JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Quality Assurance gets a bad rap. In fact, when asked what the overall impression of what QA does, some evoked the image of Jaws, the giant shark out for blood.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. Here’s a closer summary: the flight line is a busy place where the rubber meets the road, literally. The mission is visible, immediate and, sometimes, dangerous. Quality Assurance makes sure, in all of the hustle and bustle, those operations stay safe.
“We hold people accountable,” said Chief Master Sgt. Horace Honeycutt, 477th Fighter Group QA chief. “We’re the eyes and ears of the maintenance group commander, providing insights on issues and trends, both good and bad.”
QA evaluates maintenance operations and manages the Maintenance Standardization Evaluation Program, which looks at the quality, compliance and proficiency of maintenance personnel and equipment. That type of responsibility takes a special breed of airmen, and here on JBER, the total force quality assurance team works day in and day out to make sure their skills are sharp.
“We inspect the units and make sure they are in compliance with technical orders and Air Force Instructions,” said Staff Sgt. Antonio Brown, one of the active duty QA inspectors here. Brown started out as a sheet-metal worker in the low observable flight on JBER until he moved to QA in January of last year. “The QA mission gives me a bigger picture than the other jobs I’ve held. Its overall mission is more entwined with other units.”
Now Staff Sgt. Brown is so competent at the job training new QA Airmen, including 477th Fighter group member Staff Sgt. Pierce.
“QA is mostly just gives me a different perception, seeing things from a different viewpoint,” said Staff Sgt. Brandon Pierce, QA’s newest Airman who also transferred over from the LO section. He said, after only seven days in the QA shop he was already looking at maintenance and standards through a different lens.
“QA has a negative connotation,” said Pierce. “When you’re a maintainer, sometimes you can’t see why something is relevant to a TO or an AFI. But here you can see the right way and the wrong way and why these things are written the way they are.”
It may seem like QA would be more difficult in a Total Force Enterprise environment like JBER, but QA Airmen have actually found it’s the opposite. There are currently five reservists and 37 active duty QA individuals working alongside one another to get the job done. They train each other, work together and operate as one shop.
“We inspect the Air National Guard here too,” said Honeycutt. “In certain shops TFE works really well, and this is one of them. We have a great relationship, and that’s what TFE is – how you interact with your counterparts.”
“It works because of the continuity,” said Brown. “One of our Reserve inspectors, Technical Sgt. Jeremiah Frye, for instance, has been here since 2007. He knows everything backwards and forward. He’s trained so many people and seen so many situations that he has knowledge you just can’t get anywhere else.”
Although QA is a complicated, regulation-heavy job that requires a lot of technical proficiency, and though Frye is an exception to the rule, most Airmen don’t stay in the section that long.
“Airmen often come in to QA with a two or three year exit plan on the active duty side,” said Honeycutt. “And on the Reserve side we try to swap them out with other traditional reservists every few years.”
These Airmen then take the knowledge they’ve gained back with them to the flight line, which is an added benefit to the squadrons on the line.
“I tried to do everything I did as an Airman in an accurate way,” said Pierce. “But doing QA and thin going back will help the way I look at things, seeing how different shops view things differently.”
“I see the little things people disregard and overlook and I have a broader perspective of why things should be done the right way, especially as far as training,” said Brown. “I’m going to take everything I’ve learned here back with me.”