USAFE Airmen met to optimize FTAC programs

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Tammie Moore
  • 52nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany --  The 52nd Fighter Wing hosted the first U.S. Air Forces in Europe Career Assistance Advisor and First Term Airman Center conference to examine FTAC programs throughout the command Nov. 16-17.

"Our primary focus was to standardize and optimize the USAFE FTAC program using a three-step approach," said Master Sgt. Thomas Hartswick, 52nd FW CAA. "The first step was to identify and incorporate the 32-hour Air Force mandatory curriculum items. The second step was to identify and recommend additional USAFE mandatory FTAC curriculum items. Finally, we worked to identify wing specific FTAC curriculum items for benchmark purposes."

The conference brought together 15 FTEC instructors and CAAs all with different experiences with for an opportunity to sit down face-to-face and discuss their programs and concerns.

"All the CAA's and FTAC NCOICs knew we needed to make this happen, so everyone wanted to lay it out on the table and get it done," Sergeant Hartswick said. "CAA's and FTAC NCOICs are proud of their respective programs, so there was a lot of heated discussion. When it was all said and done, we accomplished our goal, and everyone was on board and glad to make changes happen."

Discussing personal lessons learned played a big role during the conference.
"We were able to share and benchmark ideas and programs from each another," Sergeant Hartswick said. "This is great because we can use each other's experience to make our programs stronger and help one another come up with solutions to problems we may have encountered at our particular base.

"What we learned from each other affects everyone we serve as career advisors and FTAC NCOICs," Sergeant Hartswick said. "We are entrusted with every level of the enlisted force in our wings. We lay the foundation for Airmen in FTAC, we promote the professional development for our NCOs through NCO Professional Enhancement Course, because they are the backbone of our Air Force, and we set our master sergeant-selects up for success through the SNCO Professional Enhancement Course. That's a lot of responsibility for two people in each wing, so it's imperative we share information with one another."

Coordinating a conference of this scale in approximately two months was a bit challenging, so Sergeant Hartswick relied on the assistance of Chief Master Sgt. Vance Clarke, 52nd Fighter Wing command chief.

"We wanted to get everyone together and make this happen before the New Year," he said. "Chief Clarke and I had to hash out a viable agenda that would help us accomplish our goal. Chief Clarke also had to get buy-in at USAFE, and then coordinate with all the command chiefs in USAFE for them to support sending their CAAs and FTAC NCOICs to this conference."

Chief Master Sgt. Martin Klukas, 3rd Air Force command chief, and Chief Clarke spoke at the conference.

"Chief Klukas wanted all the conference attendees to know that we were empowered to come up with the best FTAC program for USAFE, and we will make a difference for first term Airmen," Sergeant Hartswick said. "He stressed the importance of identifying curriculum that would be best for the Airmen, and to keep an open mind and listen to all ideas to make this happen."

After coming to a consensus, the group is recommending seven USAFE-mandatory items in addition to the Air Force 32-hour FTAC schedule. To continue moving forward with the progress made at this conference, the ground work has been made to make this an annual event.

"We've agreed to host it at a different base each year, providing we get USAFE approval," Sergeant Hartswick said. "This year was FTAC focused, but we are looking to hold a longer conference next year and break out into CAAs and FTAC NCOICs for each group to discuss their respective issues. Being overseas poses challenges our stateside counterparts don't have to worry about. We need to continue having an annual conference if we want to meet these challenges to prepare not only our FTAC Airmen, but our NCOs and SNCOs, too."