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VCO's are vital to mission accomplishment

  • Published
  • By By Master Sgt. David Miller
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar --  With nearly 2,000 vehicles and equipment worth millions of dollars, the 379th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron's vehicle management flight here has their hands full. Accounting for maintenance, usage and fueling of Al Udeid Air Base's cars, trucks and specialized equipment can be an enormous task.

This is where an often overlooked and underappreciated role of vehicle control officers come into play to help manage the seemingly overwhelming fleet.

"We have 112 trained VCOs on base, which equates to one primary and alternate for 56 organizations assigned here, said Staff Sgt. Xaviour Campbell, 379th ELRS lease vehicle management journeyman deployed from RAF Mildenhall, England and an Ochorios, Jamaica native.

All VCOs are appointed in writing by their squadron commander per Air Force Instruction and the duties should not be taken lightly as their mission depends on running vehicles.

"The VCOs are the liaison between the unit and vehicle management," he said.

Al Udeid currently has nearly $182 million in vehicle and equipment assets. This does not take into account the maintenance care program for routine maintenance and fixing occurred damage budgeted annually.

For most at Al Udeid, the VCO program is an additional duty. For others, it is a full time job due to the size of vehicle fleet assigned. Each unit's VCO is important in the accomplishment of their mission.

"As the primary VCO for the 379 Air Expeditionary Wing Staff Agencies, I consider this job to be just as important as my job as the protocol superintendent," said Senior Master Sgt. Erica McNair, deployed from Ramstein, Germany and a Sanford, N.C., native. "Keeping up with routine maintenance requirements for vehicles can be time consuming but very necessary in ensuring vehicles are always ready to ensure service members fulfill the mission."

For many jobs a vehicle is not about convenience but what makes the mission happen. Aircraft won't get fueled, fires won't be put out, security cannot be maintained and injured won't be transported without properly running mission essential vehicles.

Ways to ensure service members have these resources is to preserve the longevity and functionality of vehicles which can only be accomplished but the VCOs.

"VCOs need to ensure operators are qualified on the particular vehicle and properly licensed to operate assigned motor vehicles," said Campbell.

These qualified operators have an important task to accomplish before operating a vehicle. The Air Force Form 1800 is required to be signed daily if a vehicle is in use or every seven days if not being used.

The Air Force Form 1800s are key to documenting visual inspections, said Campbell.

If a safety related discrepancy is found during the visual check, the vehicle needs to be turned in immediately to vehicle maintenance or lease maintenance and all other discrepancies must be reported within 24 hours.

"Part of my job is to make sure that all of the operators under my span of control know that this is a privilege and not a right," said McNair.

"Being active in the program, following the VCO guide the 379th ELRS leadership has put together over the years, being diligent on enforcing the rules and regulations and reporting problems to Vehicle Maintenance is key to employing an effective vehicle management program," Campbell said.

With Al Udeid's high operations tempo and vast fleet, a VCOs job never ends.

"Each day, week and month there are things we have to do to preserve the longevity of the vehicles and hopefully I can do my part to help in doing that," said McNair.