Nobody rocks until comm rolls

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Tori Schultz
  • 6th Air Mobility Wing public affairs
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE Fla. --  On a daily basis the U.S. Air Force uses lines of communication to do their daily tasks. When email stops working or access is needed to certain drives, communication focal point controllers are there to save the day.

Being a CFP can be challenging because they have to meet the expectations of every branch of service and all the combatant commands on MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

"As a CFP member your job is to stay by the phones and monitor jobs," said Senior Airman Jessica Hilderbrand, 6th Communications Squadron CFP controller. "We provide a clear line of communication for all work centers to include individual back shops and other career field shops."

A CFP controller manages tickets and work orders for four work centers, along with scheduling authorized service interruptions and overseeing high priority jobs for satellite communications and airfield systems. Preventative maintenance inspections for over eight work centers are also the responsibility of a CFP controller.

"We are in charge of reporting high priorities up to our higher leadership and more importantly to the entire base," said Hilderbrand. "The base has to be notified with any communication outages or intermittence the network may have."

In addition to being a controller, they are technicians as well. They separate the technicians that actually go out from the CFPs. CFP is an 18-month rotation and once completed you return as a technician.

"As a CFP controller, we are the center point of maintenance and job control for 6th CS," said Hilderbrand. "Nobody rocks until comm rolls...we are wired up, fired up!"

The U.S. Air Force uses lines of communication daily to complete the mission. CFP controllers ensure the communication flow continues without interruption, which allows Airmen to accomplish duties efficiently. Without these mission essential personnel, Team MacDill would not function effectively.