CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
Team Charleston will once again compete for the annual Air Mobility Command Commander in Chief's Installation Excellence Award as evaluators will be here Sept. 17 through 19.
The AMC CINC IE team will conduct a one-and-a-half day visit here along with Fairchild AFB, Wash., and Travis AFB,, Calif. to identify the base that will represent the command at the Air Force level and receive $100,000 for quality of life initiatives.
"This week, Team Charleston will once again show why this base and our people are the best in the Air Force not only in the mobility mission but taking care of our Airmen, families, civilians and retirees in the area," said Lt. Col. Susan Ferrera, 437th Mission Support Group deputy commander and Team Charleston AMC CINC IE team lead. "Being able to represent AMC at Air Force level will be another major accomplishment in the long line of achievements the wing has been presented throughout the past year."
During 2007, Team Charleston units, Airmen and civilians were awarded 19 Air Force and 45 AMC-level awards.
Colonel Ferrera said the wing requested inputs from all organizations back in July and put together an awards package that spoke about introducing innovative programs that helped create and sustain excellent base operations during Oct. 1, 2007, to Sept. 30.
"During the past 12 months, Team Charleston has been instrumental in supporting the warfighter, improving quality of life, upgrading customer service support across the base and recognizing our best and brightest Airmen and civilian employees," she said. "Being able to encapsulate all the achievements and accomplishments of Team Charleston was the easy part. Racking and stacking all the inputs and deciding on what was the most important was the difficult part."
Team Charleston will be evaluated by the AMC team on the following seven criteria areas that where included in the award package. The areas included were: improvements to the installation's work environment or physical plant; improvements in the installation's quality of life; enhanced productivity of the installation's work force; increased customer satisfaction or improved customer service; encouraged bottom-to-top communication and team problem solving; promoted unit cohesiveness and recognized outstanding individual efforts; and promoted energy conservation and environmental safety to include compliance, remediation and stewardship.
The AMC team consists of Cols. Nick Desport, Ben Trotter, Kirk Lear, Rob Miglionico and Sam Douglas. Each team member will be assigned a Team Charleston colonel as an escort officer during visits to their respective areas of inspection. The inspection includes more than 25 areas such as civil engineer, contracting, family support, command post and safety.
The CINC IE program was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 to recognize the outstanding efforts of the people who operate and maintain Department of Defense installations and who have done the best with their resources to support the mission. The award encourages commanders to create an environment that promotes innovative and creative ways of enhancing base-level services, facilities, and quality-of-life.
If chosen, Team Charleston will go on to represent the command at the Air Force level competition where each service's winning installation is highlighted during a Pentagon ceremony held annually in May. The following items are presented to the winning installation commander: an installation excellence trophy, an installation excellence flag, and a congratulatory letter signed by the president.
Besides these awards, Headquarters Air Force provides a monetary incentive award, $1,000,000 to the winning installation's Operation and Maintenance Account, and $500,000 to the runner-up, for future "quality-of-life" improvements.
For more information about the AMC CINC IE Award, contact Colonel Ferrera or Capt. Heather Mueller.