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MORÓN AIR BASE, Spain — Arriving at a new base with a new environment, mission and coworkers can be a challenging adjustment for some, but what about arriving at a new base and having to learn a whole new job from scratch on top of all that?
Staff Sgt. Taylor Deany, arrived at Morón Air Base, Spain, in the fall of 2021 after moving from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., where he was a unit deployment manager.
Deany’s primary job is services, which is to maintain and operate hotels, restaurants and fitness centers at bases all over the world. But that’s not the job he was tasked to do at Morón AB.
Deany became the noncommissioned officer in charge of community services for the 496th Air Base Squadron. A job he had never done during his tenure in the U.S. Air Force, but would aid in providing resiliency and morale for the base, which has a high ops tempo.
“He plans all of our major events as well as monthly events off-base like tours, trips and even bingo,” said Rodney Hooper, 496th ABS Force Support Flight director. “He handles the coordination for payment, funding, transportation and even does the after action reports as well as the publicity and marketing.”
Being new to a solo position came with its fair share of obstacles.
“The biggest challenge has been trying to learn about some Air Force entertainment programs that I’ve never dealt with before,” Deany said. “I’ve been in for ten years and this is my first time actually doing this job, so it was all brand new to me.”
Morón AB might seem small in size, but the base is a major stopping point for many missions including the Coronet, which allows aircraft to travel nonstop across the Atlantic Air Bridge.
“Not only is he required to take care of our base population,” Hooper said. “He has to surge and take care of all these other folks that show up here on temporary duty assignments.”
Deany hit the ground running and proved to be fully capable of picking up the responsibilities the new job entailed.
“We’ve done several trips to wineries, co-hosted a trip to a ski resort with the chapel for a resiliency event, and tours around the area,” Deany said. “I think I’ve fit into this job pretty well because of my personality.”
Hooper also remarked on how many people don’t adapt to a job like Deany’s due to lack of people skills.
“It’s definitely personality driven,” Hooper said. “He’s a natural, he has the skills and people really like him.”
The new job has given Deany a new perspective on force support and its impact and importance to how a base functions.
“Being here I’ve gotten to see how big of a footprint force support has on the whole base. Sometimes you don’t get to see that as clearly at work centers that are stateside or at a bigger base, Deany said. “I take great pride in supporting everyone on this base.”
