Staying Strong: Making community investments that matter

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Matthew Orlowsky
  • 436th Force Support Squadron commander
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Just days before Thanksgiving, we must take a moment to count ourselves fortunate to be part of an organization that stakes integrity as its seminal value.

Integrity, to me, is defined as living out one's values. That's important in today's world of competing priorities and often scarce resources. Through this brief article, I hope to provoke your thoughtful feedback, in order to make wise investments in line with our values for the long term benefit of the Dover Air Force Base community.

The last time, I had the privilege to share some thoughts with you, I spoke about striking a meaningful, active balance among priorities personally. Here's the link if you missed it: http://www.dover.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123337823. The Air Force tries to do the same for its scarce resources as we strike the delicate balance between people and mission.

As the Air Force and more specifically, Dover Air Force Base tries to invest in what's important to us, we take stock of what we have and what we are trying to become. Our leaders reemphasized a number of priorities when the sequester budget took hold as part of this process. One top priority will never change; taking care of our Airmen and their families. To this end we will always work to tailor activity options to our installation needs, while ensuring they are accessible and affordable.

Among our fiscal options are our non-appropriated funds or NAFs that are generated in local activities like Mulligans, Outdoor Recreation, the Aero Club, the Golf Course, the Bowling Center or Arts and Crafts Center, just to name a few.

Dover Air Force Base is fortunate to be blessed with a healthy Morale, Welfare and Recreation fund. That fund is well positioned to make a smart investment that drives a return to the community. The decision making body for those investments is the NAF council led by Col. Randall Huiss, 436th Airlift Wing vice commander, the group commanders, a squadron commander representative in Lt Col Scott Bryant, 436th Civil Engineer Squadron commander, Chief Master Sgt. James Smith, 436th AW command chief, and a first sergeant representative in MSgt Amy Perez, 436th CES first sergeant.

To help this 'board of directors' and our squadron invest wisely, I invite your feedback with comments to this article, thoughts for our quarterly NAF council members, ideas for our marketing department directly (677-6372) or with participation in our "Man on the Street" surveys or through our professional councils such as ACE, 5-6 Board, Top 3, AFSA, Chief's Group or the CGO council.

Most recently we've invested in with trips for single Airmen to Ocean City to invest in your relationships with each other. We're considering a mini golf course, an RV lot expansion and go-carts with funds that we generate.

We'd love to know what you want and need; we'll do our part to make your ideas a reality so we all benefit. In the meantime, invest some time in yourself, your family or your unit at your 436th Force Support Squadron activities and we'll invest the funds in you, our military and civilian Airmen and our community.