Wing leaders meet for strategic alignment

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Marnee A.C. Losurdo
  • 403rd Wing Public Affairs

Senior leaders from all the 403rd Wing units met in Mobile, Alabama, June 7-9 to participate in a strategic alignment event where they revised the wing’s mission and vision statements, as well as its priorities over the coming years. 

“The intent of a strategic alignment for an organization is to allow members of the organization to collaborate towards common goals for the unit to ensure we are all working towards the same end result, and that the Wing is aligned with the mission, vision and priorities of 22nd Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command and the Air Force,” said Stacey Huffman, the wing’s Continuous Process Improvement program manager and facilitator for the event.

Leaders focused on the four Major Graded Areas in Air Force Instruction 90-201, The Air Force Inspection System. They are: Managing Resources, Leading People, Improving the Unit and Executing the Mission. The approximately 30 attendees included the wing commander, vice-commander, command chief, group and squadron commanders, group superintendents, first sergeants and personnel from staff offices.

“This event allowed members at different levels to have a voice in the process of creating goals that will be the focus of the Wing for the next one to three years,” said Col. Stuart M. Rubio, 403rd Wing commander. “These goals give us a clear picture of what we must do to further solidify the 403rd as the Wing of Choice. And, now that we’ve set the goals, we will call upon the rest of the wing to work together to achieve them.”

Lt. Col. Costau Bastien, 403rd Force Support Squadron commander, said he found great value in attending the strategic alignment.

“It was an opportunity to meet in a location together where we could understand the dynamics of the challenges that we have in our units and throughout the wing,” he said. “Having various organizations get together to attack these problems provided us with the ability to cross pollinate ideas, and hear and learn from each other, which puts us in a better position to be able to address some of these issues.”

Bastien, and other leaders, not only revised the wing’s vision and mission statements, but also broke out into groups to identify priorities within the MGAs and develop goals and objectives that support those priorities.

The Wing’s Mission Statement is, “Provide Mission-Ready Airmen to execute diverse C-130J and Combat Support Operations”

The Vision Statement is, “Wing of Choice—Agile, Innovative, Disciplined”

And the priorities are:
-Prepare and Equip Mission-Ready Airmen
-Develop and Retain Resilient Airmen
-Create a Compliant, Disciplined, and Lean Organization

According to Huffman, the most important aspect of completing a strategic alignment is the execution phase.

“The next step for leadership is to ensure that all the effort put into creating priorities and goals for the wing are communicated effectively to wing members so they understand where they fit into this plan and how they can implement these goals and objectives to make the wing a more efficient and productive workplace,” she said.