Training 'frenzy' deemed success

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jason Schaap
  • 931st Air Refueling Group Public Affairs
MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. --  The "frenzy" is finished, for now.

A five-day training blitz aimed at freeing up Airmen's future drill weekends came to end Monday. Overall, the first-of-its-kind event went very well, Senior Master Sgt. Tammy Askren said. So well, members of the 931st Air Refueling Group can expect another in about six months.

"Col. Frye's intent is to make this available twice a year," Sergeant Askren said, referring to the commander of the 931st, Col. Edsel A. "Archie" Frye Jr.

Sergeant Askren is a program analyst and the senior full-time member of the 931st Civil Engineer Squadron. She had long been frustrated by the mountain of ancillary requirements that compete with Reservists' primary duties when Colonel Frye expressed his want for a mass training opportunity soon after he took over the 931st in 2008.

Sergeant Askren volunteered to lead the team that organized what she came to call the "training frenzy."

"I wanted my people back to turning wrenches," she said.

Though there was no official "bean count" yet, Sergeant Askren said, participation during Friday's training events seemed especially high. Enough sign-in rosters were filled-up that day "to choke a horse."

Col. Frye, known for avoiding rhetoric in e-mails to his Airmen, expressed his satisfaction in a message Friday.

"I'm tearing up over all the accomplishments and the outstanding work of (Sergeant) Askren and her team of enlisted leaders that put this all together," he wrote.

Other 931st leaders seemed "pretty happy" with the frenzy too, Sergeant Askren said. Lt. Col. Sam Schofield, 931st inspector general, told her that it was "one of the best training events" he had seen during his long tenure with the 931st.

Feedback from across the ranks appeared positive as well. Her own Airmen, as civil engineers, "are pretty skeptical anyway," she joked. So their endorsement was yet another good sign the mass training approach will work.

The team that put the frenzy together, with a "belly button (representing) every part of the 931st," was scheduled to meet a few days after it ended to talk about what parts of it did and did not work, Sergeant Askren said. Changes will be incorporated as needed for future frenzies.