AF announces team-excellence awards

  • Published
  • By Richard Salomon
  • Air Force Manpower and Innovation Agency Public Affairs
RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  Air Force officials announced the five teams selected for the 2003 Chief of Staff Team Excellence Award on Sept. 16 during the Air Force Association convention in Washington, D.C.

A total of 15 teams were nominated for this year’s award, which recognizes outstanding team performance and promotes systematic process improvement. The award also serves as a means to share best practices and promote mission improvement and cost savings throughout the Air Force.

“In this day of competing resources, it is vital we do things as efficiently as possible,” said Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force vice chief of staff. “Your innovations help us to take combat effects to the enemy. I couldn’t be more proud of you individually and as team members. Your teamwork, talent and creativity help make our Air Force a better place.”

The 2003 award winners are:

-- C-5A Galaxy Torque Deck Repair Team from the 433rd Airlift Wing at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Team members developed a local permanent repair procedure for severe cracks found on the torque deck panels. Officials estimate to save about $34 million during a five-year period.

-- Night Operations Team from Air Mobility Command’s directorate of operations at Scott AFB, Ill. Team members started five new night-vision goggle programs and qualified the first basic C-17 Globemaster III NVG airland crew in just 17 days. Air mobility forces flew more than 1,000 NVG sorties as part of operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. They also conducted NVG combat airdrops, without any mishaps, over Afghanistan and Iraq.

-- Commercial Air Resource Evacuation Team from the 374th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan. Team members developed a commercial-airline program as an alternative aeromedical evacuation platform for moving patients within the Pacific theater. Officials estimated savings at $3.5 million annually.

-- Solid State Phased Array Radar Trainer Team from the 381st Training Group at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The team’s trainer design increased training performance from 70 to 99 percent by improving realism in operations training. The in-house simulator saved $3.7 million in initial production and $390,000 per year in sustainment costs.

-- F100 Engine Supply Chain Process Improvement Team from the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla. Team members developed processes to identify and solve potential problems before they affected depot production or field operations. They increased the number of spare, serviceable F100 engines from 82 to 185. They also reduced back orders from 220,000 to 175,000 and virtually eliminated depot repair line slowdowns.

The judges also recognized the following teams, identified as Air Force Best Practices: Improving Access To Care Team from U.S. Air Forces in Europe headquarters at Ramstein Air Base, Germany; 15th Security Forces Unit Deployment Team from the 15th Security Forces Squadron at Hickam AFB, Hawaii; Preventive Health Assessment and Individual Medical Readiness Tiger Team from the 325th Medical Group at Tyndall AFB, Fla.; Infrastructure Information Management System Team from the 422nd Air Base Squadron at Royal Air Force Croughton, England; Teleradiology Implementation Team from the 60th Medical Diagnostic and Therapeutic Squadron at Travis AFB, Calif.

“All of the presentations were without a doubt top-notch, which made them very difficult to judge,” said Maj. Gen. H. H. Forsythe, the senior judge. “I’m a warfighter. So I wanted to make sure every presentation brought something to the fight. From the start, it was obvious that was their goal, that was their mission -- and they did it superbly.”