JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. –
Leaders in the 633d Air Base Wing held several town hall meetings at Fort Eustis' Wylie Theater and the Langley Air Force Base Theater Sept. 16-18, to discuss a variety of issues, including the creation of the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center, as well as proposed impending changes to the base's organization.
U.S. Air Force Col. John J. Allen Jr., 633rd Air Base Wing commander, began by addressing the crowd of Soldiers, Airmen and Department of Air Force civilians about the Air Force's requirement to reduce management headquarters end-strength, its decision to stand up AFIMSC, and JBLE's consideration as a potential site to host the AFIMSC Headquarters. The new center will centralize the Air Force's installation support headquarters functions in an effort to meet the Department of Defense's directive to reduce headquarters staff levels by at least 20 percent.
To assist in the effort to meet the DOD's requirements, Allen said Air Combat Command, which is headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, will lose a total of 742 positions within the next year, including reductions at subordinate Numbered Air Force staffs. This reduction includes both military and civilian positions.
"At some point in the future, we in the air base wing will be receiving resourcing and policy support from the installation and mission support center, which will be a little bit of a change for those of us used to receiving that support from HQ Air Combat Command at Langley," Allen explained.
The colonel then moved on to the subject of resourcing. He said JBLE has about 65 percent the operating budget it had at the beginning of fiscal year 2011.
"We have seen a dramatic reduction in staffing and resourcing, which frankly is no different than what our sister services have seen," he said. "With this in mind, we have to take a hard look at how we deliver mission support. Over the past several months, I've had a team exploring ways to possibly better organize the wing to best utilize our reduced resources."
Jerrold Twigg, 733rd Logistics Readiness Division director and organizational change implementation team chief, continued the resourcing discussion with an in-depth explanation of how some aspects of JBLE's Mission Support Groups will be "realigned" and "integrated" in the future.
Twigg said the organizational change implementation team's investigation process found several opportunities to become more efficient and effective. For example, the maintenance on fire trucks at Fort Eustis was conducted previously by a contractor. However, after looking closely at mission capabilities across the joint base, the team discovered that the maintenance could be accomplished by 633rd Logistics Readiness Squadron personnel. Using organic capabilities already existing, the 633 ABW saved significant financial resources. This is just one of many similar examples where organizational change and better integration can save scarce resources.
Twigg assured the audience that the organizational realignment and integration being proposed were "in no way" intended to pay either manpower or dollar bills and would not necessarily warrant a geographical change in workplace for anyone in the 633 ABW. The key, he reiterated, was finding ways to better-utilize the manpower and resources available in delivering the mission.
The remainder of the town hall meeting was left open for questions from the audience. Several attendees showed concern for job loss, workplace relocation, a decrease in funding and a need for new joint base regulations.
"There are going to be some changes and these process action teams have been coming up with fresh ideas," said U.S. Army Col. William Galbraith, 733rd MSG commander. "We have to morph and understand where we're not doing something efficiently and then be innovative and forward-thinking enough to do something about it."
For more information, contact the 633rd ABW Public Affairs Office at 764-5701.
Editor's note: Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs contributed to this article.