Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Instructors Teach 177th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Hunter Hires
  • 177th Fighter Wing

A team of Active Duty U.S. Air Force instructors from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst came to the 177th Fighter Wing to teach a wide variety of lessons to members of the 177th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (AMXS) from August fourth to August eighth.

The class is a conglomeration of lessons and protocols that the Active Duty service members use. The class includes important lessons on personnel scheduling, training, special programs, analysis, techniques, aircraft maintenance management, duties and responsibilities, quality assurance, total force, manpower, aircraft forms documentation, safety and emergency response.        

 “This class is an AFI requirement, and to my knowledge we haven’t had that training,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Brian T. Cooper, 177th AMXS Commander. “That’s the surface of why it’s important. The real reason is that the people taking the class aren’t just in supervisor positions; they’re flight chiefs, personnel from back shops and a few other positions from the flight line. Getting that experience outside your wheelhouse really gets you a better appreciation and understanding of what ‘this’ shop’s job does and what ‘that’ shop’s job does, as to better work together.”

Working together has been a very common theme in relevance to this class. The team of instructors consists of MSgt. Maria Carlson, MSgt. Jeremy Lewis, MSgt. Martin Noel and the senior instructor, SMSgt. Dean Couch. They are all members of the 423rd Maintenance Training Squadron at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

“We love coming here,” said Couch. “We’ve been trying to come here since we started the course, because the 177th Fighter Wing is the sixth course we’ve ever taught, and the first mobile course we’ve ever taught. Here, we can see how you operate and be able to learn from you, because you’ve all been doing things really well for a lot of years. Learning how you do things and tailoring it down so that we can teach you how Active Duty does it is a way to bridge the gap between Active Duty and the Guard, and see each other from both sides of the fence.”

These classes aren’t just showing Airmen how the job can be done, but inspiring them to ask how the job can be done better.

“Equipping people with the knowledge and resources that we need to use every day when we’re managing our fleets is really important,” said Carlson. “I also think we offer a collaboration; a collaborative environment where we can learn from each other’s experiences and we could really discuss what should be done versus what is being done,” said Carlson.

However, the 177th Fighter Wing is not the only group of service members benefiting from the teachings of this class. The instructor team from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst have also had their eyes opened, traveling to educate for the first time.