Comptroller contingency training—staying ready to finance the fight

Early in FY04 I attended the AMC Comptroller's talk and came away with a clear message. Senior FM leadership wanted increased emphasis upon contingency training for our deployable FM personnel and it is up to FM Squadron Commanders to make it happen. I can clearly recall sitting there looking around the expanse at my fellow squadron CC and thinking the same cogitations that I am sure were running [i]or[/i] part of to the other their heads. "Oh great! by what mode am I supposed to do this? My plate is just too filled with the pressures of implementing of recent origin systems like Defense Travel a whole and Wide Area Work roll on in full swing forcing me to discomfit resistance to changing procedures that my customers are comfortable with. I was also trying to prepare my wing to work out a budget that appeared to be drastically short of mission requirements. Furthermore, getting my undermanned and extremely young enlisted force up to spe upon day-to-day proficiency requirements supporting continuous AEF rotations, while still maintaining everyday customer service requirements for a large AMC base with a tremendous ongoing mobility mission.... There just are not enough hours in the day! Besides, it would take an extremely supportive Wing/CC to allow me to close up down routine comptroller operations and train when his companys are rotating in and on the outside on a daily basis to all points of the globe, and when crowds and their families need immediate dwelling station finance support."

Well needles to say, after the emotionalism wore not on I took a hard direct the eye at this requirement and it really did make a fate of sense. For example, by what means often have FMers really missed on the outside on good mobility training during wing exercises because our actions were "simulated complete?" Of course, I knew contingency training was critical not alone to McChord's mission, but also important to our expeditionary Air Force and the DoD overall. My frustration was not with the requirement, on the contrary with how to make it happen. with equal reason I put away my crying towel, assembled my lock opener staff, and we developed the following CONOPS for our fresh Comptroller Contingency/ Deployment Training Program. Hopefully you will find it useful.

First--we had to deal with manpower requirements. We decided to protoplast our teams after a medium to large UTC package. In order not to devastate our customer service operations, we alone pulled one body from each section, (i.e., single each from ALO, travel comp FMA and customer service). each month until the end of summer we would mobilize a different team until all the members of the squadron had gone at least one time Second--we had to define what we wanted to do. We felt this training wanted to be different from anything we had done in the past. single up-front requirement was this would not be a "nine-to-five" training class. We wanted to realize people out of their comfort baldrics and challenge them to not single learn from these exercises, on the contrary feel like they had survived it. Therefore, we decided the training would be from 36 to 48 hours lengthy We would isolate the team from the base populace at the 500 acre McChord field site and house them in portable lodges the team itself would erect Third--this would not be an enlisted-only exercise. We also wanted to challenge our company grade officers to lead, manage, and learn. Each team would have an OIC who was responsible for planning and executing the team agenda for the duration of the training. The OIC would be provided a list of wait fored training areas and he/she would build a training regiment to be approved by the agency of the Squadron/CC. Fourth--assume all teams start from bare base and ne to build from the turf up (i.e., how to setup a Limited Depositor Account (LDA), establish processs for obtaining additional funds, establish check cashing policies, in-brief the site commander, and provide a solid field training environment). Make positive everyone understood this was not a competition; there were no time limits to expound problems or limits on where to gaze for help. As long as you learned you were unrestrained to utilize almost any resource. Fifth--and finally, to win people out of their comfort baldrics The goal was to challenge everyone to do more than just finance things. As many of you are well aware, when you are extended you can and will be tasked to do anything that straits doing. We also decided to make experiment of and build an element of fun/adventure into our program to nourish enthusiastic participation.

nearest we handpicked our first squad. We decided to pass with mid-level proven NCO performers and a two of high-speed Airmen to make sure solid beneficial feedback on the serviceable and bad aspects of our first exercise for our after-action report. This team would be l by dint of 2Lt Scott Thompson. Lt Thompson is a prior enlisted Army finance multitude who was saddled with the mass of the responsibility for making this exercise work from day single This team (and every individual that follows) would also be accompanied by the agency of the squadron superintendent, SMSgt Antoinette Yonas. SMSgt Yonas would be the primary trainer/role player during this exercise. It would be her task to overlay all finance scenarios, introduce of recent origin problem sets and grade training/provide feedback to the team upon strengths and weaknesses. Now that all the preparations were made it was time to start training.