Maj. James Gray

Military recruiting is a balance. On one side are the dynamic needs of the military departments. On the other are the external pressures that incentivize (or disincentivize) people to sign up to serve.

A push too hard on either side can throw the scales off. To see this, you need look no further than recent headlines about recruiting challenges, especially from the U.S. Army.

But when you boil it down, recruiting is really about talent management. Regardless of the service or specific track, military training professionals are in the business of aligning interested talent with the needs of the military.

Take, for example, the U.S. Air Force’s Holm Center, which is the organization responsible for officer development. Its mission is simple: “We build leaders.” It doesn’t say what kind of leaders. It doesn’t say how many will be pilots. Its charge to the instructors and training staff under its purview is simply to build leaders.

One of those instructors, Maj. James Gray, is taking the mission to heart with a program that will put students in the Reserve Officer Training Corps – and their unique interests and skills – directly into the operational programs that need them. Flightpath, as the program is called, is a million-dollar investment by the Department of Defense in connecting officer candidate talent with the innovation ecosystem.

Gray, an Air Force officer and instructor at Texas Tech University, is not the obvious choice to lead the effort. He is charismatic and affable, and he centers his work around his students. He lights up when talking about their aspirations and successes. But he is also a career helicopter pilot with no formal role in defense innovation.

But he was also the right person in the right position to take on this challenge.  

“It all started with a random email advertising a program called SOCOM Ignite,” Gray said, referring to a U.S. Special Operations Command’s program that selects students to help solve real-world problems with universities. “Nobody jumped on it, but we did.”

With Gray’s previous connections from the special operations realm, he worked with several of his students to take part in a hackathon funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was a success. Some of the students even got to embed with an Army unit at Fort Liberty in North Carolina on an autonomous vehicle program that was later implemented on the battlefield.

“That was my introduction to innovation,” he said.

It was around this time Gray found out about VISION, having been connected to it by AFWERX fellowship coordinator Craig Buying. From there, Gray connected with Spark Cell leaders and thought the same principles of the MIT program could apply to the Airman-led projects he saw in the system. From his perspective, he had access to an “untapped” pool of young talent, and his cadets were eager to engage with the operational military.

“I quickly realized Airmen have all the ideas because they understand the mission, but they don’t have the time or resources. Cadets don’t have the ideas because they don’t yet understand what the problems are, but they would love to go tinker and help the Air Force.”

Gray did a series of advocacy briefs with multiple innovation-focused defense organizations. Eventually, funding for this initiative came from the National Security Innovation Network, which helped shape it into a joint venture. Through Flightpath, Air Force and Army cadets will gain professional development while embedding virtually with real-world projects identified through VISION in coordination with Spark Cells.

“They’re not afraid to jump on Zoom and collaborate,” he said. “That is the norm for these students.”

The selected ventures span a broad range of areas and technology types.

“Right now the buzzwords are AI and drones,” Gray said, noting cadets will be paired for projects such as “coding for air and ground robotics” and even “prototyping interceptors for counter air use.” To highlight the relevance of cadets’ experience, he noted two African students who will be able to apply their regional and cultural knowledge to a biomedical counterterrorism effort focused on Sub-Saharan Africa.  

The effort also gets after a broader recruiting goal. Not all ROTC cadets graduate and commission as officers. NSIN hopes this program will help the DoD attract and retain civilian talent from students interested in serving but who do not meet the requirements to commission.

The initial pilot of the program will fund 32 students from eight universities and is set to start in the spring 2024 semester. If it is successful, Gray is hopeful for a $4-5 million investment that will scale the program nationally across all the Air Force, Army, and Navy ROTC programs.

Maj. James Gray is the winner of VISION’s 2023 Beacon Award for his excellence in guiding and supporting others in the collaborative innovation ecosystem.