WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass. --
They’re given six days to
conduct their business. They’ve been surveying, inspecting, recording and
reporting any deficiencies throughout the wing along the way. The 14-member Capstone
Inspection team from Headquarters AFRC came to Westover in early August to
conduct a Unit Effectiveness Inspection.
Similar to previous
inspections, Patriot Wing Airmen mustered their true colors. “The Capstone team’s evaluation found the 439th
Airlift Wing to be ‘Highly Effective,’” said Col. Al Lupenski, 439th
AW commander, in a base-wide email. “This is a testament to your
professionalism and dedication. Very few
wings get this result.”
Mirroring the budget
reductions throughout the Air Force for the last several years, the inspection
process is scaled back from the days of flights to combat readiness training
centers across the United States. Instead, the 2015 Capstone event spotlights
the wing inspectors at bases and evaluates their inspection programs.
Capstone inspectors said Westover
is just one of 52 bases they visited. Their work/rest cycle is different than
most. A trip begins with six days on the road, a flight home sees them returned
for eight days, they then go back out for the next six days. A typical work day
is longer than eight hours with the average inspector seeing 37 hours of
overtime in the span of two weeks.
“Seeing 11 previous bases since
February, the process is becoming
normal,” said MSgt. Pamela Kelly, a Capstone inspector. She runs a special-interest, nine-question
checklist to identify deficiencies. On day one, she begins the inspection. By day four she has finished gathering
information. On day five she stops being
an inspector and “puts on the functional manager hat” to teach and talk to the
people.
“This new process is to
self-identify, for units to find their problems and develop a get-well program,”
said MSgt. Kelly. If the inspector finds new issues that haven’t previously
been identified a deficiency is created. They are then forwarded to
headquarters which follows up with the unit to ensure a resolution has been
met.
A separate aspect of this
inspection is for units to look internally for issues, which can be
difficult.
“We hear the same issue
everywhere, and it’s a genuine issue,” said MSgt. Kameron Kirk, a Capstone aircraft
maintenance inspector. “People want more career-specific training and less irrelevant
computer based training. We’ve noticed a
trend with troops come straight out of technical school eager to learn their
jobs. All we have handed them is a computer to do computer-based training.”
The Capstone team listened
to many other concerns like those from MSgt. Kirk during breakout sessions with
Airmen on the August A UTA. They added this input into a report a day before
they departed Westover.
A taxing work schedule
doesn’t hold MSgt. Kelly down though. “It’s about the reward of being able to
help people, to make them better at what they do,” she said. Back home she’s a
superintendent of aircrew flight equipment at Robins AFB, Ga.
The next stop for the team
was Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station, Pa., and then Joint base San Antonio-Lackland,
Texas.
When the team returns in two
years to Westover, the inspection should be different, said MSgt. Kelly. AFRC
inspectors will expect that Wing
Inspection Teams will better understand what to encounter at the next Capstone.
”I want to thank you and
your leadership for the hard work that you all do,” Col. Lupenski told wing members. “Keep up the good work. You are among the best of the best.”