Keeping the mission going at home, away

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Patrice Clarke
  • 319th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (AFPN) --  It has been nearly six months since the runway here closed for construction and more than 300 base Airmen “deployed” to Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., to continue the wing’s mission.

Since then, a great relationship between the two bases, said Lt. Col. Paul Schultz, the 905th Air Refueling Squadron commander back home, but at Fairchild he is the deployed wing commander.

“It was a challenge at first to go from thinking at the squadron level to the wing level,” he said. “As a squadron commander, I just had to worry about getting specific missions going and taking care of my operators. Now I have to look at the bigger picture.”

That new focus included picking up an entire mission and moving it 1,200 miles away while still maintaining the same level of performance. However, contingency operations the past several years gave some Airmen a point of reference.

“It isn’t much different from deploying to the desert,” said Chief Master Sgt. John Mann, 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. “We coordinated everything as if we were operating out of a deployed location, except this time we had isochronal inspection capability with us, which is something that doesn’t usually happen when we’re deployed.”

A large part of the group who came to Fairchild were people directly responsible for getting the jets off the ground and in the air.

“We brought more than 200 maintainers when we first arrived,” said Chief Mann, “and we have been pretty much maintaining those numbers every since.”

The Grand Forks Airmen still adhere to the high standards of excellence, whether in training inspections or through mission-capable rates. Much of that is accomplished with minimal manning.

Some Airmen work in one-deep shops that are usually manned with more people at their home unit. Here, two Airmen are doing the job of an entire shop back home.

Airman 1st Class Kelli Tesch, of the 319th Operations Support Squadron works in the deployed wing commander’s support staff. It is a big jump from her duties at the squadron level.

“The biggest challenge I had was learning the different systems they use here” she said.

At home, Airman Tesch usually kept track of about 50 to 70 Airmen -- now she keeps track of more than 200 but takes it all in stride.

“It gets a little hectic sometimes, but I don’t mind because everyone works together to get it all done,” she said.

For Airman 1st Class Matthew Donovan, from the 905th Air Refueling Wing flight records office, picking up and moving his job was not as hard as he expected.

“The only hard parts were initially communicating and coordinating with home,” he said. “We’ve had some disconnects now and again, but the whole process is running pretty smooth now.”

While Airmen Tesch and Donovan are contributing to the Grand Fork’s mission directly, other Grand Forks Airmen are contributing in a more indirect fashion.

More than 60 Airmen are dispersed throughout Fairchild to augment their hosts’ services, which have been expanded because of the influx of Airmen.

Security forces, services, civil engineer and logistics readiness Airmen are all integrated with their Fairchild counterparts. And they have been more than pulling their weight.

“They have been fantastic troops to have,” said Tech. Sgt. Darren Chandos of Fairchild’s 92nd Services Squadron. “They have been performing exceptionally, with everything going smooth since we put them on the schedule.”

In some cases the integration has been a learning experience for both sides, especially among the logistic readiness squadrons.

“When the folks from Grand Forks arrived, we traded practices and things have been running without a hitch,” said Doug Fugere of the 92nd Logistic Readiness Squadron. “Sometimes we will just have a Grand Forks person working by themselves on a shift handling Grand Forks and Fairchild tasks and vice versa. You can never tell because they are all very professional.”

“The relationship between Grand Forks people and Fairchild people have been easy sailing since the beginning,” said Master Sgt. Brian Caesar, of the 319th LRS, who said that Grand Forks Airmen would not have accomplished all that they have at Fairchild without the help of the people of Fairchild.

“The people of Fairchild have been phenomenal,” Colonel Schultz said. “They have allowed us to be centered here and have full operational capability. We wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without them. Warriors of the North should be proud about what we have been able to do here. Maintenance, ops and support are keeping this mission running on the straight and narrow.”