JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. –
Customer service is dead at the 628th Communications Squadron as the CS of today is not the same as its ancestors. Specifically, today’s CS has different manpower, missions, and capabilities…and is close to having new name soon too.
Manpower and skills that were once part of the communications community have experienced a major overhaul. Over the last decade, CS has lost Visual Information specialists, helpdesk technicians, Postal Operations managers, and experts in Radar, Air Traffic Control and Landing Systems. We have developed a more cyber-focused force and your CS members now represent the best. Seven 628th CS Airmen, SrA through CMSgt, have been selected for, and participated in, Air-Force-wide improvement groups that will shape their career fields.
Your mission is our focus—this has not changed. What has changed is that today’s CS experts have become your biggest cyberspace advocates while continuing some traditional communications support roles. We have done more with less. As the Air Force transformed our community, our ability to perform Information Technology support continues to get pulled up and turned into enterprise solutions. Many communications services that Air Force network users rely on today will become “cloud-hosted” over the next few years. For these users at JB Charleston, e-mail services will transition to a cloud-based service on the 20th of June and will provide larger mailbox sizes. These changes allow our community to focus on cyber security efforts and assist with protection of your missions.
Over the past two years, 628th CS Airmen have successfully advocated for over $12 million in improvements to your radios, mass notification systems, computers, networked storage, network equipment, and communications infrastructure while producing award-winning teams like our CS Infrastructure team, who was named best large networking facility in Department of Defense for the past two years.
As for capabilities, CS has also replaced some antiquated practices and replaced slower service-delivery with more virtual and automated systems. As an example, Virtual Enterprise Service Desk, more commonly known as vESD, has replaced the helpdesk of the past, offering online answers to more people simultaneously versus calling on the phone and waiting for a technician to become available. Automated tool sets like the base telephone operator and computer updates are now quality checked by fewer CS Airmen, allowing for these experts to increase networking speeds and push computer patches faster. This has reduced cyber vulnerabilities and was recently touted by AMC Inspector General’s team as “one of the best in AMC.”
The current CS is smaller, but better focused on base-level missions. Your CS is beginning the transition from a Communications Squadron into a Cyberspace Squadron, where we will pivot our focus from many traditional IT support roles to concentrate on mission assurance for key base missions across a multi-domain environment. Mission Defense Teams are now standing up within CS to assure reliable and secure cyberspace. CS will continue to defend, and advocate for, your missions from the cyberspace perspective. You are not merely customers to us, you are our mission partners.