81st MDG receives new leadership Published June 19, 2013 By Steve Pivnick 81st Medical Group Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Two 81st Medical Group squadrons will welcome new leaders in July. Lt. Col. Craig Lambert will relinquish command of the 81st Medical Support Squadron to Lt. Col. Ronald Merchant during an 8 a.m. change of command ceremony July 9 in front of Keesler Medical Center. The next day, Lt. Col. William Hurtle will pass command of the 81st Aerospace Medicine Squadron to Lt. Col. Teresa Roberts, also at 8 a.m. in the same location. Merchant comes to Keesler from Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, where he served as the chief of medical war reserve materiel industrial operations with the Air Force Medical Operations Agency's Medical Logistics Division. As 81st MDSS commander, he leads more than 486 military and civilian health-care professionals, providing all financial, information management, logistics, managed care, administrative, research and readiness support to one of the largest medical facilities in the Air Force. The colonel received his Air Force commission upon graduation from Officer Training School in 1995 following graduation from Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. He has served as a military medical treatment facility administrator and has commanded squadrons in Germany and California and has held a variety of assignments at the wing, numbered air force, field operating agency and headquarters Air Force levels. He has participated in multi-national operations throughout the United States Central Command, Pacific Command, Southern Command and European Command areas of responsibility. Lambert, who commanded the 81st MDSS since July 2011, is being assigned to AFMOA at Joint Base San Antonio. Roberts is no stranger to Keesler and Keesler Medical Center. She has been 81st Medical Operations Squadron Mental Health Flight commander since June 2012, her third Keesler assignment. As commander of the 81st AMDS, she is responsible for Team Aerospace, including the clinical services of flight medicine, audiology and optometry, food and public facility safety and sanitation, student health as well as the occupational and preventive health programs for the 81st Training Wing. The squadron is composed of seven flights: Flight Medicine, Bioenvironmental Engineering, Optometry, Public Health, Audiology, Health Promotions, and Trainee Health. The colonel is a graduate of Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La., where she received both her undergraduate degree in psychology with minors in speech and sociology and her graduate degree, master of social work. Upon completing her master's degree through a Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship in 1995, Roberts immediately received her commission as a first lieutenant. Her first assignment, from June 1995-December 1997, was to Keesler Air Force Base and the 81st Medical Squadron. She returned to Keesler in July 2004 as commander of the Family Support Center until August 2006. In 2006, Roberts attended Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB, Ala., then proceeded to the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Legislative Liaison Directorate in the Pentagon as the chief of the Research Branch. In 2009, she was chosen director of the Clinical Social Work Residency at Andrews AFB, Md. Hurtle, who commanded the squadron since August 2011, has been reassigned to the Headquarters U.S. Air Forces Europe Surgeon General's Office at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.