TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Among the 19 tenant units that calls Tyndall Air Force Base home is a one-of-a-kind contracting squadron that works to ensure mission success by securing support services to make changes happen at Air Force installations across the globe.
The Tyndall location is a small cell of the main 772nd Enterprise Sourcing Squadron that operates out of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. With a mixture of civilian and military personnel that comprises four flights, they work diligently to provide contracting support to the total force with global reach.
“This is just an operating location for our home unit back in JBSA of about 200 people,” said Tech. Sgt. Cory Terrell 772nd ESS Air Force Contract Augmentation Program flight noncommissioned officer in charge. “Here at Tyndall we have roughly 30, and we handle all kinds of contracts for Air Force Wide projects which separates us from the traditional contracting Squadron. Right now we have about $1.7 billion worth of contracts across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Europe, and Asia.”
The 772nd Enterprise Sourcing Squadron’s mission can be summarized as supporting operational, counterinsurgency, and humanitarian missions in the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility, as well as delivering world class construction and environmental projects, worldwide contingency mission support services, natural disaster support, expertise, specialized service.
“We write contracts for just about anything you can imagine,” said Flavio Ely, 772nd ESS operations flight team lead. “Just as an example, a lot of the different career fields that fall under Civil Engineer require specialized training outside of their technical schools. We get in contact with vendors and contractors to fulfill that need for higher-level training.”
Even among the contracting career field, the 772nd ESS is largely unknown and a mystery for some of the Airmen in the career field.
“I volunteered to come out here after [Hurricane Michael] and was planning on working at the 325th Contracting Squadron,” said Terrell. “I got rerouted to the ESS and I was like ‘I don’t even know what an ESS is’ and even in the contracting world it’s kind of a ‘what do they do?’ I had no clue that other bases outside of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which is like the mothership for contracting, worked on such high-level Air Force-wide projects.”
The 772nd ESS largely works behind the scenes and makes critical contracting support happen, some of it is very high profile and some of it is things we may take for granted.
“If you’ve ever deployed and been to the DFAC and you see someone serving food, that’s one of our contracts at work,” Terrell said. “Last year when there was a huge refugee crisis because of the withdrawal from Afghanistan we set up Operation Allies Refuge and Operation Allies Welcome. We had two locations that our contracts and programs that set up the refugee camps with tents, food, clothes, etc. everything they need until they were relocated.”
As a direct reporting unit to the Air Force Installation Contracting Center, they typically they work with facilities on Tyndall such as Air Force Civil Engineer Center and the Air force Installation and Mission Support Center to fulfill their contracting and sourcing needs.
“All of the things we do here is unique to Tyndall,” said Master Sgt. Myisher Perry, 772nd ESS senior enlisted leader. “Even though we’re a tenant unit and a part of JBSA-Lackland so to speak, they have their own focus but our mission is independent with what goes on over there. We’re an autonomous unit all to ourselves which is critical to supporting the diverse customer base and wide reach we have.”
The 772nd ESS continues to work hard to ensure not only Tyndall, but the rest of the Air Force is accelerating the necessary change to make sure the Airmen and their units have what they need to accomplish the mission.