RAF MILDENHALL, England -- Air Commodore Sue Armitage-Maddox, Royal Air Force Air Officer Commanding Directly Administered Units at High Wycombe, visited RAF Mildenhall Feb. 15 to get an overview of the base and to see how the RAF and U.S. Air Force work together. For video coverage click here.

While here, Air Commodore Armitage-Maddox took time to sit down with staff from the Marauder Online. The following is an exerpt from that interview.

Q: What type of support does your organization provide to the U.S. Air Force at RAF Mildenhall?

A: The RAF Base Commander is responsible for MoD business and the support team who supports the MoD civil servants on United States Visiting Forces bases. The Business Support Team provides administrative support and disciplinary support, ensuring our people, predominantly MoD civilians, are looked after correctly in every aspect of their working life. The RAF Base Commander also represents the MoD on base with issues raised by the USVF.

Q: When it comes to supporting U.S. forces at the RAF bases in the United Kingdom, what are some of the most interesting types of issues and unique challenges you and your organization face?

A: One of the biggest challenges we've got in relation to MoD civil servants employed on American bases is ensuring that American line management understands our rules and procedures, which of course, like any service, change as time goes by.

Recently we've had quite a major reorganization with how we manage human resources with the introduction of the people, pay and pensions organization. It's (important to) try and communicate the changes to American line management, because obviously it's difficult for them to understand as they are new to our procedures and are not aware of what changes we've brought about.

One of the big challenges is making sure we communicate these changes and that they are understood, and how they then translate into managing the people on the ground.

Q: What do you think is a good example of our overall allied partnership at work?

A: Meeting the operational task, working as a joint team and sharing our experiences. Obviously we do things slightly differently to the way (the U.S. Air Force does). But, when we come together, we can learn from each other in terms of what experiences we've had and how we've dealt with them in our own individual ways. A good example of this will be the Health and Safety process on USVFs.

Q: From the time you entered the RAF, what major changes have you seen in force interoperability between the U.S. and U.K. at the bases here?

A: Many, many areas of interoperability. My background is logistics, so we've looked at lots of areas in which we operate to ensure that we're interoperable,e for example the fuels area, the movements area, and the supply area just to name a few. Interoperability has come a long way over the last 10 years - making sure that when we're operating together that we make it very easy for ourselves.

Having that interoperability is really the key to our successes as two nations working very closely together.

Q: Overall, what are the most positive changes you've seen in the way the RAF did business in 1978 when you joined as opposed to the way things are done today?

A: Massive changes -more streamlined and more efficient and effective, and very aware of making sure that we don't have waste within the system.

A lot of the processes have been reviewed very carefully, and we've made sure that they're all aligned, that they're all joined up. Many years ago we used to have much of a stovepipe approach to the way we did business, when we had individual squadrons working on their own piece.

Now we have a very different working environment, where we all work closely together and people understand how they connect with each other.

Q: What, if any message, would you like to send to the American population that lives and works on RAF Mildenhall and the surrounding bases?

A: We really welcome you being here, and we really enjoy working and socializing with you. Your presence here brings a new and good dimension to life in England, and long may it continue.

Q: During your career, what has been your most rewarding assignment and why?

A: It was when I was a logistics officer in charge of a logistics squadron during Gulf War I. The reason why it was so rewarding is because it was very operationally focused and had a huge impact on morale - it really brought the squadron together. We became much more focused to work as a team. Of course, the importance was the aspect of doing a practical job and seeing it from start to finish, as opposed to sometimes the way that I now work at the strategic level, where you're working on a project that can take a number of years to come to fruition.

Q: In America they celebrate Women's History Month to honor the strides women have made in our culture. As a woman in the RAF, what are the biggest changes for women who served in the British military in the 70s, and those who serve today?

A: I think the biggest change is that we are now treated as part of the Royal Air Force per se, and not a separate organization. So again, that encourages a huge team spirit and also, apart from one of the branches of the Royal Air Force (the regiment branch), we can be employed right across the whole spectrum.