’t any specific mission. If there was a central thrust, at least a point of immediacy that had to take place was finishing the transition of the PEO concept and the Matrix Management concept——the Army acquisition executive side of the house and the Army materiel side of the house. Which we did when I first got here. That was one of the, I guess, first tasks that I really picked up, other than trying to get around and meet everybody, and also understanding the Missile Command itself. Because when I was a PM here before, quite frankly, I didn’t have to concentrate on what did the Missile Command do. I had very myopic vision. It was MLRS and everybody else could take care of their own. I was worried about MLRS, and anybody who could help me in the Missile Command, I actively solicited their support. So, when I came back this time as the commander, obviously, you have all the things that go with it, not only MILRS, but everything else here too.

DR. HUGHES: Well, did you set any special goals for yourself?

MG CIANCIOLO: Yes. The other thing I wanted to do was try to make the Missile Command, which is very good, even better. And in that regard, I had become exposed to this thing called Total Quality Management (TQM)--this concept--in the Pentagon. So, I started to read a little about it. It made a lot of sense to me. It’s rather a simple philosophy that says there’s always room for improvement--to do things better--which was in keeping with what I wanted to do anyway. So, I worked hard to get the concept of Total Quality Management across to the MICOM organizational elements, and we’re working hard at it. We still have a long way to go, but I think we’re making pretty good progress. At least from what I hear from our higher headquarters and others, the Missile Command is moving out. And although that makes you feel kind of good, we still have to implement it. I have to say, we’re doing things pretty good right now, but we can still do them better. No one argues that. When you tell someone, ‘Gee, you know, we’re doing pretty good but we can do it better, I think," everyone says, "Yes, I believe that."

DR. HUGHES: Yes, they seem to have a pretty positive attitude about it. It’s not just lip service.

MG CIANCIOLO: Yes, and we’re not running around searching for guilty people or lazy people--I mean that’s not the purpose. The purpose really says it’s not the people who are the problem anyway, it’s the management--the leadership who don’t have their act together. So we’re trying to sort all that Out. We are, in fact, changing some of the policies and for the better. And we’re going to keep doing that. It’s really been accepted great so far by the functional heads. The directors and all the other senior folks here seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it. So, I’m going to try to carry that with me when I go up to my new position.

MR. BAKER: Speaking of TQM, what is your own personal philosophy of leadership, command, and management?

MG CIANCIOLO: There are some people who can articulate what they do rather easily. I, for whatever reason——I don’t know why—-I seem to be able to relate well with people and to cause them to do things that are viewed as being the right things to do and effective. I think, first of all, I accept that the people who work with me want to do a good job. I don’t think anybody comes to the table determined to do a bad job. That’s not human nature. You don’t… we don’t... do things like that. So, the first thing I have to say, then, we’ve got some superb people here and we just have to, from my point of view, you just have to ensure that they know that they’re doing the right thing; what they’re doing is useful and purposeful; and they’re doing good here. Where they’re not going to do good, let them know they’re not doing good so we can fix that to do better. I don’t know how else to say it, except you have to lead people. People are the ones who do things and you work with them. I work with people, people don’t work for me. We work together to do what we think is right for our mission. Our mission here is a simple one. We develop, produce, field, and maintain the missile systems of the U.S. Army in support of the U.S. soldier, and we’re the best there is in that business. Actually we’re the only one there is in that business. I think our readiness rates right now show we’re doing better than we’ve ever done before. Leadership is exercised through people. Allow people to use their talents, you’d be surprised at some of the things they can do. There are a lot of interesting people around here, and they do interesting things——things you never dreamed of until you start to talk to them and they tell you a little about themselves. It’s amazing, it really is amazing! Sometimes you’re kind of in awe that they do all these things.

MR. BAKER: Recently, two Harvard professors published a book entitled Thinking in Time: The Uses of History by Decision Makers. It describes how history can be used to prevent bad decision-making by leaders. A good example they use is back in July of ‘79, under the Carter administration, some things came to light about the Soviet presence in Cuba. The newspapers picked up on it and created a big furor at the time. But, after they began to use the facts that were available and looked at what was there, the Soviet troops--the Soviet Brigade that they were talking about——had been there since 1962 in some way, shape, or form. Obviously the administration got a black eye. Shortly thereafter, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurred. Anyway, if the administration had done its homework, they could have eliminated a potential public relations disaster. Your own interest in history, which is near and dear to our hearts, has been shown through your interest in the Regimental Room. In your viewpoint as commander, has history played any role at all in your decision-making process?

MG CIANCIOLO: I guess it has. Obviously, it has. Particularly, in the weapons acquisition business, and I guess I have to say, when I was a commander of troops in the artillery business, because most of the things that you’re taught have to do with history. In the field artillery, we always referred back to the French because the French were the first to introduce the ability to use massed fires. So, our whole basis of gunnery and all of that were based on gunnery as taught by the French. In the materiel acquisition business, of course, I studied a lot of previous weapon system development programs. The age-old historical fact comes up: there’s a requirements creep even after we say this is what our requirement is. It never stays firm. Someone is always adding to it, which then, in turn, adds more money, adds more time, adds more complexity. Even though we know all that’s going to happen, sometimes we have a hard time remembering what lessons history has taught us. Unfortunately, good judgment comes from bad judgment, and that’s the way we learn. So using history usually, as always, we learn it after the fact. We go and make these problems for ourselves.

The business of the Regimental Room came from the belief that a soldier--an officer——had to have lineage. There were people who came before, who brought the unit or organization to what it is today. It is a useful thing for them to know from whence they came. To know that there is a proud lineage, one where those who preceded them did magnificent things for their country. It’s not just a place at the Officers Club, not just a place to come and have a social evening. I mean, if that’s what one wanted to do, one could go to any restaurant in the city and do that. It’s a more special place than that. I thought that there was a great tradition here at Redstone, one that would help unite, not only th~e active duty military but the folks who work at NASA, the civilian employees for the U.S. Army Missile Command, and even the retirees——military retirees and civilian retirees. There was a common bond. Why were we here? Why did everybody come to Huntsville, Alabama, to live and work? It wasn’t just because they liked the climate or something. There was another reason to be here, and that’s why I wanted the Regimental Room here. The Officers Club didn’t have that. If you go in there and look, there was a Twickenham Room. But there was something missing ... the heart was missing. See, I wanted to put a heart in it, and that’s why we looked at that. I think that’s going to catch on, I think everyone I’ve taken up there to show the room has liked it. After talking with Jack Lee, the current Director of Marshall Space Flight Center, I think we’ll probably see NASA having some interest there.