Civil engineers show breadth of AF skills

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. James Duke
  • 60th Civil Engineer Squadron

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – Team Travis.  One team, one fight. 

I can name numerous catch phrases that espouse the idea that we are all in this together, but have you ever thought of how your actions support our mission at Travis, Air Force Base, California, and beyond to support combatant commanders?  Each one of us plays a vital role that has been developed and refined throughout the years to exact a desired goal to further that mission.

There’s a saying that we are all spokes in a wheel.  The mission would be the hub and everyone is a spoke in order to keep the wheel spinning smoothly.  The glory of mission ownership may be debated over a friendly drink at the club, but it is my fervent belief that if you do your job extremely well and render your personal “mission” successful, then you would have furthered the Travis mission. 

Operators of airframes need maintainers to fix and repair the aircraft as well as the logistics readiness squadron to refuel them in order to perform their mission.  Maintainers and LRS need to be healthy to perform their mission and thus need medical services.  Medical personnel need to be paid and require comptrollers to ensure there is no disruption of pay.  Comptrollers need the force support squadron to ensure their military records are updated or a new common access card processed. 

The aerial port squadron handles a tremendous amount of air and ground cargo. They need the security forces squadron to ensure the delivery trucks are processed properly through the gate. The SFS require the latest in antiterrorism protection and thus needs the contracting squadron to help purchase the items.

The above scenarios can play out in numerous ways throughout the wing, but ultimately drives home the fact that we are all connected and contribute to the mission.  In the time I’ve been here, I’ve seen Travis come together to expeditiously airlift a large naval propeller shaft, haul numerous aircraft across the oceans and performs some amazing mission into new areas of the world.  And we do it as a team, including our mission partners, the 349th.

In my personal role as the civil engineer squadron commander, I have the joy of meeting missions across many fronts.  My fire crews perform stand-by at all hours of the day and night to ensure engine run tests are performed by maintenance units that help the generation rates of aircraft.  They respond to all manners of emergencies in housing, the exchange and to the flight line. 

My emergency managers do the best to prepare us for the worst.  Blindly responding to a massive earthquake in the Bay Area after it has occurred is too late to start planning which is the reason we exercise and train for large events.  Explosive ordnance disposal goes outside the base on numerous occasions responding to old military explosive souvenirs and spent Navy flares.  They also respond to any suspect packages on base and train under numerous scenarios.

My operations flight are the professional Airmen who keep all the facilities on base in good working order, which allows the occupants to concentrate on their respective missions.  They do the repairs that you see in your facilities, roads and airfield. 

The engineering flight fights to gather as much sustainment and repair money that they can to continue to modernize aging infrastructure.  This modernization also increases productivity and a better working environment for airmen across the base. 

Dorm management ensures that every unit’s youngest members are well-cared for when they are off duty.  It’s hard for Airmen to concentrate on their job if they are living in run-down facilities on base. At the forefront of every decision that is made on base, I look to my environmental folks to ensure we continue the mission while simultaneously protecting the environment as best we can.

Even though I obviously touched on only a few areas around base, it is clear that each and every one of us contributes to the mission at Travis.  If you have any question on how your particular Air Force specialty code contributes, I encourage you to ask your leadership and they would be more than happy to explain it to you.  You are free to ask me as well, but I must confess that I do not know what every AFSC does, but after explaining it to me, I’m sure I can find the spoke that you provide to ensure the mission “hub” continues spinning smoothly.