KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Keesler Airmen had the opportunity to present their ideas to the Dragon Tank, an innovation contest held here, June 28.
“Dragon tank is a high-profile forum where Airmen can bring their ideas, showcase them and advocate for resources and hopefully get the immediate implementation or the push to bring their ideas to fruition,” said Capt. Carissa Hoosline, 81st Training Wing commander’s action group director.
Out of 25 submissions, eight were presented. Those eight submissions ranged from technical gadgets that would benefit student learning to a study hall and game room that would benefit not only technical training students but permanent party Airmen as well.
To select which ideas were presented to the panel of judges on the Dragon Tank, subject matter experts were on hand from different departments to determine if the ideas could be implemented.
The idea of the Dragon Tank stemmed from Keesler winning the 2017 Air Education and Training Command award for Continuum of Learning in mission accomplishment.
It gave [Keesler personnel] the idea that innovative ideas can come across base and we wanted to include everyone from Keesler to bring their ideas to the table and talk about them, said Hoosline.
“Those organic ideas that are coming from Airmen, those are the best ideas,” said Hoosline. “Ones that aren’t directed by leadership.”
Airmen who presented felt that the Dragon Tank was beneficial to accomplishing the wing mission.
“The benefit of this is you can get everyone into a group like this where you have senior leadership listening to ideas that come from the group of people they’re trying to help,” said Chaplain (Maj.) Mark Williams, 81st Training Wing chaplain. “Who knows better what is going to benefit Airmen than the Airmen themselves?”
Out of the eight submissions who presented to the Dragon Tank panel, six were chosen to receive funding and are on their way to being implemented.