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NEWS | July 17, 2019

JBLE’s Fuels Management Flight earns American Petroleum Institute Award

By Senior Airman Delaney Gonzales 633rd Air Base Wing Public Affairs

The 733d Logistics Readiness Squadron Fuels Management Flight was presented the American Petroleum Institute Award at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, July 10, 2019.

The award recognizes the best fuels management flight in the Air Force for their commitment to excellence, contributions to quality of life initiatives and dedication to improving the warfighter mission. 

“It’s a huge accomplishment,” said Tech. Sgt. Justin Chong, 733rd LRS Fuels Distribution NCO in charge. “I was really happy to hear we earned the API Award—a lot of time and a lot of effort was put into this flight in order to achieve this.”

The flight’s drive to earn the API Award began with their first accomplishment.

Once the 733d LRS Fuels Management Flight earned the Drake Award, an award given to the best fuels management flight within Air Combat Command, the flight looked toward a bigger goal to achieve.

“When we found out about the Drake Award, we wanted to strive for something more,” said Airman 1st Class Mikel Luce, 733rd LRS Fuels Management Flight fuels distribution operator. “[Senior Master] Sgt. Oakley motivated the flight and told us, ‘We are going to win this, we are going to be the best flight in the Air Force.’”

This passion to learn their craft propelled the flight to work as a team to work toward their next upcoming challenge.

“We did a lot of preparation for it,” exclaimed Luce. “Everything we did, everything we worked on was as a team. We would quiz each other every day just to become more knowledgeable and proficient within our jobs.”

“Leaders and supervisors at every level saw the vision of our superintendent and put it into action. It was awesome to see,” Chong added.

The award not only made the flight stronger as a team, it also helped the Airmen become highly skilled within their career fields.

“My wealth of knowledge grew tremendously through this experience,” Luce concluded. “Working toward earning the API Award benefited us professionally. We improved as a team.”