2nd Air Force transformation driven by warfighter's needs

Published Oct. 21, 2008
By Lt. Col. Claudia Foss
2nd Air Force director of staff

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, MISS. -- Transformation is underway in 2nd Air Force.

Second Air Force is comprised of four training wings and nine training groups graduating approximately 245,000 American and international Airmen, Sailors, Soldiers, Marines and Coast Guardsmen annually.

"As we continue to produce the best trained, combat ready Airmen, we're undertaking multiple initiatives to improve the training enterprise for the Air Force and its joint and coalition partners," said Maj. Gen. Alfred Flowers, 2nd Air Force commander.

This month, the first initiative occurred when construction began at Keesler on a 2,000-square-foot operations floor designed to support the new technical training operations center. The new center will serve as the operational command and control hub for technical training operations across 2nd Air Force.

"The TTOC operations floor will serve as the 'nerve center' for tech training and enhance our ability to implement directions across the training enterprise," the general explained. "The reorganization of 2nd Air Force into a command and control enabled headquarters, in which we serve as the operational command, allows us to better synchronize the training pipeline flow from end to end. In turn, this improves our responsiveness to the warfighter's needs.

"This TTOC ops floor is one more important building block in the foundation of 2nd Air Force's training mission," General Flowers continued.

Today, the second initiative is launched as Detachment 1 is activated at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, with Capt. Jeannie Sasnett as commander.

"The activation of Detachment 1 will provide 2nd Air Force with improved oversight of the basic military training pipeline flow," according to Jim Hollingsworth, 2nd Air Force TTOC director.

The Detachment 1 team of 43 personnel develops and maintains the yearly accession plan used by Air Force Recruiting Service to recruit Airmen and enter them into basic military training throughout the fiscal year.

Detachment 1 also works job classification and reclassification actions for basic military training and technical training students, as well as making travel arrangements every week to ship 350 to 850 BMT graduates from Lackland to 33 different technical training locations to begin their Air Force career field training.

"Overall, this is a win-win for 2nd Air Force and Air Education and Training Command," General Flowers pointed out. "The reorganization improves and consolidates training management functions and streamlines functional chains, reducing unintended duplications of efforts."

2nd Air Force Takes The Lead In Transformation