Colonel retires after 33 year career Published June 6, 2008 By Danielle Gregory Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE -- Col. Bruce Harmon will retire June 12, after 33 years of military service. Col. Harmon has spent the last three years of his military career overseeing the operation of 125 different data systems supporting the Air Logistics Center's manufacturing repair cycle and supply chain and weapon systems management operations. He's also served as the Deputy Chief, Information Officer, representing the MAJCOM Chief Information Officer and making sure regulatory requirements are met. "For the past three years I've been here as a geographic bachelor," said Col Harmon. "The Air Force offered me a fourth year here, but I've missed a lot by being apart from my family, who are in San Antonio, so I decided it was time to go home." Originally from the New York area, Col Harmon graduated high school but couldn't afford to go to college. He spent the next four years working at different jobs and eventually realized there had to be more than bouncing around from job to job. "So I came in the Air Force to learn some kind of skill," said Col Harmon. "I thought I was coming in for four years, and 33 years later I'm still here." Since Col. Harmon is a communications officer he didn't know what he was coming into when he was assigned to Tinker's Air Logistics Center as a communications and information officer. "I had heard this organization, IT, was somewhat new and my goal was to make it a good organization as far as customer service is concerned," he said. "We are a service provider for the ALC. The ALC isn't here to support IT; IT is here to support the ALC." Col. Harmon thinks his biggest accomplishment at Tinker would be molding the IT directorate into a well respected organization that meets the needs of its customers. "A challenge has been to make sure our customers respect us for what we do and understand what we bring to the fight. We've defined the services we provide and built and coordinated service level agreements with each wing. Each SLA is tailored to meet each wing's needs and allows them to pick and choose services based on their requirements and resource restraints. Before we had one blanket SLA covering all wings; today, with individual SLAs, we have partners," said Col. Harmon. "Creating these partnerships took a lot of hard work from people in IT as well as our customers." Col Harmon said he will miss Tinker the most because of the people. "You can do this job anywhere, but Oklahoma has been great as far as people have been concerned. I grew up in the New York City area and it's different to say the least." The colonel continued on to say there have been many occasions where he has been downtown in uniform and people have thanked him for his service. He said he appreciates that, but at the same time he doesn't wear the uniform for that. "It has just been an honor to do it," he stated. Upon his official retirement ceremony, Col. Harmon said he plans on catching up with his family, and after being away from home for three years his "honey-do" list has gotten pretty long. "I've truly enjoyed being here, it's been terrific and I wouldn't trade any of the experiences I've had for anything. I will miss the Air Force for sure," said Col. Harmon. Col. Harmon's retirement ceremony will be held at 2:30 p.m. June 12 at the Tinker Club.