Engineers honored for community relations

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  The 100th Civil Engineer Squadron Readiness and Emergency Management Flight was lauded for epitomizing special community relations, and honored by the 100th Air Refueling Wing commander and the British-American Committee chairman at a ceremony here July 8.

Col. Christopher Kulas, 100th ARW commander, and Sheila Bailey, B-AC chairman, presented the flight of engineers with a specially designed B-AC community relations coin.

As part of the emergency management program, the team of engineers built a joint response foundation with civilian agencies from Suffolk, said Capt. Sean Warner, 100th CES Readiness and Emergency Management flight chief.

Building the foundation took the team seven months, during which they carried out several events and activities to strengthen relationships with the U.K.

One major event was training between the lead Suffolk County Council emergency planning officer and RAF Mildenhall emergency management flight. The team also performed several emergency response exercises.

"I think having those healthy relationships with our hosts is extremely important, so it's nice to see efforts highlighted," said Warner. "For our career field specifically, it makes us more capable when it comes to disaster preparation and response.

"Disaster isn't necessarily confined within the walls of the base, so if we have that relationship and an established line of communication, I think that makes us more capable in our response effort," said Warner. "Where we got the most host-nation support for an exercise was during the [unit compliance inspection Major Accident Response Exercise] at RAF Honington. There was a very-large-scale effort, not only from us but also our host-nation responders."

Tech. Sgt. Jason Doyle, part of the 100th CES team receiving the award, agreed.

"It's down to the planning," said Doyle. "We, [both on- and off-base agencies,] get together and make sure we have the plans in place to ensure we have that support when we need it, then practice to make sure those plans are effective in our overall response."

(Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace contributed to this article.)