Comptroller contingency training—staying ready to finance the fight

Air Force Comptroller, July, 2004 by Tim Smart

Early in FY04, I attended the AMC Comptroller's conference and came away with a clear message. Senior FM leadership wanted increased emphasis on contingency training for our deployable FM personnel and it is up to FM Squadron Commanders to make it happen. I can clearly recall sitting there looking around the room at my fellow squadron CCs and thinking the same thoughts that I am sure were running through their heads. "Oh great! How am I supposed to do this? My plate is just too full with the pressures of implementing new systems like Defense Travel System and Wide Area Work Flow in full swing forcing me to overcome resistance to changing procedures that my customers are comfortable with. I was also trying to prepare my wing to execute a budget that appeared to be drastically short of mission requirements. Furthermore, getting my undermanned and extremely young enlisted force up to speed on day-to-day proficiency requirements supporting continuous AEF rotations, while still maintaining everyday customer service requirements for a large AMC base with a tremendous ongoing mobility mission.... There just are not enough hours in the day! Besides, it would take an extremely supportive Wing/CC to allow me to shut down routine comptroller operations and train when his troops are rotating in and out on a daily basis to all points of the globe, and when troops and their families need immediate home station finance support."

Well needless to say, after the emotionalism wore off I took a hard look at this requirement and it really did make a lot of sense. For example, how often have FMers really missed out on good mobility training during wing exercises because our actions were "simulated complete?" Of course, I knew contingency training was critical not only to McChord's mission, but also important to our expeditionary Air Force and the DoD overall. My frustration was not with the requirement, but with how to make it happen. So, I put away my crying towel, assembled my key staff, and we developed the following CONOPS for our new Comptroller Contingency/ Deployment Training Program. Hopefully you will find it useful.

First--we had to deal with manpower requirements. We decided to model our teams after a medium to large UTC package. In order not to devastate our customer service operations, we only pulled one body from each section, (i.e., one each from ALO, travel comp, FMA and customer service). Every month until the end of summer we would mobilize a different team until all the members of the squadron had gone at least once. Second--we had to define what we wanted to do. We felt this training needed to be different from anything we had done in the past. One up-front requirement was this would not be a "nine-to-five" training class. We wanted to get people out of their comfort zones and challenge them to not only learn from these exercises, but feel like they had survived it. Therefore, we decided the training would be from 36 to 48 hours long. We would isolate the team from the base populace at the 500 acre McChord field site and house them in tents the team itself would construct. Third--this would not be an enlisted-only exercise. We also wanted to challenge our company grade officers to lead, manage, and learn. Each team would have an OIC who was responsible for planning and executing the team agenda for the duration of the training. The OIC would be provided a list of expected training areas and he/she would build a training regiment to be approved by the Squadron/CC. Fourth--assume all teams start from bare base and need to build from the ground up (i.e., how to setup a Limited Depositor Account (LDA), establish procedures for obtaining additional funds, establish check cashing policies, in-brief the site commander, and provide a solid field training environment). Make sure everyone understood this was not a competition; there were no time limits to solve problems or limits on where to look for help. As long as you learned you were free to utilize almost any resource. Fifth--and finally, to get people out of their comfort zones. The goal was to challenge everyone to do more than just finance things. As many of you are well aware, when you are deployed you can and will be tasked to do anything that needs doing. We also decided to try and build an element of fun/adventure into our program to foster enthusiastic participation.

Next, we handpicked our first squad. We decided to go with mid-level proven NCO performers and a couple of high-speed Airmen to ensure solid beneficial feedback on the good and bad aspects of our first exercise for our after-action report. This team would be led by 2Lt Scott Thompson. Lt Thompson is a prior enlisted Army finance troop who was saddled with the bulk of the responsibility for making this exercise work from day one. This team (and every one that follows) would also be accompanied by the squadron superintendent, SMSgt Antoinette Yonas. SMSgt Yonas would be the primary trainer/role player during this exercise. It would be her task to cover all finance scenarios, introduce new problem sets and grade training/provide feedback to the team on strengths and weaknesses. Now that all the preparations were made it was time to start training.