Photo By Timothy Sandland | U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Benjamin Dutting, a cable and antenna technician with the...... read more read more
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The 212th Engineering Installation Squadron (EIS) completed a critical infrastructure upgrade at Otis ANGB, August 4-8, 2025. The 212th EIS is one of the many units within the 102nd Intelligence Wing that directly contribute to the mission of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).
The engineering and installation (E&I) unit’s most recent project involved improving capability of the wing’s communications-intensive ISR mission. 212th EIS Airmen were put to task, improving redundancy for existing communications pathways.
“It's nice to support the wing that we're a part of,” said Maj. Thomas Bigelow, commander of the 212th EIS. “We're enhancing the capabilities they have to provide quality cyber networking to every user on the base.”
Installing additional paths requires splicing of fiber optic cable and running these new lines through existing conduits around the base.
“The goal is to enhance the infrastructure and network capabilities for the ISR mission. With the fiber that we're putting in, they're able to conduct their missions more efficiently,” said Chief Joel Martinath, project manager and senior enlisted leader of the 212th EIS.
E&I units are primarily a product of the Air National Guard. With 15 squadrons in the ANG and only the second, being stood up in the regular Air Force, these types of units are rare across the Department of Defense (DoD). According to Chief Martinath, the other service branches don’t have anything similar.
“In terms of the other branches, the Air Force is the only entity that has E&I. We not only help the missions of the Air Force, but we've deployed with the Army, and we are over in the Pacific region with various DoD agencies, expanding their network capabilities,” said Chief Martinath. “That's what makes E&I unique. There are 15 ANG and two active duty squadrons across the world supporting the DoD.”
Above and beyond the impact to the mission, the project also provided value in the training arena. ANG units perform real-world missions while training Airmen, ensuring mission readiness and developing skilled personnel simultaneously.
“Projects like this provide our Airmen real world valuable training on their skill sets,” said Maj. Bigelow. “When they deploy to different locations – expeditionary locations across the globe, they've built up these skill sets to be able to quickly and rapidly perform these types of installations, and more importantly, rapid restore and repair actions to get the warfighter back up and running and get them cyber capabilities as quick as possible.”
Providing on-site supervision of the project, Tech. Sgt. Patrick Berube, team chief, spoke about the importance of his team and their impact on the mission.
“It exposes the Airman to pulling the cable, splicing the cable and installing the cable in the communications spaces, following the proper procedures in a real time environment,” said Berube. “All the people that I've been working with have been doing a really, really good job making sure that we're getting to the right milestones in the project.”
The training didn’t stop at running fiber optic cable. Berube was also being evaluated for a special qualification.
“He's earning a special experience identifier (SEI) code, as a team chief, so he can go out in the future as a team lead. He's being evaluated by a quality assurance member,” said Chief Martinath. “That's a great opportunity for him as well as all the other workload and training that was done.”
Airmen of the 212th EIS are incredibly proud of the important work they do, and their commander is their biggest supporter.
“I am extremely proud of the work our Airmen do both at home station here and in the deployed locations,” Maj. Bigelow said. “I'm extremely fortunate to be able to lead such a quality organization to do these kinds of projects and support the warfighter.”
Warfighters, like those within the 102nd Intelligence Wing, are at the forefront of signals and all-source intelligence analysis and the work done here provides critical support to combatant commanders, globally, by tackling analytical lines of effort and enabling intelligence analysis in the cyber domain.
The efforts of organizations such as the 212th EIS, enable the mission to be executed, efficiently and effectively. This hard work contributes to the 102nd Intelligence Wing’s goal of being a fully capable and mission-ready organization, prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
| Date Taken: | 08.12.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.12.2025 06:56 |
| Story ID: | 545387 |
| Location: | MASSACHUSETTS, US |
| Web Views: | 43 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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