480th ISR wins Gen. George C. Kenney 'lessons learned' award

  • Published
  • By Marge McGlinn
  • 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. --   The commander of the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing announced that the wing's Sentinel Focus Project Team was named June 18 as the winner of the Gen. George C. Kenney Air Force Lessons Learned Award.

"This is a great honor for the Airmen in the 480th ISR Wing and a testament to their drive towards leveraging lessons learned for continuous improvement while performing at a high operational tempo," said Col. Daniel R. Johnson, commander of the 480th ISR Wing. "Because of our unique mission, we cannot completely stop to examine the good, the bad and the ugly."

Colonel Johnson also stated that Sentinel Focus is unique because it gives wing Airmen an opportunity to continue the fight and review their internal reporting and external collaboration in a regionally focused and globally networked enterprise.

The award recognizes the most notable contribution to the Air Force mission in a given year through any aspect of the lessons learned process and is named after George C. Kenney, a Air Forces general during World War II. General Kenney was commander of the allied air forces in the Southwest Pacific area from August 1942 until 1945.

"General Kenney is a legend, and to be associated with his name is a high water mark for the 480th ISR Wing," said Colonel Johnson. "During his long and illustrious career, he was known for ensuring new and valuable aviation techniques were consistently integrated into the air service."

General Kenney understood the merit of working with allies and partners in an effort to stay several moves ahead of any threat, Colonel Johnson said.

"He wrote the blueprint for lessons learned all of us strive to build upon today," said Colonel Johnson.

The bi-annual, week-long Sentinel Focus event began August 2009 and provided the wing the opportunity to observe internal processes and procedures of Air Force Distributed Common Ground System intelligence weapon. The Sentinel Focus project team identified 150 lessons learned, including a doctrinal shift in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance employment.

This shift created higher confidence reporting and directly improved the wing's ability to support warfighters in Afghanistan.

"Attaining higher confidence reporting is not an easy task," noted Kevin Pease, the 480th ISR Wing's acting director of operations. "We understood from the onset that if the wing and Air Force DCGS wants to remain successful we cannot rest on our laurels."

According to Mr. Pease, the wing's priority is to find better ways to collaborate with the joint community, their sister services, coalition partners and combat support agencies.

"Sentinel Focus has proven to be a very successful mechanism for ensuring we do not lose the bubble on the ISR priorities in the ... fight, indications and warning, and humanitarian operations," added Mr. Pease.

The award is jointly sponsored by the Air Force Association and headquarters Air Force Studies and Analysis, Assessments and Lessons Learned.

The next Sentinel Focus takes place in August. Sentinel Focus takes place around the world in every theater of operations, primarily to glean insight into ways to improve intelligence support to the warfighter.