The recent announcement of Mark Jantzer stepping down as chairman of Task Force 21 gave me an opportunity to catch up with Mark and review his 25 years in that position. Mark explained that the actual start of Task Force 21 dates back to 1996 when the goal of then Task Force 96 was to have robust missions at Minot AFB after the previous 3 BRAC (Base Re-alignment and Closure) rounds in 1991, 1993 and 1995. “Out of that came Task Force 21, we want to be advocates for the base and the missions and we want to be here through the 21st century, so that is kind or how that all evolved” according to Jantzer.

At first the idea was that the current Minot Chamber of Commerce chair of the Chamber Board would continue on and be the chairman of TF 21. “We tried that for a couple of years and ended up with a system that didn’t really work. I had the job, and my intention was to hand off the job to Pete Zimmerman, but he left the community. The powers that be came back to me and asked if I could do the job some more, and that happened to be 25 years ago” continues Jantzer.

At the time that TF 96 transitioned to TF 21, the B-52 bombers were in jeopardy relates Jantzer. There was a suggestion by the Air Force, mostly money driven, that after the B-2’s and B-1’s came on the scene that the B-52 force would be reduced to only 40 “and that would have been ugly for us because at that time we didn’t have a second squadron here, and you could see where that was going. It would have been really easy to shut down one base and move all of the bombers to another” says Jantzer.

The chairman of the Armed Service Committee at the time was Senator Daniel Inouye from Hawaii and with encouragement from the North Dakota Senate delegation of Senators Conrad and Dorgan, Senator Inouye would not support the reduction in B 52s. According to Jantzer there was another similar incident “where the commander of Stratcom was playing with some number with a number in a table that was kind of buried in a bill with numbers that were not where we wanted them to be and a staff person from Senator Conrad’s staff found them and we were able to thwart that effort”. And continue Jantzer that there were several other incidences where “had we not been doing our work and not been vigilant, something may have happened that would have been adverse, and we have been fortunate up until now.”

Mark Jantzer thinks that what has made a difference is a couple of things; “One is consistency. Continuing to work whether you are talking about the Air Force or what goes on in Congress with the budget process, being consistent and continuing to work is really key. Second is relationships. You have to have the ability to talk to people, and you have to have a trust relationship where they will provide information that is important. The consistency of showing up and having relationships and maintaining them, not just when you are in trouble necessarily, but times when there isn’t any big trouble and you need to have conversations, you know the people that you are talking to” relates Jantzer “and that has been the key to the successful efforts of Task Force 21.”

And there is the relationships that TF 21 has had with leaders on the base. “Officers who have served here and have been part of our Honorary Commander program and have gotten to know the community and the people in Minot; as they go on in their careers and end up in leadership position in the Air Force or joint forces, are some of the best spokespeople and advocates that we have because they have been up here. The council that other leaders would get from people who have served here, whether in the officer corps or enlisted is that it is probably going to be different than what you think…and it isn’t going to be terrible” says Jantzer. “There’s not mountains and beaches and we have real winter in Minot, but the community will embrace you, your service is valued and understood and it’s a safe place with good schools and a great place to spend your tour. Many of the people serving in Global Strike command, and many others, have served here and that is really important to us.”

And Task Force 21 has always been the catalyst behind a lot of the efforts of the Minot community embracing the base community. But there are other positives in the location of Minot AFB. “Most people with more infinite knowledge would say that Minot is a not a terrible place to fly a jet out of, with a pretty lightly used air space. You know a 10 degree below zero day when it’s clear and sunny (like today when Mark was at my office) is a good day to fly.”

In our conversation we also talked about how Task Force 21 benefits from time spent on base as they are able to see Airmen work the missions of the base and take pride in what they do. “There are a whole lot of stories about Airmen at Minot Air Force base who take a lot of pride in what they do, and pride in serving their country” says Jantzer “we should be appreciative, vocally, a little more that we are of the job that these Airmen do…not only here in Minot but across the Air Force. You know, not just the Air Force, but all of our military forces across our country.”

And what has the past 25 years of the Chairman of Task Force 21 meant to Mark Jantzer? “For my part, it has been a privilege to serve the community in that way; to have achieved the goals over and over again that we set out to do. To make sure that we had a base north of town with robust missions. It grew from that simple goal to being involved in a broader national issue, and that was to make sure that we maintain a strong nuclear deterrent.”

The work of Task Force 21 is as important today as it was when Mark Jantzer first took the reigns as chairman back in 1999. His hard work in leading Task Force has certainly made a difference.