Recently promoted Fourth Air Force commander reflects on childhood as small-town paper boy

  • Published
  • By by Master Sgt. Linda E. Welz
  • 4th AF Public Affairs
MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, California --  Forty-four years ago, Eric Crabtree was a junior high school student with an after school job delivering The Dunkirk Evening Observer to residents in his hometown of Cassadaga, N.Y., a 700-person town on the shores of Lower Cassadaga Lake in the Alleghany Mountain foothills near Lake Erie. Eighteen months ago, Brig. Gen. Eric Crabtree took command of 4th Air Force and on Feb. 2, he was promoted to the rank of major general.

The paperboy-turned-major general attributes much of his success in the Air Force Reserve to seeking opportunities, hard work, and being in the right place and doing a good job at the right time.

"I remember walking through waist-deep snow in Cassadaga to deliver papers in the winter. I would get compliments from people for delivering their papers inside the doors where the papers wouldn't get wet," he said. "That's where it started and that's the philosophy that I've carried through my whole life. You have to do the best that you can do at whatever job it is and seek opportunities for advancement."

General Crabtree's first big opportunity came as a direct result of his job as a paperboy. After reading a Dunkirk Evening Observer flyer promoting a scholarship program to the Millbrook School, a prestigious private boarding school in Millbrook, N.Y., the 15-year-old asked his parents, Wendell and Ruth Crabtree, if he could apply.

For the full article and more photos: http://www.4af.afrc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123206528