McChord welcomes NSI team: Participating squadrons on base ready to shine during inspection

  • Published
  • By Tyler Hemstreet
  • 62nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs
Base officials will welcome members of the Air Mobility Command Inspector General team Tuesday as they arrive to conduct McChord's Nuclear Surety Inspection. 

The 25-person team will focus on three major graded areas throughout the four-day inspection: nuclear surety program management and administration, the personnel reliability program and logistics movement, said nuclear surety manager Tom Thompson, 62nd Airlift Wing safety. 

The nuclear surety program management and administration area will look at the wing leadership's involvement in the program; the PRP area will focus on the 4th Airlift Squadron, the 62nd Medical Group and the 62nd Mission Support Group; and the logistics movement area will touch on the 4th AS' ability to conduct the missions and the 62nd Maintenance Group's role in preparing the airplanes, Mr. Thompson said. 

Each area will receive a separate grade -- outstanding, excellent, satisfactory, marginal or unsatisfactory -- which will contribute to the wing's overall grade of pass or fail, he said. 

"We're expecting an outstanding grade in all of the three areas," Mr. Thompson said. 

That expectation to do well during the inspection is partially due to the fact that wing leadership takes an active role in everything, he said.
 
"It keeps the level of awareness high," Mr. Thompson said. "The wing commander is extremely involved and is constantly interested in seeing how the program is doing." 

During a nuclear surety assistance visit in October, Mr. Thompson said the visiting team gave the program a couple of areas to look at in order to tune up for the NSI. 

The NSAV visit also helped the 62nd MSG prepare for the inspection. 

All of the 46 Airmen on PRP have records that are up to date and ready to go, said Staff Sgt. Tia Jenkins, 62nd MSS. 

"The NSAV helped us by reinforcing that the procedures we already have in place are sound," she said. 

One of the things Sergeant Jenkins said has improved because of the NSAV was the communication flow between the 62nd MSS, the 62nd MDG and the 4th AS. 

"If anything happens over at the 4th AS or the 62nd MDG, then we know about it," Sergeant Jenkins said. 

She said she hopes this improved communication will lead to a strong rating during the inspection. "We're all expecting an outstanding rating." 

The information the 4th AS learned during the NSAV was also invaluable, said Capt. Brent Robbins. 

"We treated the NSAV just like the NSI," he said. "Perfection is always our goal, but we're always looking for more ways to improve and be more efficient." 

By tweaking the little things within the squadron, Captain Robbins said the 4th AS is ready to shine for NSI inspectors.