JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. —
The U.S. Air Force Airmen here are at the forefront of
implementing Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Kaleth
O. Wright’s three initiatives – resiliency, leadership and training.
Resiliency
As the global environment rapidly changes and the
world becomes increasingly unpredictable, Airmen must be prepared to cope with
stress, change, limited resources and an increased operations tempo.
The Airmen of the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Wing manage these obstacles by embedding an Airman Resilience
Team in their unit. The ART provides 24 hour medical, chaplain, mental support and
even a therapy dog named Sam for the 480th ISRW Airmen.
“I think it’s an amazing opportunity to get ahead of
some of the resiliency challenges that we all have and certainly some that are
germane to our intel professionals,” Wright said. “I really do believe that this
is a pathfinder program to the way that we conduct resiliency and get out the
resiliency issues in the Air Force.”
Leadership
When it comes to developing effective enlisted
leaders, talent management is key. It is a mission critical process that ensures
units have the right leaders in place to meet the current and future mission
requirements.
The leaders and NCOs at JBLE provide their Airmen the
opportunities to use their knowledge, creativity and skills to be innovative.
These innovations span from making their unit’s job easier to saving the U.S.
Air Force money.
An example of this is the Materiel
Acquisition and Relocation System program that was developed by Master
Sgt. Theodore Winnen, 1st Maintenance Squadron armament flight chief. MARS is a
site that was developed to give Joint Base Langley-Eustis resource advisors a
convenient means to locate and relocate supplies between units.
“When it comes to innovation, I think we have to
understand that failing forward is a novel concept,” Wright said. “Our Airmen
won’t always get it right, we just need to give them the time, the resources
and the space. They have the energy and they have the insights, we just need to
be willing to allow them to make mistakes sometimes and move forward.”
Training
Airmen in today’s Air Force must have a relevant and
effective training infrastructure that prepares them for operations against a
wide variety of potential adversaries under any condition.
Whether its Airmen taking on late night college
classes to increase their knowledge or the total force integrated Airmen of the1st
and 192nd Fighter Wings training for their day-to-day operations. The Service
members of JBLE are always looking for ways to further their career and better themselves.
“When we fight, nobody is concerned about who’s a
guardsmen, who’s a reservist or who’s active duty and so that’s the way we
should train,” Wright said. “That’s the best use of resources in today’s
environment. It makes perfect sense. When we go forward we will be operating
together. Then we should train together and there’s no better place to do it
than right here in the 1st and 192nd Fighter Wings.”
The Airmen here were given the opportunity to show Wright
just how they implement resiliency, leadership and training throughout their
duties. These duties ranged from the inner workings of the intel squadrons to
the aircraft maintainers of the 1st Fighter Wing.
“I was thoroughly impressed with all the [Airmen at
JBLE]; so many interesting things are happening here on a daily basis,” Wright said.
“I feel like there’s great leadership all across each one of the wings. The
Airmen were all excited, motivated and wicked smart. This has been a great
visit and I just want to tell all the Airmen here thank you for your service to
our Air Force, our joint force and our nation.”