By Vicky Falcón
NAVAIR Public Affairs

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.

“Today’s ceremony is a celebration of the success of our Integrated Program Teams in these endeavors,” said Massenburg, “and a recognition of their accomplishments toward achieving NAVAIR’s strategic goals.”

The ceremony was held on Tuesday, June 21, in a video-teleconference broadcast simultaneously to eight NAVAIR sites including Cherry Point, China Lake, Jacksonville, Lakehurst, North Island, Orlando and Pt. Mugu. 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: Program Management; Engineering, Test and Evaluation and Technology; Logistics/Industrial; Business Operations; and Quality of Service.

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 VADM 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 Quality of Service, the Commander’s Award went to the NATEC Operation Iraqi Freedom-II Deployment Team. According to the commendation letter, the team proactively provided engineering and technical support to every airframe deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom-II and was instrumental in providing both on-site support and in coordinating support efforts with other technical experts worldwide.

“The team’s contributions enabled improved war-fighting capabilities by directly increasing the number of full mission capable aircraft required to meet daily air and combat support demands,” the letter said.

Honorable Mentions in the Quality of Service category went to the P-3C ASW Improvement Program Tactical Common Data Link Team and also to two teams that scored a tie in the Honorable Mention group – the NAVAIR Orlando Competency 7.8 Leadership Team and the Business and Financial Management Community Lean Pilot Team.

In the category of Business Operations, the winning team was the National Depot AIRSpeed Team. The citation in the commendation letter states, “Your team has led the way in achieving NAVAIR goals through aggressive implementation of AIRSpeed initiatives through leveraging industry’s best practices consisting of Theory of Constraints, Lean Manufacturing, and Six Sigma to transform the way Depots are doing business. The Depot AIRSpeed Team’s efforts have positively affected Fleet readiness by reducing cycle time, increasing throughput and reducing work in progress on multiple product lines.”

Honorable Mentions in the category of Business Operations went to the Aging Aircraft Integrated Product Team and the Productivity Ratios Team.

The winner of the Commander’s Award in the category of Program Management was the Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) System Development and Demonstration Product Team. According to the letter of commendation, “Your team’s outstanding efforts resulted in the development of a program designed to specifically react to existing and projected P-3C legacy aircraft fleet readiness shortfalls in a cost-wise environment. A key element of this outstanding accomplishment was the implementation of the Component Advanced Development Phase, which enabled entry into SDD with the lowest possible budget position through risk reduction. This led to the innovative cost saving proposal to integrate the production of the MMA militarized aircraft into a commercial aircraft production line.”

Honorable Mentions in the category of Program Management went to the Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) Block II Integrated Product Team and the V-22 Joint Training Integrated Product Team.

In the category of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation and Technology, the winner was the 4.0P NATOPS Team. According to the letter of commendation, “Your team’s outstanding efforts in upgrading the NATOPS system has been critical in allowing the Fleet to quickly respond to meet their requirements. The development of an innovative and interactive NATOPS Web site has provided the Fleet with timely, accurate, and up-to-date NATOPS technical data and operating procedures/limitations to improve safety of operations and readiness.”

Honorable Mentions in the category of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation and Technology went to the National Airworthiness Interim Flight Clearance Team and the Naval Aviation Technology Information Product Team.

In the final Commander’s Awards category of Logistics/Industrial, the winner was the Enterprise AIRSpeed Team. According to the commendation letter from VADM Massenburg, “Your team continues to be an enabler for operationalizing cost-wise readiness across the Naval Aviation Enterprise. The concepts and tools being taught and implemented by the team have led to success in reducing turnaround time on items by at least 40%, targeting viable areas for manpower reductions, and on average, work in process was reduced nearly 50% in areas that have AIRSpeed principles.”

Honorable Mentions in the category of Logistics/Industrial went to the Integrated In-Service Reliability Program Team and the T-45 F405 Engine Integrated Product Team.

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 presented at the end of the program to Alfred Kraft, AIR-4.0C, Director, Research and Engineering Group Staff Office. Kraft is currently on assignment developing and implementing a NAVAIR Human Capital Strategy plan.

Kraft, who was surprised as the award recipient, received the honor for his philosophy of making people a top priority and being instrumental in shaping the organizational culture and strategic direction for NAVAIR. According to the award citation read at the ceremony, he “has been a life-long advocate of people matters and a demonstrated leader who openly embraces the concept of improving quality of worklife. He is widely known for his care of people and extraordinary desire to improve their personal and professional abilities.”

At the close of the ceremony, VADM Massenburg encouraged those participating to renew their efforts daily. “Never forget who you work for, and never forget that what you do truly matters,” he said. “Let’s make sure the Fleet has the best support it can get when it needs it and where it needs it.”

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

Photo caption: VADM Massenburg (on left) and Dr. Al Somoroff (on right) join the winning team representatives with their Commander's National Award trophies after the ceremony last Tuesday. U.S. Navy photo by Mike Wilson.