UEI Complete -- "EFFECTIVE"

  • Published
  • By Brig Gen Hubie Hegtvedt
  • 442d Fighter Wing Commander
WHITEMAN AFB, Missouri --  CONGRATULATIONS!  Our first Unit Effectiveness Inspection, part of the new Air Force Inspection System, is complete and the Air Force Reserve Command's Inspector General assessed our Wing as "Effective."  The capstone event culminated an outstanding two year effort by our Total Force team.  This quote from the IG's executive summary says it all: "The wing executes every mission with pride and precision, providing mission-ready Airmen to warfighting commanders across the spectrum of Air Force operations." You should all be proud of this achievement, and I want to thank all of you for your hard work, dedication, excellent attitude and unwavering mission focus.  

As you can see, the new inspection system represents a transformational shift in thinking about unit effectiveness, and about the roles and responsibilities of commanders, inspectors and functionals. Constant compliance and continuous improvement are the way of the future!  The old system created an unhealthy reliance on periodic inspections as the primary indicators of unit health.  The unintended consequences included thousands of hours wasted on inspection readiness that contributed little to mission effectiveness.  Fundamentally, the new system enables commanders with a supporting system to find and fix problems locally, and provides the command chain and staff high quality performance data to improve policy and programming. 

I mentioned our overall inspection rating was "EFFECTIVE."  The four major graded areas were assessed as follows: 
1) Managing Resources - "EFFECTIVE"  
2) Leading People - "EFFECTIVE"  
3) Improving the Unit - "EFFECTIVE" 
4) Executing the Mission - "HIGHLY EFFECTIVE" 

In addition to these ratings, we had eight Airmen recognized by the IG team as Superior Performers:  Lt. Col. Cathy Roberts, Maj. Brian Leiter, Capt Christine Gorgas, Senior Master Sgt. Shevaun McRoberts, Master Sgt. Mitch Dorl, Master Sgt. Dan Hatch, Senior Airman Sara Montgomery and Mr. Sid Guidry.  We also had five teams recognized as superior: Reserve Deployment Readiness Cell, Safety, IGI, Aircrew Flight Equipment and Squadron Aviation Resource Management. 

Phenomenal job - congratulations to all!

Our wing is the only fighter wing in AFRC to be rated "HIGHLY EFFECTIVE" in Executing the Mission.  This is remarkable, and yet shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.  We deploy, execute the mission and re-deploy our aircraft, equipment and personnel better than any unit in AFRC.

A culture of compliance... that's what we've worked hard to achieve, and now we must continue to work hard to maintain.  We proved to the IG team that our wing is an awesome warfighting unit, and we fully embrace the new Air Force Inspection System.  Congratulations and thank you for being a tremendous part of our nation's defense!