STRATTON Air National Guard Base, Scotia, N.Y.— The 109th Airlift Wing’s Emergency Management Flight has been named the best in the Air National Guard.
Air Force emergency management personnel are trained to conduct response and recovery missions following a natural or man made disaster on their base or anywhere around the world. They are also responsible for training other Airmen in dealing with disaster situations.
Emergency managers are also experts in all aspects of training people how to survive in a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear environment.
The 109th Airlift Wing’s seven emergency managers were recognized for training more than 1,100 New York Air National Guard members from two different units, and for rewriting the curriculum the Air Force uses to train emergency managers throughout the Air Force during 2018.
The unit was awarded the Colonel Frederick J. Reimer Award, which recognizes the best emergency manager flight in the Air National Guard.
“Other units came to us for training because they noticed what we were doing how quickly and efficiently we were training people, explained Master Sgt. Devin Reilly, one of the emergency management specialists.
In addition, to training fellow Airmen, the emergency management flight conducted training with local civilian entities.
They also conducted hazardous materials training for five Air National Guard EM Flights, the New York State Police and fire departments in Federal Emergency Management Region 2, which includes New York and New Jersey.
“A part of our job as emergency managers is to build relationships with local first responders; so we invited them to train with us so we could learn about what we each do. If you don’t go out into the community and showcase your abilities, they would never know we are here. Now we can begin to build mutual aid agreements,” Reilly said.
“It’s great because we to train people on how to survive and then when something does happen in a real world contingency, we are there to mitigate the situation and save lives,” said Senior Master Sgt. Greg Mihalko, the wing Emergency Management Superintendent.
The 109th Airlift Wing, based at Stratton Air National Guard Base near Schenectady, N.Y. operates the LC-130 “Skibird” version of the Hercules transport plane. The LC-130 is the largest ski-equipped aircraft in the world.
The wing supplies National Science Foundation research stations in the Antarctic and on the Greenland ice cap each year.