Whiteman: a team of top performers

  • Published
  • By Col. Eric Single
  • 509th Bomb Wing Vice Commander
Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of officiating our quarterly awards breakfast and recognizing our top performers in both civilian and military categories. 

During the ceremony we honored some of Whiteman's best, and recognized their truly impressive accomplishments over the last quarter ... a quarter, incidentally that was incredibly challenging for the entire wing. 

As I know you all remember, the first quarter of this year brought us many hurdles, both mission-oriented and natural. 

We hit the ground running after the holidays with intense individual ability to survive and operate training and the convetional operations readiness inspection preparation. 

At the same time, we deployed for a multi-national RED FLAG exercise as the lead unit. To top things off, Mother Nature threw ice and snow storms at us that seemed to last forever. 

The pace in the 509th remained fast throughout the quarter as we ginned up Base X and developed an operational concept to ready the wing for its first B-2 ORI. 

We added in a safety program management evaluation (which we aced) and two wing-wide conventional operational readiness exercises as we finished out the quarter. 

To conquer these challenges, many of Team Whiteman's Airmen and civilian employees stepped up to make a difference. I heard countless stories of people helping people and going out of the way to ensure mission success. 

With the help of talented people and dedicated leadership, we have accomplished in four months what other wings take three times as long to do, and we are approaching the ORI ready and able. 

This is the environment our quarterly award winners operated in. 

All the nominees for these important awards have impressive records, incredible accomplishments, and well-written packages. 

The competition was fierce! As I review award packages throughout the year, I am constantly amazed by the number of quality people we have at this base. 

However, talent only goes so far without teamwork. You can have all the superstars in the world, but if they can't work together effectively, their efforts are wasted. 

Luckily, we are blessed with both commodities here in the 509th. 

Congratulations once again to our quarerly
winners, and thanks to each and every one of you who make this wing one of the most consistently successful organizations in Air Combat Command. None Finer!