News

Training manager creates effective, efficient training program

  • Published
  • By Sandra Pishner
  • 446th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
MCCHORD FIELD, Wash. --  A training program that relies on using every last penny of available funds, the resources of outside agencies, and the drive of a Vietnam veteran's daughter is the foundation of the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron's training success.

Tech. Sgt. Melissa Smolka, 446th AES training manager, is the architect behind the squadron's revamped program. Arriving at McChord Field, Wash., in November of 2013, the 10-year Reserve veteran thought there had to be a better way to get a year's worth of training for the nurses, doctors, and medical technicians in the squadron. The result is a program that has the attention of Air Force Reserve Command.

"The drive behind our program is a desire to provide our wounded warriors the best possible care," said Smolka, a mother of three boys (with another on the way)."

Smolka is responsible for developing training plans for everybody in the unit in upgrade training.

"Currently we have 47 people in upgrade training; that's five and seven level. I'm also responsible for requesting any schools that they might need, whether for officers or enlisted. With officers included, that's puts our number of people in training at about 50," Smolka explains. "I write their training plans and I make sure their training is progressing well. I also have to make sure we have our funding, and justify our funding with AFRC. "

Justifying the funding is made easier by maximizing training opportunities and seeking training locations that not only provide the most training for an AES Reservists, but saves the unit money.

"She has really, really, taken the initiative to identify not only where our shortfalls were, but also where there are some really good opportunities," said Lt. Col. Vincent Oda, 446th AES commander. "I think we have a model program that AFRC is interested in sharing once we work out any possible bugs."

Before instituting the new training program, medical technicians in the squadron would spend the bulk of their training time in the unit at McChord.

"You can get good training here, but you're not going to get all of it," said Smolka, who recently completed her masters degree in human resources. "What I was finding when I came to this unit is that people were coming off (a training) tour and still were not eligible for upgrade. They didn't have CDCs done, they didn't have all their core task items accomplished, and they were missing some training documentation.

"Back at Charleston I had a very supportive commander who let me send people TDY for their training. I decided to apply that same idea here. So I set up training at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where our med techs can do 60 days of training and get all their core items accomplished," said Smolka.

For aeromedical evacuation medical technicians, training includes four schools following their initial technical training. That last stop on the formal school path is the flight training unit at Pope Field, N.C., before they return to McChord to start their mission qualification training.

"Right now I'm working with Senior Master Sgt. (Marlene) Moore at AFRC to get our flight medics to some of the deployed locations because they have more flights then the Reserve units do. Right now we might get three or four flights a month, but those aren't guaranteed," said Smolka. "So we're looking at any location where we deploy members because the idea is to be able provide our wounded the best care possible and the way we can do that is by making sure the first time our Reservists deploy is not the first time they're seeing this stuff. They are getting experience with the whole mission, from the ground to the air."

Whether or not the 446th AES Airmen train on the C-17 is unimportant to Smolka, who's husband is an E-6 in the Navy.

"Doesn't matter what the airframe is; I just care that they get their flying hours. That's what's important to me as their training manager," she said.

While the mission qualification training is funded by AFRC, Smolka must calculate every cost of training for those in the seasoning training program locally, mostly nonflyers like medical administration, medical logistics and, their first ever aeromedical ground equipment journeyman.

"With STP, I'm very budget restricted so I have to think about if we have to pay per diem, do we have to pay for lodging, what are the added costs in this?" Smolka explains.

"Our AGE (aeromedical ground equipment) guy is going through his upgrade training at Fairchild (Air Force Base, Wash.,) because we don't have to pay per diem since he lives in that area," said Smolka.

Smolka has also set up training rotations for the unit's Reservists at the local Madigan Army Medical Center, as well as at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

"Madigan Army Hospital also serves (the 446th Aerospace Medicine Squadron and 446th Aeromedical Staging Squadron) because we all have similar AFSCs that we send over there. But what was happening was we were bogging down the system and I was getting frustrated because we couldn't get all our troops in. Turns out, they were all going just to the ER," said Smolka.

Taking a look at the problem, Smolka realized a lot of the tasks her Airmen needed training on could be done elsewhere throughout the hospital and some of them actually can't be done in the ER at all, like immunizations.

"I got with the Army fellows and set up seven to eight rotations throughout the hospital and if I have 10 people I need to send over there all at once, I can shot gun it and we're not overwhelming the hospital staff. And, we're helping while we're training. We do the same thing at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center," said Smolka.

What she's doing now, according to Oda, is she's customizing training around the individual members' backgrounds and experience.

"The other piece I really like is she's starting to tailor it to what we would see from a casualty perspective, like in the Walter Reed amputation clinic," said Oda. "We never see that piece of it; we never get that full-circle closure. We've transported a patient we know in our minds will have months, sometimes years of recovery and we don't get to see that. She's given us that opportunity. We really value that."

On a more personal note, Smolka takes her role as training manager to heart because she knows firsthand how well-trained Airmen can have an impact on a veteran's future.

"My dad was a Vietnam veteran and he had gone through the aeromedical process. I was helping him with his VA claims and was getting frustrated because certain things were documented right and some things were not. As a training manager, this is one of the things I can help with, to make sure this documentation that needs to happen, happens to help later down the road when that documentation is important, like when processing VA claims. The VA is all about documentation."

Documentation starts from the point of injury and Smolka is making sure the documentation of training for AES Airmen starts at the point of relevant, all-encompassing, and cost-efficient training..