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The senior enlisted adviser from the Army and Air Force Exchange Service visited Ramstein Tuesday and Wednesday. AAFES Senior Enlisted Adviser Chief Master Sgt. Jeffry Helm met with customers and inspected facilities during his time at Ramstein.
AAFES is a joint military command with a retail mission. The command’s dual mission is to provide quality products and services to all active-duty, Reserve and Guard troops, their families and retirees. It also generates earnings to supplements Army Morale Welfare and Recreation and Air Force Services programs. Carrying out AAFES’ day-to-day operation includes 72 active-duty Army and Air Force
personnel and more than 43,000 civilian associates.
Chief Helm spoke to Airmen at the First Term Airmen Center. This interactive setting gave customers the chance to ask anything and everything to the highest ranking noncommissioned officer in the command.
“It’s important that AAFES educates, listens to and addresses our more than 12.2 million customers,” Chief Helm said. “This opportunity to interact with our customers only strengthens AAFES’ ties in the military community.”
AAFES is an important part of any Army and Air Force community. Besides providing the exchange benefit to troops and their families, AAFES gives 100 percent of its earnings back to the military community. Roughly 70 percent of earnings go toward Army MWR and Air Force Services programs, which are used toward quality of life improvements including youth services, recreation centers, arts and crafts, aquatic centers, post functions and golf courses.
The other 30 percent of AAFES earnings go toward capital improvement programs, which build new, renovated or expanded facilities to enhance and support the shopping experience. Ramstein recently opened the largest exchange ever built on a military installation – the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center.
The KMCC is a joint project of AAFES, Air Force Services, U.S. Air Forces in Europe Civil Engineers and the German government. The KMCC is a cornerstone project in AAFES’ efforts to improve the quality of life for Airmen, Soldiers and their families, as well as all those who transit through the “Gateway to Europe.” The 437,000-square-foot shopping center features a four-plex movie theater, 32 permanent concession stores, four kiosks and 15 roving concessions, and a food court with nine food facilities
AAFES is a joint command and is directed by a board of directors that is responsible to the secretaries of the Army and the Air Force through the service chiefs of staff. AAFES has the dual mission of providing authorized patrons with merchandise and services and generating non-appropriated fund earnings as a supplemental source of funding for military MWR programs.
For more information, visit the AAFES Web site at www.aafes.com/pa/default.asp.
(Courtesy of Army and Air Force Exchange Service)
