Leadership in Action

United States Army Lieutenant General (Ret.) Russel L. Honoré, was born in 1947 to Udell and Lloyd Honoré in Lakeland, Louisiana. After completing ROTC training at Southern University, Honoré began a thirty-seven year career in service to the United States military. In 2004, Honoré became the thirty-third commanding general of the U.S. First Army at Fort Gillem, Georgia. When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, Honoré was designated commander of Joint Task Force Katrina. Honoré’s arrival in New Orleans came after what was widely believed to be a poor performance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Following his retirement from the military on January 11, 2008, Honoré joined The Gallup Organization as a Senior Scientist as well as the faculties of Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and Nell Hodgson School of Nursing. Honoré also served as a CNN Preparedness contributor.

Major General (Ret.) Alfred Flowers was born in 1947 in Kinston, North Carolina. In 1965, he enlisted in the United States Air Force and was assigned as a supply warehouseman at Grand Forks Air Force Base. Flowers then served four years as an air transportation specialist and seven years as an accounting specialist. He received his B.S. degree from Southern Illinois University and his M.A. degree from Ball State University. In 1978, he attended officer training school at the Medina Annex, Lackland Air Force Base.  Later in his career, he served as Chief of Budget at Langley Air Force Base and Director of Budget Programs for the Department of the Air Force. In 2012, after forty-six years of service, Flowers retired from the United States Air Force, making him the longest serving airman in Air Force history and the longest serving African American in the history of the United States Department of Defense.