McConnell’s Aircraft Maintenance Squadrons…Total Force Integration Published Oct. 24, 2011 By Lt. Col. Mary Teeter 22nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron commander MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. -- Within the next few months, the 22nd and 931st Aircraft Maintenance Squadrons will take Total Force Integration to the next level. On Oct. 17, 2011, the squadrons received the keys to the recently renovated "Total Force" building, Hangar 1107. Our move over the next few months will realize Phase 2 of a vision of total force transformation for the maintenance complex that began in 2008: to fully integrate the 22nd Maintenance Group with our 931st Air Refueling Group counterparts into the same work centers. We are so excited about our transformation that we wanted to showcase our "World Class Facilities for World Class Maintainers" to the rest of our Air Force. We took the opportunity a few weeks ago when Lt. Gen. Loren Reno, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Installations & Mission Support, visited McConnell. The 22nd and 931st AMXS' were excited to show the Air Force's lead maintainer that the Air Force's first active associate unit was increasing its efforts to team up, and to provide outstanding aircraft maintenance support to McConnell and our warfighter customers. General Reno was so impressed by our integration efforts that he lauded the well integrated active duty and Reserve Maintenance Groups to Air Mobility Command leadership. Our integrated maintenance team also had an opportunity to show off our teamwork through the recent operational readiness inspection. Again, the team was lauded by the AMC Inspector General team chief for phenomenal Total Force Integration, remarking that the active duty and Reserve teamwork was the best they had seen. Such teamwork is not foreign to our maintainers who work side by side on the flightline. Recently, however, we have stepped up our efforts to ensure our work centers support even more effective communication and synergistic operations. Transformation and integration into a single work center have allowed us to share responsibility for programs, specifically in the areas of maintenance training, mobility and weapons safety. We have been able to eliminate duplicate programs and have taken advantage of having the right person in charge of a program, whether they are active duty, reserve or civilian. We have also been able to more fully optimize sortie production and aircraft health, sharing responsibility for training a large influx of maintainers from technical school, along with responsibilities for increased deployment commitments and off-station missions including: air-bridge to Southwest Asia, business effort missions, RED FLAG, support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and more. All of these outstanding results did not happen solely due to the efforts of maintainers. Transformation couldn't have occurred without the hard work from many other organizations on base. In addition to the $5.7 million renovation that the 22nd Civil Engineering Squadron, the Army Corps of Engineers and contractors executed, we owe a debt of gratitude to others on and off base. Contracting spent many hours helping us outfit our facilities, and the 22nd Comptroller Squadron ensured we executed nearly $1.5 million in the right furnishings and equipment. The 22nd Communications Squadron is also working hard to ensure all of our telephone communications and network connections allow uninterrupted operations. You can see that such teamwork is bigger than Total Force Integration with our Reserve partners. It is a true "Total Force Integration" of McConnell units and our surrounding community. This Total Force Integration is the reason we are able to provide "Superior Warfighter Support" to all of our combatant commanders. It's great to be on such an outstanding team!