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Public Affairs merger

  • Published
  • By Courtesy of the 375th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
  • 375th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  The face of the 375th Airlift Wing Office of Public Affairs and 375th Communications Squadron Base Multimedia Center got a face lift recently when the two offices merged into one team. 

The unified office, now located in Building 700, is an Air Force Smart Operations 21 initiative designed to improve the services provided to Scott Air Force Base by the two offices. 

"Simply put, the merger between our public affairs and multimedia offices makes sense in a PBD 720 environment," said Col. Al Hunt, 375th AW commander. "Their focus is still going to be to communicate the messages of the 375th Airlift Wing, Scott Air Force Base, and the U.S. Air Force. We're just streamlining the tools they have at their disposal to get the messages out." 

This merger benefits JTF Scott because of the tools that each office brings to the table. 

"Both public affairs and multimedia bring teams of talented Airmen and civilians," said 1st Lt. Karoline Scott, 375th AW public affairs officer in charge of operations. "In the past, the two offices have worked closely together to provide effective and timely communication and documentation for the base and community. This merger just enables us to synergize our operations to improve two already top-notch programs." 

The career field managers for public affairs and multimedia began studying a merger of the career fields in November 2005. Several meetings took place to compare training plans and doctrine and to gather inputs from major command functional managers from both communities. 

"Our goal is to create a new capability for the Air Force, not just merge two career fields," said Chief Master Sgt. Ron Nelson, multimedia career field manager. 

The result of the study was a proposal to merge public affairs specialists with multimedia photographers and public affairs broadcasters with multimedia videographers to create new capabilities. Combining capabilities will increase operational effectiveness and national and international understanding by improving communication to internal and external audiences. 

"Both communities are in the business of telling stories, through pictures, words and video," said Chief Master Sgt. Janice Conner, public affairs career field manager. "This realignment will leverage the capabilities of Airmen from both multimedia and public affairs into one team focused on the operational mission of communicating to both internal and external audiences." 

This realignment meets the vision of the Air Force secretary and chief of staff to reduce the number of AFSCs by organizing into expeditionary clusters that are tied to the roles Airmen currently fulfill.

(Information courtesy of the Air Force Print News)