Friends,
I am writing to wish you and your families the Happiest of Holidays! It is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the shopping “season” and forget the joy that this Season brings. I trust that we will all take a break and reflect on how blessed we all are.
It seems that each year presents a myriad of challenges for us as a Corps and as individuals. This year has been no different. As a Corps, we have had to deal with an ever-worsening manpower situation, which has put extra pressure on you to fill the void, either through manning assistance or just taking up the slack. Further, it has forced constraints on assignments, dictating where you need to go, not necessarily where you want to go, and has temporarily curtailed career-broadening opportunities. I have asked you to analyze your performance on a cost basis and I have put demands on you to justify your positions, not to me, but to your commanders. These are the major exercises and, I know, there have been countless other taskings. In every case, you have stepped up and delivered, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your efforts.
Our national organizations struggle with trying to get the words “audiology” and “speech-language pathology” to be easily recognized. That is a challenge in the DoD as well. However, your efforts this past year have gained us a great deal of recognition at the MTF, MAJCOM, and Air Staff level. As I attend various meetings, your names are often mentioned by others outside our Corps with admiration for the leadership roles you take on – not to mention surprise at what a contribution you make given the size of the Corps. While that recognition does not assure us a foothold in the ever-changing AFMS landscape, it certainly has cast us in a favorable light, and made it difficult for Commanders to disregard the contributions we make and the cost avoidance we assure. Each of you deserves a great deal of credit.
This next year will be no less challenging, and there will probably be just as many taskings, from me, and others. You can count on short suspenses. One of our first missions is to tackle Standards of Care at the MASC. Specifically, we need to look at what we do, how we do it, and how uniform that is across the AF. The Air Staff has made it clear that this is important, so be prepared to discuss your service delivery. I meet routinely with my counterparts, Col Dennis (USA) and CDR Rogers (USN), and most recently, Dr. Lou Beck (DVA) to discuss like issues across the DoD. These questions of delivery of care are “enterprise-wide”, not just AF concerns. Again, there will be discussion at the MASC about this and other issues.
As you are all aware, there has been a nearly complete change of guard at the Air Staff (Col Watkins, our Corps Chief, is the one remaining source of corporate knowledge). Despite that change there is a continued emphasis on re-engineering the AFMS, with customer satisfaction still firmly placed at the top of the Parthenon. That means continuing to provide the best possible care and assure access to your facilities. This may mean creativity on you part, as to how we meet both of these demands. But place yourself as the patient. You expect the same. The new command staff has ushered in some new ideas as well. One very exciting area is the role of the AFMS in Operations Other Than War (OOTW) and Humanitarian Relief Operations (HUMRO). I firmly believe that we have a role in both of these areas, and I have already begun to look into those possibilities. I encourage any of you with any experience in either arena to get in touch with me. If a role can be defined, this will further challenge us as we spell out Standards of Care and mission responsibilities, determine manning requirements, and continue to serve our MTF populations. It will also further secure a spot for our services in uniform in the next millennium.
Before I finish, please join me in welcoming our newest member, Lt Louis Duncan. For those who don’t know, he is filling the speech pathology billet at Wilford Hall. He comes with great credentials and even more enthusiasm. The audiology manpower shortages are also being corrected, as we have accessed two new folks who will appear on the scene starting this spring. Continue to be “recruiters” of talented people, however. If you know of interested parties, please send them my way.
Let me close by once again thanking you for all your excellent work, as well as your resilience and flexibility. I always enjoy hearing from you. I hope to see most of you at the MASC. Have a happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas, a wonderful Kwanzaa, and let’s make this a great New Year/Millennium!
Sincerely,
JOHN R. ALLEN, LtCol, USAF, BSC