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***image2***The 86th Airlift Wing’s 1st Communications Maintenance Squadron recently assumed responsibility from the 435th Communications Squadron for three operating location work centers located at Giebelstadt Army Airfield, Katterbach AAF, and Grafenwoehr AAF.
All three OLs have important weather and tactical air navigation missions, which the 1st CMXS is well positioned to support, according to Maj. Robert J. Gill, 1st CMXS commander.
“The teams at (Giebelstadt, Katterbach and Grafenwoehr) maintain meteorological and navigation systems at many Army locations,” he said.
“Many of these systems are mission critical and require the teams to respond to outages within a set period of time. A drive from Kapaun is three to five hours on a good day for many of the OLs, and this is unacceptable. For that reason we must have prepositioned personnel and equipment to allow for a quick response time.”
Because the OLs are geographically separated from the squadron and their supporting base, they face many unique challenges most units do not. According to Major Gill, however, the squadron works hard to get past obstacles.
“To overcome many of the challenges of distance we try to use technology as much as possible,” he said.
“We are also looking into the feasibility of a basic IP VTC capability at the three sites. Furthermore, the flight leadership tries to travel to those locations on a regular schedule.”
***image3***Being isolated from the main support base means that those assigned to the OLs must be as self sufficient as possible. One of these areas includes Weighted Airman Promotion System testing. The Giebelstadt Chief, Master Sgt. Frank Monsisvais, is the authorized test proctor for all three OLs. This saves the unit $5,000 in annual TDY costs that would arise if the members were required to travel to Ramstein for testing. Master Sergeant Monsisvais is also the trusted agent for the Drug Abuse Testing Program for the three locations.
Annual ancillary training is also a challenge. Trainers from Ramstein are scheduled to travel to Katterbach and train as many Airmen as possible from the surrounding areas.
Vehicle support is critical to their remote location.
The 1st CMXS is a unique communications unit because they have a vehicle maintenance function built into the squadron.
With the addition of the OLs, vehicle support has added a specialized mobile maintenance truck to their inventory in order to support the OLs in the event of a vehicle breakdown at a remote distance.
The 1st CMXS has learned much since taking responsibility for the OLs and Major Gill is appreciative of the work being done and vows that the remote groups will not be overlooked.
“The teams out at the OLs are made up of highly skilled technicians who love doing their job,” he said.
“They do their job very well with little problems. This makes it easy to forget them; however, it is leadership’s job to assure this does not happen.”
