TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- A nearly 30-member Air Force chief of staff task force interviewed more than 250 military and civilian Team Tinker members last week as part of Gen. David L. Goldfein’s priority mission to revitalize squadrons across the force.
The Revitalizing Air Force Squadrons project team is visiting more than 20 bases, major commands and numbered air forces through August to gather feedback and discover challenges squadrons are facing today.
The team is tasked with issuing an initial report this fall recommending immediate and long-term actions that will improve current and future readiness, effectiveness and morale, officials have said.
Lt. Col. George Buch, a Pentagon action officer who leads the core team’s logistics, spoke about the objectives of what is essentially a highly focused and detailed listening tour.
“Squadrons are the core units of our Air Force, so our main goal is to improve morale, camaraderie, effectiveness in our mission capability and readiness for the future so we can meet our strategic master plan and our future operating concepts for the next 20 years,” he said.
Team members met with Tinker personnel ranging from Airmen to Colonels, plus civilians, over two days last week at 72nd Air Base Wing headquarters. Sessions included large and small group interviews and peer-to-peer discussions.
Buch said the team prepared for the tour with tools that included metadata analysis, inspector general findings, readiness statistics and culture climate surveys.
“We used that to develop a tailored survey we sent to over 60,000 people in the Air Force and used that to finalize our topic areas and areas that we want to highlight and dig deeper on,” he said. “We want to know how we can improve and use best practices as we see them around the Air Force.”
Capt. Samantha Page with the 545th Propulsion Maintenance Squadron said she was asked to discuss any of the prepared topics that she thought were important. She was also asked to bring up any squadron issues she was concerned about.
“Overall, I think it was a positive experience because I think the Air Force is trying to get our perspective about our day-to-day lives, jobs and experiences,” she said, “and then getting an opinion of how we can improve and move the Air Force forward in the right direction and make us better.”
Carroll Dobbs, 38th Engineering Squadron director, said he was glad to know that all the information the team collects “will be rolled up and given to the chief.”
“What I took away from it is that it’s good to have people at higher levels listen to the concerns and the problems we’re having at squadron level,” he said. “This may be an opportunity to improve some things that need improving.”