Focus areas for 2013 Published Jan. 9, 2013 By Col. David Almand 375th Air Mobility Wing commander Scott Air Force Base, Ill. -- Welcome back! I hope you are well-rested after a well-deserved break, and I'm happy to report everyone arrived back home safe and sound! That's always the best news after a long holiday break. Thank you for being careful and taking care of yourself and your families throughout the past several weeks. Now that we're all back to work, we have our sights set on a new year that promises to be an important one for our wing. Our wing senior leaders--group and squadron commanders and senior enlisted leaders--narrowed down the important areas we need to focus on for 2013. These areas not only meet short term goals and initiatives, but also lay a solid foundation for years to come. Mission Readiness For starters, our more urgent area of focus is on "Mission Readiness." It's no secret that we're preparing for our Operational Readiness Inspection this summer and to do that, we're getting ready to launch our first exercise fly-away this coming week. In fact today, as part of our monthly training day, we'll be holding a "prep" rally with our key players (not all are deploying) so we can fine tune some skills and help them prepare for the exercise. The wing will be undergoing the ORI with three other wings: 130th Airlift Wing, W.Va. Air National Guard (serving as lead wing), 153rd Airlift Wing, Wyo. ANG, and 89th Airlift Wing, Joint Base Andrews, Md. This first flyaway to the Combat Readiness Training Center in Gulfport, Miss., provides us the opportunity to work side-by-side with them as we all prepare for June. We plan to have another opportunity to practice with them this spring, and we'll continue our monthly training days that target our deployment preparedness specifically. However, it's not just the ORI that encompasses our goal of being mission ready--it's what we do every day to accomplish our nation's tasks. From supporting the 30 mission partners on base and our geographically separated units, our wing members provide critical support as outlined in our new mission statement: "Enable Team Scott mission execution, provide mission ready Airmen and capabilities, develop and care for Airmen and their families, while fostering base and community partnerships." We do this through our vision of being the premier mission execution and support platform for Air Mobility Command and the Air Force. Everything we do--communications, civil engineering, security forces, force support--all help our partners achieve their mission objectives. Every day we must be focused on streamlining our operations and seeing how best we can integrate with our mission partners, all the while working toward modernizing our capabilities and our infrastructure. We have a lot of work ahead of us as we meet the daily needs of our Air Force. We want every Airman to know exactly how they support this mission--not just in their own sphere, but in the larger context. We rely on our first line supervisors to help them see how all Airmen enable mission execution. Professional Development As part of being able to execute our mission precisely, we expect each person to know his or her job--to become the expert! If your job is to get your upgrade training, then be an expert at the tasks you are given. Start while you are new to know the standards, meet them and in many cases, seek to exceed them. It is my desire that we reinforce our standards as outlined in AFI 1-1, "Air Force Standards." That document reviews our customs and courtesies, our conduct on and off duty, our appearance and includes a review of our Airman's Creed and AF Core Values. In addition, we plan to focus on resilience training with a goal to have most of our Airmen trained by summer. To do this our Master Resilience Trainers are offering several courses in the coming weeks, so please stay tuned and get your folks trained. Our back-to-basics approach is not new, but it will help us focus as we prepare for several other inspections our wing will undergo this year, as well as kindle an appreciation for our heritage and profession of arms. We will also continue to maintain "Showcase" standards in all areas of customer service, and we will continue the tradition of recognizing those who provide exceptional customer service. Anyone is always welcome to send me a note about someone who's done a great job for them, and we'll make sure there is proper recognition for him or her ... or the team. Transformation Transformation is a buzz word that has been repeated so much that it becomes unclear as to what we mean by it. For the 375 AMW, it means three things: 1. We will support the Air Force's efforts to transform the way Services functions throughout the base. As you know, we are one of eight test bases for the Air Force, and we've already begun to address core services with the Scott Club, creating a new commons area and either eliminating or reducing services that are no longer needed or feasible. There is still much to come on this front, so stay tuned as we communicate those changes to you. 2. We will continue to transform the way we do business with our commitment to our AFSO21 efforts. We must always be mindful of the need to tighten our belts and reduce waste, conserve our resources and look for ways to streamline our processes. 3. We also plan to keep progressing with our Total Force Integration efforts with our Active Associate Units, as well as integrate with our Guard and Reserve partners in other mission areas. It's everyone's responsibility to know and understand what we need to focus on this next year as we perform our mission. We are making sure our precious time and energy is being spent on the appropriate tasks. I look forward to sharing more about all these areas in the coming months, and I ask each of you to share ideas and look for ways to make Scott AFB an even better place to live and work as we charge forward in 2013! Thank you!