LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
The 1st Medical Support Squadron's Nutritional Medicine team has taken its winning streak to the next level.
After winning Air Combat Command-level awards for the past four years, Langley's Airmen took the title of the 2006 Air Force nutritional medicine team of the year.
"Our team is top notch," said Senior Master Sgt. William Davis, 1st MDSS nutritional medicine superintendent. "We genuinely work as a team and it shows."
Of the 26 Airmen and civilians who make up the award-winning team, there are two staff sergeant selects, two below-the-zone promotees, four civilian quarterly award winners, four Airmen award winners, one senior NCO command-level award winner and a Tuskegee Airman award winner.
Langley's nutritional medicine package competed against 11 other ACC bases, who then beat out other major command-nominated bases.
Besides exceeding customer expectations and improving nutritional programs, the team also has a 57 percent customer return rate.
The team also implemented a diabetic education program while maintaining and updating the current programs. The team served more than 82,000 dining room and patient meals in 2006, while educating more than 3,500 Airmen and families on nutritional awareness, according to the package.
The educational programs, which include nutritional therapy, weight loss and high cholesterol prevention, wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the morale and team spirit of all the team members here, said Capt. Tracy Riggs, clinical nutrition chief.
"Not only are our Airmen the backbone to everything we do here," said Master Sgt. Will Canty, nutritional medicine flight noncommissioned officer in charge. "but they also keep the morale high throughout the group by staying positive where others wouldn't."
To reward performance and promote positive attitudes, the team's leadership throws morale parties and even gave their Airmen control over the facility's $200,000 redesign.
"We do everything for our chain of command because they do everything for us," said Senior Airman Joseph Holder, a diet technician. "That type of team work is unexplainable."