Kudos, hot topics and great customer service! Published Feb. 9, 2011 By Col. Michael Hornitschek 375th Air Mobility Wing Commander SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- If we consider every meeting or gathering as a Leadership University learning opportunity, then tomorrow's commander's call will certainly rack up some "credit hours" since it is packed with a robust amount of information that leaders at all levels need to know. I always enjoy the time I get to spend with you during these gatherings to share not only what's happening within the wing and throughout the base, but also to share recognition and accolades for deserving members of our team. Leading the way for kudos is our snow removal team, weather forecasters and all supervisors and leadership for ensuring Scott AFB made it safely through our major winter storm event last week. While we did get a break from the amount of snow that was predicted to come our way, we did get our fair share of ice. A lot of hard work was expended during the mission-essential-only days, and the days immediately following as our teams continued to clear roads and sidewalks the rest of the week. Thank you for your Service before Self and keeping safety and risk management a top priority. During our storm week I also noticed a big jump in our Facebook fan base (from 1,600 to 2,200) as folks stayed tuned to reporting instructions. I'm sure more people will catch on that this is a great forum to ask questions and receive information in near real time. The fact that you are engaged in this forum tells me that it's a solid communications venue and that it truly aides in our efforts to keep Team Scott informed. Commander's calls are another way to keep you informed of our latest preparation efforts for our upcoming compliance inspection. To focus our journey through this 2011 inspection season, we've developed a "Survivor-styled" logo to emphasize how we "Outshine, Outserve and Outperform" in everything that we do. That's our goal, not only throughout the summer, but also in our every day missions. As we've also successfully unveiled our new wing cheer: "3-7-5 ... Showcase Pride!" at Friday's base annual awards banquet, it was only natural that we blend these two elements together. While undergoing a CI is no game, we can rally around the design to be the best--to strive for the Excellence in All We Do! For those of you who've been here at Scott the past two years, you'll be familiar with the Wing Strategy Map, which outlines our mission objectives and key mission activities. This diagram is also a visual way to show our mission at Scott. Every Airman should be able to understand where they fit into this chart and what roles they have in Enabling Combat Power. We've been fine tuning this living document , which is important as we also fine tune mission areas to ensure everything we do points back to our key functions. That is one way to eliminate waste, which may be even more important as we head into the future with funding and manpower limitations. These, along with a few other briefings on important topics such as our upcoming Wingman Day, the new Controlled Spending Account, guidance for the impending repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, media training and safety, I'm pleased to share that our efforts to recognize outstanding customer service is moving full steam ahead. We received several nominations, and I'd like to share some of them here: Ms. Debbie Condit, Civilian Pay technician: "Due to a mistake at AFPC, and as one of my folks transitions from a career broadening program into a GS-job here in my office, her timecard dropped off the rolls here at Scott AFB, and somehow ended up at Wright-Patterson! It took a couple of days to track down that information, then another couple of days to get AFPC to correct their mistake. During this time, Ms. Condit was flight following the process. But, she didn't stop there! She was the only one who could input the timecard to ensure my employee was paid correctly and on time. This is a true example of going above and beyond what was expected." Capt. Trey Zinsser and 1st Lt. Taylor Todd, 458th Airlift Squadron: "During a mission where they were flying the commander for Air Mobility Command to several locations, a problem arose that required the pilots act as both pilot and maintainer to figure out a solution on how to proceed. That solution required an additional flight back to Scott AFB to swap out an aircraft so they could get the commander to his next destination on time and when commercial airlift was not possible. Despite several factors that could have cancelled the mission, the crew not only was able to get the commander to his destination, but was able to get him there approximately two hours before the commercial carrier would have been able to." Mr. Mark D. Yost, 375th Communications Squadron: "Mr. Yost stepped outside the realm of his voice switching duties to assist our customer support telephone teams. He cleared a longstanding telephone request, normally requiring a two-person team to complete. He single-handedly completed the entire job in three days vs. the expected 8-10 days. He personally stood up 37 new VoIP telephone systems in support of our 375 AMW Knowledge Operations Management mission. He enabled the VoIP systems with full auto-attendant and remote call features and personally provided hands-on demonstrations to all users. During the entire process, Mr. Yost kept the customer abreast of every facet of the system install." Tech. Sgt. Edmund Ibarra, 375 Communications Squadron: "He has been integral part of the 618th Air and Space Operations System Support Tier 2 team. He created a new laptop image for a technical refresh of 80 fly-away kits. These systems allow virtual private network access to command and control applications and data storage to personnel from all around the world. He also restored the Senior Controller's e-mail during a catastrophic data transfer failure, and restored four years worth of critical Operation Enduring Freedom data otherwise previously thought permanently lost." Senior Airman Christopher Doyle, 375 Communications Squadron: "He professionally briefed senior leadership on the status of eight mission-essential command and control systems, enabling key situational awareness on system outages and other mission-impacting incidents. Additionally, Airman Doyle oversaw the critical reporting of command-wide NOTAM compliance. He expertly tracked and monitored 110 NOTAMs, providing senior leadership daily updates on the cyber-security posture for the entire Air Mobility Command network." Senior Airman Mary Kathryn Ladipo-Dyer, 375th Force Support Squadron: "In January, she organized and prepared a mass passport and visa line for over 30 Security Forces members on short notice taskings to Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan, providing pre-instructions, forms, and details, ensuring each member had the necessary deployment documents." Staff Sgt. Alison Caldieraro, 375th Logistics Readiness Squadron: "She turned a potentially bad experience into a good one regarding a household goods move. A family was having problems with the pick-up of their shipment; the carriers did not show the day of or the day after the pack and pick up, then randomly showed up two days later. They tried to contact the right offices with no avail. They went to the Household Goods office and Sergeant Caldieraro contacted the carrier about their delivery, scheduled it for that day, and helped them with their claims paperwork and sent it in to the carrier." Mr. Charles Jones, 375th Force Support Squadron: "He has served more than 3,500 walk-in, telephone, e-mail students and receives numerous thank you notes for his assistance, and briefed the Post-9/11 GI Bill to more than 600 Team Scott veterans, which generated awareness of historic education benefit." My hat is off to all of you for your efforts. You, and many more like you, are ensuring that we "Outshine, Outserve and Outperform" in everything we do! Keep up the great work!