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59th Medical Wing physiology techs embody teamwork at JBSA-Randolph

  • Published
  • By Robert Goetz
  • Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Public Affairs

Two Airmen who embarked on Air Force careers after graduating from California high schools define teamwork as aerospace and operational physiology flight technicians with the 359th Aerospace Medicine Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. The squadron is part of the 59th Medical Wing headquartered at nearby JBSA-Lackland.

Senior Airman Heather Uman and Airman 1st Class Ariana Rodriguez serve as instructors, teaching pilots and other aircrew members the skills they need to function safely at altitude and handle any emergencies they encounter. They also work together to manage the schedules of the flight’s 18 instructors and the 6,000 students who come for training each year.

“They develop and maintain administration and scheduling operations for both the flight and the six pipelines we provide training for,” Staff Sgt. Rhea Stitham, 359th AMDS Aerospace and Operational Physiology Flight NCO in charge of administration and scheduling, said. “They are very efficient, deliver high-quality customer service and come up with innovative ideas.”

Rodriguez, who attended high school in the Orange County coastal city of Huntington Beach, Calif., said she and Uman have different personalities, but they also share important traits.

“I’m Type A and she’s Type B, but we’re both pretty positive and we both like to work a lot,” she said. “We can clash, but it’s also a good thing. We balance each other.”

Uman, who went to high school in California’s capital, Sacramento, said she enjoys working with Rodriguez.

“She likes to get things done now,” she said. “I understand her work ethic.”

Uman said she and Rodriguez are responsible for the entire scheduling section, but “do a lot more than that.”

“We have to check which instructors are available, because there are days when people aren’t available,” she said. “It’s very busy, with a lot of moving pieces.”

Neither Uman nor Rodriguez envisioned the aerospace physiology career field when they were in high school.

Uman, who aspired to be an artist and was not interested in a military career, took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery only because it was common practice for students at her high school to take the test due to Sacramento’s proximity to Beale Air Force Base, Calif.

Four months after she took the test, Uman found out the Air Force was interested in her. With encouragement from her mother, who told her about the educational opportunities – not to mention the paycheck – the service would offer her, Uman visited a recruiter whose career field happened to be aerospace physiology. She soon entered basic training and attended technical school in that same career field.

When Uman reached technical school at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, she found out something the recruiter had not told her about the career field: She would have to teach.

“I had to get stage fright out of the way,” she said. “But I got more comfortable with it and now I like teaching. It just took practice.”

Unlike Uman, Rodriguez knew she wanted to join the military. Her brother was a Marine, but she felt the Air Force provided her with the best job opportunities and more stability, so she enlisted in 2013 after graduating from high school in 2012.

Rodriguez said her recruiter found her an “awesome opportunity” in the career field of aerospace physiology, which suited her because of her ability to work with people and her social nature. Her stumbling block was science.

“I’ve always been a good public speaker, but I’ve never been a science person,” she said. “Tech school was fun, but difficult at times. I like the hands-on portion as far as actually working with a student and instructing, but getting through the academic portion definitely required a lot of studying.

“I was told that once I got through my upgrade training at my first duty station and received my five-skill level that everything would be a lot easier, and it was,” Rodriguez said. “It was just a matter of understanding and memorizing the information, then regurgitating it in a way for students to understand easily.”

In their roles as instructors, Uman and Rodriguez educate aircrew members, whether they’re taking initial or refresher training, on combating the effects of high altitude on the human body through the use of the altitude chamber, which simulates those effects, including hypoxia. Uman said she and Rodriguez cover a variety of equipment, but focus on the oxygen regulator; oxygen mask; CRU-60, a piece that helps connect the regulator and mask; and helmet.

“We also cover the types of oxygen cylinders the students will encounter when flying operationally,” she said.

In addition, they instruct students on the use of the Barany chair, which helps aircrew members combat the different forms of spatial disorientation.

In the classroom, the technicians cover items and topics such as how cabin pressurization works, how eyes dark-adapt, emergency equipment, parachutes, how to inspect equipment and basic survival techniques to survive a plane crash.

Stitham described Uman and Rodriguez as “highly motivated individually,” but also said they “encourage each other to excel professionally and personally.”

Both of them are active in community service efforts, including membership in the Team Randolph Airmen’s Council. Rodriguez served as president last year, while Uman was the organization’s secretary.

Their work and service efforts have not gone unnoticed. Uman has received coins for coordinating a promotion ceremony and participating in American Indian Heritage Month; Rodriguez has earned a coin for her work as TRAC president and was honored by the New Braunfels, Texas, Chamber of Commerce as JBSA-Randolph Airman of the Quarter for the fourth quarter of 2014.

Uman said she, Rodriguez and other aerospace and operational physiology technicians are “directly impacting the Air Force.

“We’re teaching them life-saving techniques,” she said. “If they didn’t have this information, who knows how they would react.”