AF officials name productivity, innovator award winners Published June 28, 2012 Air Force Personnel Center Public Affairs JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO - RANDOLPH, Texas -- Air Force officials have selected four winners for its productivity and exceptional innovator awards. These awards recognize individuals or groups that create resource-saving improvements for the Air Force. The Air Force Productivity Excellence Award recognizes individuals and small groups of military members and civilians who have made substantial improvements to the quality and productivity of various Air Force operations through suggestions, special acts or other management initiatives that resulted in savings of at least $1 million. A panel of senior officers selected three winners out of 10 nominations. The calendar year 2011 winners are: Tech. Sgt. Brian Chester, Staff Sgt. Berlin Aniciete, Brian Adams and Sheldon Sukut from the 752nd Operations Support Squadron from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., improved mobility and deployment capabilities for Combat Air Forces control and reporting centers. Their team reduced equipment requirements for deployments by 54 percent, saving the Air Force about $18.4 million. They also cut airlift requirements from 65 to 30 C-17s and eliminated excess and obsolete equipment from their inventories, saving the service $72.6 million. Overall, the team's efforts generated a combined savings of more than $94.5 million while sustaining the same level of battle management and command and control capabilities to combatant commanders. Capt. Andrew Lueckenhoff, Capt. Adam Travis, Tech. Sgt. Chad Turner and Staff Sgt. Marcus Barnes from the 97th Operations Support Squadron at Altus AFB, Okla., implemented innovative ideas to save the Air Force more than $75.2 million dollars over the last three years. They designed a self-contained schedule eliminating inefficiencies in air refueling to save the Air Force about $14.2 million annually. Their use of the Flying Hour Checkbook allowed the Air Education and Training Command to increase throughput of C-17 student training by 12 percent over the last 3 years. Their team saved $24.7 million in fiscal year 2009 by identifying an 11 percent excess in KC-135 flying hours. In 2011, their flight revamped the standard schedule to accommodate the Assault Landing Zone closure, saving over $5.2 million in just one month. Maj. Walter Winter, William Walter, Richard Smith and Paul Brousseau from Air Force Special Operations Command's Plans, Programs, Requirements and Assessments Directorate at Hurlburt Field, Fla., Their team devised an innovative solution to a 40mm gun shortage for the AC-130 Gunship program. Currently, there are no manufacturers for this system and AFSOC is the sole remaining user of the M2A1 40mm gun. The traditional acquisition process would have been very costly and time consuming to qualify a new gun and manufacturer for such a small quantity of a unique weapon. Defying convention, they reclaimed five existing 40mm guns from test and training ranges at Nellis AFB, Nev. Five guns were successfully reclaimed and delivered to the warfighter in less than six months, saving the Air Force more than $8.3 million. The Air Force Exceptional Innovator Award recognizes outstanding Air Force innovators who contributed to continual performance improvement through the Air Force Innovative Development through Employee Awareness Program, commonly known as the IDEA program. One individual was selected for the award out of seven nominations. Master Sgt. Kurt Hollensteiner from the 437th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Joint Base Charleston, S.C., implemented fault code changes to a troubleshooting technical order, which directly impacts the entire C-17 fleet by allowing Air Force locations to correctly diagnose and repair aircraft. His improvements saved $144,000, which is the cost of two parts previously required to be changed unnecessarily. His change directly allowed for the minimum total repair savings of $720,000 locally and more savings across the Air Force's C-17 community worldwide. Military award winners are authorized to wear the Air Force Recognition Ribbon and civilian award winners are authorized to wear the Air Force Lapel Pin. For general information about Air Force awards and other personnel services and programs, visit the myPers website at https://mypers.af.mil.