379 AEW unit named best in Air Force

Published April 18, 2010
By Staff Sgt. Kelly White
379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- A base agency responsible for literally tons of good morale for nearly every deployed warfighter here recently received the highest Air Force distinction.

The 379th Expeditionary Communications Squadron Post Office was named Outstanding Large Postal Facility in the 2009 Air Force Communications and Information Awards competition March 29.

"The folks serving at our post office are truly amazing and deserving of this level of recognition," said Brig. Gen. Stephen Wilson, 379th Air Expeditionary Wing commander. "This group of 16 people - none of whom had worked together before and more than half of whom had no prior experience working in a post office - came together and not only figured out how it's all done, but figured out how to do it better and smarter than the rest of the Air Force. The runner up came nowhere close to performing as well."

Making it to the service's top was no easy task for the team, which delivered more than 1.7 million tons of mail throughout the year, at the largest post office in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.

"Postal, being a special-duty assignment, most people coming into our career field are only trained for six months before they come here," said Senior Master Sgt. George Flaig, 379 ECS Postmaster, "Even our experienced postal people have only six months to a year, and this isn't as easy a job as people think. There's a lot to learn -- understanding United States Postal laws, Department of Homeland Security concerns and Department of Transportation requirements, as most mail is moved via commercial airlift. There are challenges every day. Moving thousands of pounds of mail a day is hard work and the days are longer at this post office than any other in the world."

The key to both making the mission here more manageable, as well as setting the team up for earning the Air Force's highest praise, has been simplifying mail-processing operations.

"We've done a lot of streamlining of procedures, eliminating 40 to 50 percent of our steps," said Sergeant Flaig. "We only handle a piece of mail once now, versus four to eight times."

The first process improvement the staff tackled was closing one of its locations.
"When I first got here, we were operating out of three facilities," Sergeant Flaig said. "Downsizing our operations to two facilities enabled us to put more energy toward training and getting people qualified versus being spread too thin.

"The mail used to be processed at Ops Town, but there was an area in the back of the (BPC) facility that was underutilized," he explained. "We closed the Ops Town branch and process mail here now - and we did this over Christmas, with no stoppage or delay in getting mail to our customers."

The staff also achieved a zero host-nation customs violation status by inspecting more than 72,000 outgoing parcels and catching 150 illegal items from leaving the base via mail. The staff also coordinated the release of more than 1.5 thousand kilograms of host-nation-seized mail.

"We x-ray outgoing mail at PERSCO and catch illegal items before they go through," Sergeant Flaig said. "If the host nation finds these things, it's the member who gets in trouble. So, what we're doing protects the member and also our relationship with our host nation.

"There are also illegal items being shipped here from other places - things like alcohol hidden inside other items," added the sergeant. "Everybody knows from Right Start what not to send or have sent here, so the host nation is not to blame for the problems we have. We do it to ourselves, doing things that are illegal in their country."

Some time ago, a seal was broken on a mail delivery truck, causing the whole truck to be seized by customs.

"We dealt directly with the customs officer (of the host nation), and were able to get it released in two or three days. Through official channels, it would have taken up to a month. That's a significant delay we were able to prevent for our customers," said Sergeant Flaig.

The key to working through difficult issues that arise, and ultimately, to achieving mission success - be it in relations with host-nation representatives or inter-office relations - is professionalism and respect, he said.

"We've always had good relations with the (customs) folks at the airport," said Sergeant Flaig. "Even when we have disagreed, we've stayed level-headed and always tried to understand their culture and point of view."

Likewise, the troops serving at the post office do their best to appreciate and support one another - up and down the chain of command.

"I have some really great Airmen who go out of their way to help each other," he added. "This was pretty relevant during our postal inspection -- 36 strengths and zero findings. That was a testament to their dedication and all the outstanding stuff they do.

"We also have a great commander. (Lt. Col. William) Grund comes here and works with us," Sergeant Flaig said. "After he works his 12-hour day, he'll go down to the airport with us on the busiest day of the week and move 15 or 20,000 pounds of mail with us. He comes here and works the windows with our troops. He does things you don't see at a lot of other places, and it goes a long way in keeping our troops motivated and feeling appreciated."