By Bailey Toombs
NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

In a ceremony to honor teams and the value of teamwork within NAVAIR, Vice Admiral Wally Massenburg, commander, Naval Air Systems Command, presented the highest team honor, the Commander’s National Award, to five outstanding teams.

“I’m proud of each and every one of you and the hard work you do every day, providing our Fleet Warfighters with the systems and equipment they need to fight and win,” said Massenburg. “Theirs is a dangerous job, and it is because of you that they are able to do it safely and effectively.”

The ceremony took place Thursday, June 15, in a video-teleconference broadcast simultaneously to eight NAVAIR sites including Cherry Point, China Lake, Jacksonville, Lakehurst, North Island, Orlando, Pt. Mugu and the Washington Liaison Office. The ceremony was hosted from the atrium of the NAVAIR headquarters building at NAS Patuxent River, Md.

Winners of the Commander’s National Awards were chosen from five categories: Business Operations; Logistics/Industrial; Program Management; Quality of Service; and Research, Development, Test and Evaluation and Technology.

According to Massenburg, each of the winning teams was chosen because it best epitomized NAVAIR’s goals to balance current and future readiness; to reduce the cost of doing business; to improve agility; to ensure alignment; and to implement fleet-driven metrics.

A letter of commendation - signed by Massenburg - was read as representatives from the winning teams accepted their trophy. Within each category, Massenburg also gave an honorable mention to two teams by having their members stand to be recognized by their peers.

In the category of Business Operations, the Commander’s Award went to the Total Force Readiness Team. According to the commendation letter, the team identified, analyzed, and vetted a comprehensive list of NAE manpower savings initiatives totaling more than $700 million. Their work contributed significantly to the intellectual growth of the Command.

“The Total Force Readiness Team can take great pride in the accomplishment of developing the processes and tools that provided leadership additional information and insight,” the letter stated. “This enabled them to more effectively balance how our total workforce of civilian, military and contractor support services personnel is focused to meet current and future Fleet needs.”
Honorable Mentions in the Business Operations category went to the Workload Acceptance Task Team and the Workload Planning and Staffing Team.

In the category of Logistics/Industrial, the winning team was the F404 I-Level Consolidation Team Phase I and II. The citation in the commendation letter read, “You can take great pride in the extraordinary accomplishment of your F404 Consolidation Team and its ability to significantly reduce the number of engine repair sites through its Phase I and Phase II efforts. By implementing this consolidation, ongoing LEAN and AIRSpeed initiatives are more easily implemented and controlled.”

Honorable Mentions in the category of Logistics/Industrial went to the Enterprise AIRSpeed Team and the Integrated In-Service Reliability Program Team.

The winner of the Commander’s Award in the category of Program Management was the EA-6B Improved Capability ICAP-III Integrated Program Team. According to the letter of commendation, “Your team’s accomplishments resulted in significantly increased situational awareness and warfighting capability that changed the tactics and radically improved the Prowler’s operational readiness and effectiveness.”

In FY05 the EA-6B ICAP-III IPT identified nearly one million dollars in cost savings, which allowed for limited resources to be utilized satisfying other urgent program needs across the team.
Honorable Mentions in the category of Program Management went to the Multi-Mission Helicopters Program Air Ambulance Team and the F-14 Program Management Team.

In the category of Quality of Service, the winner was the PMA 202 Aircrew Systems Fleet Support Team. According to the letter of commendation, “Your team performed superbly in executing the engineering and logistics support for Fleet identified safety operations issues and Fleet and mission readiness degraders for approximately 1,100 types and configurations of aviation life support systems, survival equipment, oxygen systems, escape systems and night vision systems.”
Honorable Mentions in the category of Quality of Service went to the USS KITTY HAWK Automatic Radar Periscope Detection and Discrimination Team and the NAVAIR AIRSpeed Deployment Team and Black Belts.

In the final Commander’s Awards category of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation and Technology, the winner was the AIR-4.0P Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization Division. According to the commendation letter from Massenburg, “Your team exemplified the ways in which NAVAIR can meet our goals and provide outstanding value to our Warfighter. Your efforts to reduce the turnaround time for the release of the NATOPS products are extremely noteworthy. By reducing the time required to produce a NATOPS manual from 11 months to only six months, you achieved a 45 percent time reduction. This allowed NAVAIR to get this extremely important tool to Fleet personnel, which is critical for the safe operation of the aircraft.”
Honorable Mentions in the category of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation and Technology went to the AIR-4.0P Interim Flight Clearance Division and the Navy Aviation Simulation Master Plan Team.

Following the presentation of the NAVAIR Commander’s National Awards, Massenburg presented the Edward H. Heinemann Award to the F-14 Data Transfer Team. The Heinemann Award is sponsored by the Association of Naval Aviation, and is presented annually to the individual or group of individuals within NAVAIR who achieved or helped achieve significant improvement in the design or modification of an aircraft or an aircraft system.

“In response to the urgent needs due to Operation Iraqi Freedom,” stated Massenburg in the team’s letter of commendation, “the DTS team developed an innovative and effective aircraft modification design to utilize an off-the-shelf unmanned aerial vehicle transmitter to increase ground troop situation awareness.”

A separate award recognizing excellence in a leader or leaders who make a significant improvement to the quality of worklife for the NAVAIR workforce, the T. Michael Fish Award, was also presented at the end of the program to Michael Myers, AIR 4.1.3 division head at China Lake, Calif., and also to Barbara Ward McCracken, deputy director for AIR 7.3 at Patuxent River.

Myers received his award via VTC from China Lake. According to the award citation read at the ceremony, he “has been an inspirational leader in bringing together diverse AIR-4.1.3 branches located at three distinct geographical sites and making them into one truly national organization. NAVAIR is proud to have you as part of the team.”

McCracken received her award at Patuxent River. According to the award citation, McCracken “has been a tireless advocate in developing and fielding programs and initiatives that significantly impact the quality of worklife for all employees.”

At the close of the ceremony, Massenburg encouraged those participating to continue to work as a team.

“This century will hold many challenges for our nation and our military,” he said, “and this year holds many challenges for those of us working to transform naval aviation. Meeting those challenges will be up to each and every one of us and to be successful, we must work together as an enterprise, the ultimate team.”

“I look forward to working with you to meet what lies ahead,” Massenburg continued. “Our Sailors and Marines who go in harm’s way expect us to do nothing less.”

For more information about the NAVAIR Commander’s National Awards program, contact the NAVAIR Headquarters Public Affairs Office at 301-757-1487.