AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFNS) —  

A team of Multi-Capable Airmen at Al Asad Air Base stepped out of their traditional responsibilities to become vital force multipliers for joint and coalition partners across the installation.

Embracing MCA, a defender and a client systems technician from the 443rd Air Expeditionary Squadron became skilled in communication capabilities and setting up technical communication equipment, taking it upon themselves to become proficient in skills they traditionally wouldn’t have been required to learn.

This drive started from the moment they arrived. By capitalizing on an opportunity to innovate and increase efficient and effective communication capabilities for the Airmen around him, Senior Airman Byron McNeill Jr., 443rd AES supply and security forces fireteam lead, decided to face the challenge head-on.

McNeill crafted a plan alongside Staff Sgt. Daniel Meeks, 443rd AES client systems technician, within a few days of arriving on the installation.

“I knew that we had a frequency that was supposed to work but didn’t, and I knew that we should be getting further range with our radios than what they were getting,” McNeill said. “My leadership gave me the chance, and I just took the opportunity and ran with it. Then, it was just collaborating with everyone around me and finding out trial and errors with the radios.”

A defender coming to the 443rd AES with prior radio operation experience, McNeill’s collaboration with Meeks has paid dividends for the installation.

“We call each other almost every day asking each other about things,” Meeks said. “He’s strong-willed with what he wants done and he gets it done. It’s been easygoing with him. We’ve improved our communication capabilities already in just our first month of being here.”

Feeding off each other’s skill sets, they have raised three communication antennas and boosted long-range communications in multiple mine-resistant ambush protected all-terrain vehicles. They assisted and reprogrammed Norwegian Armed Forces radios and were able to get communication capabilities immediately restored. McNeill and Meeks have also held classes with other 443rd AES defenders, giving them the skills to troubleshoot their communication equipment and change their radio frequencies to respond to any situation.

Ensuring communication capabilities are effective and efficient for others, while teaching the next Multi-Capable Airman, is what continues to fuel both.

“Communication is the biggest thing in any scenario,” McNeill said. “Being able to give the warfighter the ability to talk to one another and to talk to higher-ups, brings it all together. There are no mistakes when good communication is in play.”

By Staff Sergeant Dalton Williams, 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar (AFNS) —  

Less than two months following the establishment of Task Force 99, Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) commander, visited the team at their new location for a peek behind the curtain of the command’s innovation powerhouse Dec. 1.

The new unit is the cornerstone of AFCENT’s approach to U.S. Central Command’s intent of building a Culture of Innovation. Comprised of eight full time multi-capable Airmen, its mission is to leverage digital and unmanned technologies, creating dilemmas for adversaries and new opportunities for collaboration with partners.

“[Task Force 99] a small group of super-empowered Airmen who I’m going to provide resources to so they can rapidly innovate and experiment in our area of responsibility we have in the Middle East,” said Grynkewich at the 2022 Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference in September.

The “Desert Catalysts” became an official Air Force organization Oct. 13, when Lt. Col. Erin Brilla took command. Agility and speed underwrite TF 99’s innovation core tenets, and the unit wasted no time setting up shop.

“Our humble beginnings started in a borrowed workspace graciously loaned to us by 379th Air Expeditionary Wing’s Desert Spark Innovation Lab. Within one month of being established, we were able to acquire this new workspace,” Brilla said. “Thanks to our incredible Qatari partners, a new hangar constructed specifically for Task Force 99 may also be in the works.”

In keeping with the command’s Partner for Strength priority, TF 99 will seek input and support from regional partners.

“[Task Force 99] will receive resources to rapidly innovate and experiment in austere and sometimes dangerous environments,” Grynkewich said. “It will also expand the collaborative space with our partners in the region and tie AFCENT into the innovation ecosystem.”

To date, 17 coalition partners have been invited to join TF 99’s efforts, encouraging all to bring their own hard problems and technologies for collaboration and regional synergy.

“None of us have enough time or money to do this on our own,” Brilla said. “We need an expansive network that shares ideas so we all can work together to solve complex problems from the lowest possible echelon.”

TF 99’s hard charging Airmen were hand-picked from a wide variety of specialties, ranging from cyber operators to civil engineers and intelligence analysts to metal technicians.

“These Airmen are the very embodiment of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s Accelerate, Change, or Lose mantra,” Brilla said. “Every member of our small, highly skilled, agile team is a subject matter expert in their field. We’ve empowered and encouraged them to experiment, tinker, and wonder ‘what if?’ given a few resources and high-risk tolerance, there’s no limit to what they can deliver.”

The team is empowered to accelerate change by getting after all four of the Air Force Chief of Staff’s Action Orders Airmen, Bureaucracy, Competition and Design.

The task force is also focused on flattening communication across the various innovation labs, and spark cells that exist at AEWs across the CENTCOM area of responsibility to encourage crosstalk and collaboration.

In addition to collaborating with the innovation arms of the U.S. Navy Central Command, TF 59, and the U.S. Army Central Command, TF 39, this air domain innovation task force (TF 99) also leverages relationships with partners across other arenas.

“We are interoperable by nature,” Brilla said. “To be successful, we want to unlock, embrace, and then uplift innovative solutions that can be implemented across organizations.”

Over the next two weeks, the task force will travel to the United States to connect with various vendors, leaders within academia and several government agencies. TF 99 is also sponsoring technology development through the Small Business Innovation Research program to power innovative solutions rapidly.

The task force is also leveraging relationships with the U.S. Air Force Academy by sharing real world, operational problem sets with cadets, giving them an opportunity to create innovative solutions as part of their curriculum.

TF 99 is actively recruiting the next generation of Desert Catalysts, seeking hard-charging innovators from active duty, the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves who might be interested in joining this elite team on future deployment rotations.

“Innovation allows us to better posture our forces, to better sense the environment, to more effectively deter and defeat threat actors,” said Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander. “Together through innovation, we can all do much more to advance the stability of the region.”

Story by Capt Kayshel Trudell

Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central)

Photo by Senior Airman Micah Coate