TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- The 72nd Communications Directorate held a change of leadership ceremony Aug 9, 2024.
Kyriakos Theophanous relinquished leadership of the 72nd Communications Directorate to Michael Wiles in a ceremony presided by Col. Abigail Ruscetta, Tinker Installation and 72nd Air Base Wing Commander.
“Kirk was one of the first to implement Art of the Possible in an admin environment and demonstrate how successful you can be with the program,” said Ruscetta. “You’ve led your team to be hyper focused on execution and you’ve always leaned forward in the comm area well beyond what your customers knew they needed.”
The 72nd Communications Directorate plans, designs, builds, manages and maintains installation information network infrastructure. They also are also responsible for IT development, technology direction and insertion, configuration management, and defining and maintaining software development standards and environments.
Looking back at his tenure as the Director, Theophanous recalled his leadership goals and the culture he fostered and will be leaving behind.
“Throughout my tenure I tried to ensure that every individual always felt heard, valued, understood and supported. Your wellbeing, your development and your contributions were and always will be at the heart of our success,” said Theophanous. “We fostered a culture of innovation and one that empowered people at all levels to take initiative and get the job done.”
Wiles has already spent 16 years with the Communications Directorate and will now be stepping up to lead the group into the future.
“I’ve spent many of the past weeks thinking about where we’ve been and where we go from here and how we help to prepare Tinker to win in this era of Great Power Competition,” said Wiles. “I’ve come to the same conclusion that we must provide a seamless and secure digital frontier, redefining connectivity, where technology devices harmonize like synapses in the brain, by providing services that operate at the speed of thought.”