“As a leadership team, we took the opportunity to step back and define where we really want to go as a wing and what is important to us, which is our values, characteristics and traits,” said Col. Michael Phillips, 88 ABW vice commander. “These traits are the things we want our teammates, our partners on base, to think about us.”
Phillips believes that having a defined present and future vision for the wing will help posture Airmen to deliver better strength through support.
“If our mission partners see us truly support them through qualities like caring, collaborative, competent and customer-focused effort, we’re accomplishing what we set out to do,” Phillips said.
The wing supports more than 115 mission partners and organizations across Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
“Each of these mission partners is unique and important in its own right, and each one brings its own challenges to the table,” Phillips said. “As we talked about being professional and responsive and the things that are going to truly meet the needs of the customer, that’s the kind of focus we want to take.”
Phillips hopes 88 ABW personnel will embrace these new characteristics and traits.
“We truly want them to understand that strength through support is not just how we feel we’re doing the job, but how the partners can look at us as the installation-support provider,” Phillips said. “So for example, if we’re talking about civil engineering and infrastructure, we want customers to not only know we are here to serve them, but we value their trust in us to do it well in a competent fashion.
“From a professional and responsive capacity, we want them to know we’re going to handle problems they bring to us, and we’re going to be transparent in our efforts to meet their needs.”
Strength through support is an operational cornerstone for 88 ABW, he added.
“Embodying these characteristics and traits is the entry point to ensuring mission success from a leadership and mission-partner perspective,” Phillips said. “Each one of those traits is the foundational capability that the 88th Air Base Wing brings to the fight. If we cut corners or shirk our duties in any one of those areas, it could lead to mission failure. Conversely, focusing on these traits in how we approach our duties is the best approach for mission success.”
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