Hurlburt Maintenance Squadrons win 2015 MEA

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Krystal M. Garrett
  • 1st Special Operations Wing Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  Air Commandos here work alongside two, award-winning maintenance squadrons.

The 801st Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and 1st Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance Squadron are winners of the 2015 Air Force Maintenance Effectiveness Award.

The Air Force MEA recognizes maintenance units who have effectively managed resources in three separate areas: mission accomplishment, innovative and effective use of maintenance resources, and personnel quality of life programs. The award is the highest level of squadron recognition in the Air Force aircraft maintenance career field. It recognizes the unit that has best met the objective of providing safe, serviceable and available equipment for sustained use during peacetime and wartime.

The 801st SOAMXS won the MEA for a small aircraft maintenance unit, which consists of 25-300 authorized personnel.

“Winning this award shows that the squadron’s hard work is being noticed,” said Maj. Matthew Baber, operations officer with the 801st SOAMXS.

The 801st supports the 8th Special Operations Squadron, combatant commanders, operational and developmental testing, and special operations forces.

“We are a busy unit,” Baber said. “We support many agencies, and I believe that’s what makes us stand out.”

The 1st SOAMXS won the MEA for a medium sized aircraft maintenance unit.

The medium sized aircraft maintenance unit category is for squadrons with 301-999 authorized personnel.

“Winning this award validates our standing as a professional maintenance team,” said Chief Master Sgt. Patrick Faulkner, superintendent with the 1st SOAMXS. “It shows that we are capable of projecting combat airpower to multiple combatant commanders, while juggling the home station demands of keeping our special operations aircrew combat trained and ready.”

Faulkner stated that the members of the unit have consistently provided safe, reliable and effective combat airpower to meet special operations taskings “anytime, anyplace,” while staying true to Air Force Special Operations Command priorities.

“It is an honor to be recognized as one of the best maintenance units in the United States Air Force considering the number of high-caliber maintenance organizations around the world that are doing similar missions day-in and day-out,” said Lt. Col. Lance Myerson, the commander of the 1st SOAMXS. “As the commander, I instill in my Airmen and officers the moto ‘strive for perfection and settle for excellence.’ It is good to see we are being rewarded for this attitude within the unit.”

As the only Air Force unit in the world maintaining the AC-130U Spooky gunship, the 1st SOAMXS provides combat ready forces around the world by continuously supporting two contingency operating locations, generating 626 combat missions which neutralized 1,281 enemy combatants in 2015.

After winning the MEA, a squadron is then nominated to compete with all services for the Phoenix Award, the Department of Defense highest maintenance award.