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Goodfellow continues to improve training

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Zachary Chapman
  • 17th Training Wing Public Affairs

Goodfellow is no stranger to winning awards. Recently, Goodfellow was recognized for winning the Continuum of Learning Innovation Challenge in the category of enhancing faculty/staff development. The CoL is the deliberate process of combining education, training and experience to meet the Air Force’s operational needs.

Goodfellow won this by displaying flexibility and agility to train while meeting local requirements to push "next-gen" classrooms and to provide instructors the freedom to meet individual and team needs.

“We can tailor our course to the needs and requirements of our instructors and staff,” said Lt. Col. Abraham Salomon, 17th Training Support Squadron commander. “A perfect example of this is with regards to the chaplain. We are now able to inject a chaplain into our courses to allow him or her the opportunity to arm our instructors with the basic skill set to identify any concerns among our student population that may arise from resilience. To be able to identify and understand the basic indicators is a huge asset for an instructor to have in their hip pocket and the chaplain can provide some of those. What it really boils down to is arming the instructor or staff with tools or skills to help identify and concerns to know where to get help.”

The 17th TRSS fuels the development of world-class joint and coalition fire protection and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance warriors by leading training operations and faculty development, guiding resources and planning, providing intelligence systems support, and delivering interactive multimedia instruction.

Submissions from junior members is another way that such improvements have come about.

"Traditionally you would have leadership come up with ideas and drive the direction of an organization, but through the efforts of retired Air Force Gen. Larry Spencer, and other senior leaders, the Air Force is paying more attention to the fact that the junior member of the force can find better ways to do things,” explained Chief Master Sgt. Stein, 17th Training Group superintendent.

The 17th Training Group is responsible for training and advanced education courses for ISR, intelligence support to cyber and fire protection professionals.

“New apps are created each day and the Airmen that we recruit and train come from a new and different technological world than previous generations,” said Stein. “When they are faced with a challenge or an issue and they think about how they can leverage technology to make their job easier."

Looking out toward the future Goodfellow has secured 103 professional development courses and 40 volunteer facilitators.

"Goodfellow is moving in a direction that it sees fit to meet the needs of our Airmen,” said Stein. “If it ends up benefiting other Airmen at other locations that's great, but we saw needs to further develop out instructors, to further develop our military training leaders, create different learning environments to foster and enhance learning, and that is what we have done."