IDEA nets retiree $10,000 Published Oct. 17, 2006 By Senior Airman Sarah Stegman 81st Training Wing Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AETCNS) -- A retired Keesler technical sergeant was recently awarded the maximum amount for a suggestion he made to the Air Force's Innovative Development through Employee Awareness program. William Higdon, assigned to the 333rd Training Squadron until his retirement last year, received his $9,800 cash reward earlier this month. He had already received $200 for his suggestion in 2003. Mr. Higdon recommended the use of electronic student manuals, dubbed eBooks, for a squadron officer school course taught at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. "What I did was take the students' manuals from some of our courses and convert them to electronic books," Mr. Higdon explained. "This enabled us to save on the cost of paper and provide instant updates and corrections to the text. It also allowed us to store over 500,000 pages of text on one book." His IDEA was originally submitted in July 1999, but at that time, an idea had to be implemented before an award was paid. In 2002, the IDEA was approved, but funding wasn't available, so the amount of savings couldn't be calculated. In August 2004, Maxwell received approval for a Productivity Investment Funds project to purchase the eBooks for the course. Using the PIF figures, Mr. Higdon saved the Air Force $160,000 in printing costs the first year alone. Mr. Higdon is currently employed by Miltec Systems Company as the test director for security certification and accreditation for ground-based missile defense for the Missile Defense Agency, Huntsville, Ala.