Tech. Sgt. Matthew Connelly

U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Matthew Connelly is a good storyteller.

He’s many other things too: a wing innovation manager, a mentor, a collaborator. But spend five minutes with him, and you’ll see his superpower is framing a conversation. He won’t just tell you what happened, he’ll tell you what led up to it, how it felt, and more importantly, how it impacted people.

To hear him tell his own story feels like the winding plot of a coming-of-age novel. He paints the picture of a lost young man looking (quite literally all over the world) for his purpose who ends up finding it in the military – specifically in defense innovation and, as he describes it, complex problem solving.

After leaving college with a large amount of debt and no degree to show for it, he decided to do something completely different.  

“I did what any person would do,” he said, tongue in cheek. “I decided to join the French Foreign Legion.”

It was the first of a series of ventures that involved an engagement and a subsequent trip to Australia to contribute to a team researching meteorite impacts. All of that to say, Connelly took an unconventional approach to joining the U.S. military.

And when he did finally get there, he spent much of the first part of his time in uniform “cynical” about the whole experience. That was until 2016, when he was working as a staff sergeant on a commander’s support staff.

“There was one day that started out as an ordinary day,” he said. “Our boss – his name was Joey Walter – comes in, snaps his finger, and says, [you] need to go to a 5/6 meeting.” These are the middle-tier enlisted leadership gatherings at an Air Force base. He was hesitant, but his boss was insistent.  

At the event, Connelly met a charismatic guest speaker who talked about the power of networking and invited him to a class on process improvement and innovation. It was a pivotal moment in his career.

“This is perfect!” he said, referring to his first impression of military innovation. “This is everything we’re told to do but now there’s a framework to make it actually happen.”

He decided essentially then and there to devote his career to innovation and building a network of people who are united by change. He had found his calling.

He points to a specific moment the power of connection became clear to him. He was having an initial conversation with his new maintenance commander, Kevin Walton, and they got on the topic of books. Connelly brought up a particular book by Dr. Brian Maue, who was part of the initial standup of AFWERX. It turned out Walton had the author “in his network.”

Walton typed out a quick message via LinkedIn. “Brian, meet Matt. Matt, meet Brian.”

“That’s a superpower,” Connelly said, reflecting on how quickly he was able to connect with the author.

Today, he has built up a network of about 3,000 people from across the world and tries to pay that favor forward. He has become a key voice among the defense innovation community, and though he has personally been involved with some exciting initiatives, the real impact of his network is the connections he can make to help others.

Connelly cited his involvement with the team for Project Weapon, a VISION initiative and Aether Sprint finalist, that focuses on providing clean power in degraded environments. “Because of the network we have, we were able to get it connected with individuals at Project Arc,” he said, referring to another initiative focused on aligning talent to mission needs. Those connections brought Project Weapon “from the ideation stage to enterprise-ready.”

With another project called Radiant Shield, Connelly used his global network to get allied and partner-nation military involved in a training curriculum that aligns with agile combat employment doctrine.

In all, Connelly is connected with 23 projects in VISION, and many of them such as Project Pylon and Project Arcwater have gained significant attention through innovation competitions. He said he sees VISION as “the companion tool for innovation managers” because of its normalized data and window into how money is being spent. He has also been a beta tester for VISION’s Return on Mission Effectiveness™ feature set and said it has been critical in keeping his leadership informed of innovations as they progress.

Reflecting on why collaboration in the defense innovation space matters, said, “No one group owns the monopoly on the best way of doing things. If we collide those ideas with each other, there is a high probability that we can pick out the best of breed.”

Tech. Sgt. Matthew Connelly is the winner of VISION’s 2023 Spectrum Award for his significant efforts as a superconnector in the defense innovation space.