6 CS: Keeping MacDill connected while separated

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Ryan Grossklag
  • 6th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

Whether in-person or virtually, staying connected is essential to everyday mission success. As base closures and quarantine have separated many MacDill personnel, we are more reliant than ever on networking capabilities to accomplish daily activities.

In order to ensure all 6th Air Refueling Wing team members are able to access their network avenues, the 6th Communications Squadron works diligently to keep everything up and running.

Airmen of the 6th CS have been split into two teams, Alpha and Bravo, working from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., alternating each week to handle the client service desk for walk-in customers, completing maintenance ticket requests and fix Virtual Private Network issues.

“If our server is down or somebody’s computer isn’t working, then that disables that communication,” said U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Clayton Hester, a 6th CS executive communications specialist. “We have to maintain everything, if not then nobody can get online from home or their office.”

As part of the executive communications team, Hester’s responsibilities include working directly with 6th ARW leadership to ensure commanders can get online, accomplish tasks and reach their Airmen.

“We have a phone that commanders or their executive teams can call with any issues so we can fix whatever issue they may be having,” said Hester. “It’s very important to keep them connected, if the 6th Operations Group commander isn’t able to communicate, that can prevent KC-135s from getting in the air.”

In their day-to-day operations, 6th CS Airmen are adapting to expand their capabilities, which can help provide higher quality communications to 6th ARW team members.

“With bandwidth issues going on with everyone on the computer at the same time, it’s been slow, we have been adding circuits to boost connections throughout all the military,” said Airman 1st Class Jacob Coffman, a 6th CS network integration technician. “We have all of our technicians on standby just in case any circuits go down, we can be there to bring them back up. We are the main source of communications so if we don’t maintain that, then everyone else cannot work.”

There’s a sense of pride and accomplishment that hangs around the 6th CS and Estelle Hall, as the Airmen within carry the weight of all 6th ARW networking capabilities on their shoulders; Hester stated the 6th CS is the busiest it has ever been since the pandemic reaction began.

“We’re still here, it doesn’t matter what is out there, pandemic or war, we are still doing our job,” said Coffman. “I feel pretty good about what I’m doing, even at home if I’m answering calls or troubleshooting trying to get things back up and running, it just feels really important.”

As many MacDill team personnel remain separated from their work centers and colleagues, every member who pulls out their work computer from home and continues their daily operations can thank the 6th CS Airmen who remain at their office, keeping that connection intact.