World’s Premier Airlift Wing Published Oct. 9, 2018 By Staff Sgt. Aaron J. Jenne 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- Eagle Wing leaders recently announced the new wing mission, vision and priorities. “There is too much going on, and everything appears to be a priority,” said Col. Joel Safranek, 436th Airlift Wing commander. “Our mission, vision and priorities should give us clarity and allow us to remain focused on what is important amongst all the distractions and noise.” The new mission, vision and priorities are: Mission: Provide Rapid Global Airlift, combat ready Airmen, and Unrivaled Installation Support Vision: World’s Premier Airlift Wing Priorities: Execute Wing’s Global Airlift Mission, Develop Airmen and Care for Families, Enhance Partnerships through Trust, Provide World-Class Installation Support, Prepare Airmen for Contested Environments The mission statement is intended to be a formal summary of the Eagle Wing’s aims and values. The vision is intended to quantify how the Eagle Wing will perform the mission. The new mission, vision and priorities were solidified by leaders of the 436th AW when they met for an offsite at Delaware Technical Community College Sept. 13-14. Offsite participants broke up into three groups to create their own mission, vision and priorities for the wing. Upon completion, the groups came together to discuss their contributions and forge one unified statement. Although revitalizing the mission, vision, and priorities was one of the primary objectives, during the offsite the leaders also discussed several key issues affecting Airmen and the future of the Eagle Wing. These included implementation of a wing strategic calendar, evaluation of the wing additional duties, local expectations on Operational Camouflage Pattern uniform wear, and development of a two- and five-year plan. The event allowed commanders and superintendents an opportunity to get away from the daily distractions at work and examine wing issues. “At the offsite all wing leaders thought through challenges together and a way forward,” said Safranek. “It gave all a chance to hear and be involved in the discussion. With many new commanders, it’s extremely important to all be on the same sheet of music.” The group discussed the implementation of the Team Dover Strategic Calendar, which projects events up to two years out. The calendar is intended to de-conflict schedules to allow for flexibility of change for coinciding base events. Leadership intends to use this calendar to identify potential redundancies and saturated workload. The group also discussed wing-wide additional duties with the hopes of mitigating the mission impact. Many duties were considered for consolidation at the group level or above in order to minimize the total number of personnel performing them. Some education- and training-based additional duties were considered for contracting to outside agencies. The meeting also devoted some time to discussing implementation of OCP wear at the wing since wear was authorized starting Oct. 1 according to Air Force Instruction 36-2903, Dress and Personal Appearance of Air Force Personnel. Above all else, it was highly emphasized that purchase of the OCP uniform should be done through an Army and Air Force Exchange Service approved vendor, and Airmen are discouraged from buying uniform items online. Dover AFB personnel can expect most squadron patches to be approved near the end of 2019. Safranek said the offsite meeting was very successful, but it’s just a starting point. “We are running a marathon and the offsite was the starting gate,” Safranek said. “We have a lot more work ahead of us at converting words to action and results. The big takeaways are: we now have an agreed upon mission, vision and priorities; we have heard our Airmen and their need for more time to do their primary jobs and we understand some are just moving from one event to the next. We understand the challenges and have made the initial steps to ease those challenges.” The next 436th AW Leadership Offsite is tentatively scheduled for May 2019.