MCGHEE TYSON AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Tenn. -- With the Great Smoky Mountains within their view, the largest workshop of its kind at the Air National Guard’s training and education center in recent memory gathered Force Support Squadron Airmen from across the nation as a means to present and discuss manpower and personnel.
Around 435 Airmen attended the Air Guard’s FSS Workshop, August 13-17, at the I.G. Brown Training and Education Center in East Tennessee.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lyndy R. Doyle, National Guard Bureau, said that FSS managers from the Air Guard Readiness Center as well as regional career field advisory council representatives addressed current issues and topics from the field for discussion and forums, with at least 86 Air Guard squadrons' commanders, superintendents, training managers, recruiters and NCOs, among others.
The conference confirmed for its organizers that TEC could successfully host larger workshops, officials noted. Lieutenant Colonel Doyle - who is a 1998 Academy of Military Science graduate at TEC - said that the campus served them well.
“We love TEC; it’s beautiful, it’s affordable … it’s an awesome capability,” Lieutenant Colonel Doyle said.
Attendees filled the main room in the Wilson Hall activities building for the general sessions as well as broke into smaller groups inside the Spruance Hall auditorium and the McKinley Hall classrooms.
“It’s all about collaboration,” Lieutenant Colonel Doyle said, adding that their directorate stressed squadrons' networking and working together as a means to generate answers, including the latest information on separations, evaluations, retirements, training, accessions, promotions, decorations, fitness, and a host of other hot topics and issues, managed through FSS at their bases. The workshop closed with a Q-n-A panel of Manpower and Personnel leaders and an award ceremony.