Shared online workouts lift spirits during detachment’s home isolation

FRIENDSVILLE, Tenn. — U.S. Air Force Airmen assigned to the Air National Guard training and education center in East Tennessee are not taking their current seclusion for the global pandemic sitting down but instead exercising through shared video workouts.

The I.G. Brown Training and Education Center’s online fitness classes are a means to tackle the COVID-19 adversity together, said the staff and faculty.

The Tuesday through Friday, 10:20 a.m., workouts are challenging. Still, there is plenty of camaraderie and encouragement that radiates from the computer screen, tablet, or smartphone. The 25-minute Zoom meetings that began on April 7 are open to service members and their families and continue for the foreseeable future.

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National Guard training and education center outlines strategic plan

The Air National Guard’s training and education center in East Tennessee this month released a five-year Strategic Plan designed to outline its priorities and lines of effort from 2020 through 2024.

The I.G. Brown Training and Education Center will work on its main priorities: Take Care of Team TEC; Increase Readiness; Develop Exceptional Leaders.

Also, the Strategic Plan calls for the engagement of its staff and faculty to reach their full potential. Each priority identifies a team, and a deliverable date, as well as lines of effort, key terms, and focus areas for progressing into the future. The plan’s guiding values are respect, trust, and engagement. Continue reading “National Guard training and education center outlines strategic plan” →

The value of inclusion

Editor’s note: This is the second article in an ongoing series in which the Air National Guard’s I.G. Brown Training and Education Center staff and faculty share their perspectives and spark discussion about its lines of effort.

I gained a renewed value for a culture of acceptance this summer by joining my unit’s softball team in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Not having played much baseball in my life, I decided to play with the Air National Guard I.G. Brown Training and Education Center’s “Notorious TEC” when the captain, Sergeant Smyser, told me it was just for fun and that the team was not overly serious.

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Instruction on instruction is their function in demanding Air Guard course

U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Rachel Lewis led off a two-hour lesson July 9 on methods of instruction during the Instructor Certification Program at the Air National Guard’s primary education center located on McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base in East Tennessee.

“Our students put in a lot of hard work,” Sergeant Lewis said. “I love seeing the progression of those with or without training experience who learn that instructing is a whole different thing.”

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Base’s softball game a home run for camaraderie

ALCOA, Tenn. — Airmen and their families from the Air National Guard’s I.G. Brown Training and Education Center and the Tennessee National Guard’s 134th Air Refueling Wing joined for a unit Vs. unit softball game Friday, May 17, at Springbrook Park in Alcoa, Tennessee.

“This is an opportunity to team build a bit, which does not happen enough,” U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Juan P. Castro, assigned to the education center, said.

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A paddler’s approach to teamwork

Just before 9/11, my father asked me along on a grand canoe trip to the Boundary Waters with his Hudson-valley paddling friends. We’d drive from Schenectady in upstate New York to Ely in upstate Minnesota to spend a week exploring that maze of placid waterways in the vast wilderness area between the United States and Canada.

My dad had his one-person canoe, but his friend, Joe Nicolella, needed a tandem canoe partner.

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