Captain Reed Schafer, MBA, PMP
Future 50 Honoree of 2024
For integrating gold-standard project management principles into the U.S. Department of Air Force
Captain at the United States Air Force | Washington, District of Columbia (DC), United States of America
Captain “Jimi” Reed Schafer’s primary worldview is predicated on this one thing: his love for the American way of life. It has shaped his education and the decisions he’s made about his life and career. “What I love about America is the assurance that I can choose my own path, that you can choose your own adventure,” explains Jimi from a park bench outside the Pentagon.
His adventure began with a business background, completing his MBA and working in the private industry as a sporting goods buyer before joining the military, a goal he’d long held. “I’ve always wanted to serve my country and to be part of something greater as my primary career,” he says. “Our nation’s freedom is as good as our defense, and I felt like I had the opportunity to serve an important calling.”
In 2017, Jimi became a military program manager leveraging his business acumen for leading programs, negotiating contracts, and developing and fielding weapons systems. He explains that in the military, a program manager is akin to a project manager in other industries.
The Department of Air Force trained and equipped me to excel in my career, but it wasn’t until I earned my PMP from PMI in 2020 that I felt I was a true program manager...that was the turning point.
The Department of Air Force trained and equipped me to excel in my career, but it wasn’t until I earned my PMP from PMI in 2020 that I felt I was a true program manager...that was the turning point.
He recalls working alongside another program manager in a very high visibility program responsible for equipping half of the U.S. Air Force fighter jet fleet with defensive systems. He recalls his colleague sharing that if he had his PMP® certification before embarking on this important program, he would have approached things quite differently.
“I’m not saying having your PMP is a panacea, but it equips you with a broad, skill-set perspective based on 70-plus years of best practices and industry standards on how to approach cost schedules and scope, how to structure your program, and improve stakeholder management,” he explains.
Soon, Jimi will be transitioning into a new role where he’ll provide guidance, direction, and policy updates to Department of Air Force on its multi-billion-dollar acquisition programs. This, he says, includes ensuring intelligence is better integrated into national defense programs.
Jimi’s long-term goals include trying to change the Defense Department system from within and forging strategic partnerships between PMI and the Department of Air Force.
“Following best practices, ensuring that knowledge that the PMP embodies is integrated here, that development is huge. It’s my main solution for tackling our acquisition inefficiencies in Western democratic governments. The defense community is becoming more receptive to innovative ways to build national defense programs on time, on budget, and within scope,” he says. This peer-reviewed published paper Jimi wrote for U.S. Air University, which was republished by PMI, outlines some of that thinking.
Ensuring the United States can deter and win in any conflict that arises to safeguard the American way of life is paramount to Jimi. “We are all little cogwheels in the bigger cogwheel. I’m just trying to make it better than before I got here,” he says. Growing up modestly in Alaska, guided by the motto "the hand of the diligent makes rich", he worked to rise to senior levels alongside "true patriots" making a direct impact on national defense from an intelligence and cyber perspective. That's one heck of a choose-your-own adventure.