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Wing showcases Air Force dominance to local community

  • Published
  • By Chrissy Cuttita
  • 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Once again the civilian community neighboring Tyndall Air Force Base was impressed by air and professional dominance during the annual Bay County Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Bay visit to the base Feb. 20. 

"The curriculum is intended to inform business leaders of what makes Bay County tick and visiting Tyndall Air Force Base is a really big part of that," said Joe Chavarria, Leadership Bay steering committee member and retired master sergeant. "Tyndall is a big part of Bay County and if you're not military you probably don't know all the great things that Tyndall has to offer." 

Leadership Bay sessions always start with an overnight orientation hosted by the base that includes a challenging day at Tyndall's Ropes Course in October. About seven months later, students are back to experience a day in the Air Force. 

The tour highlighted the training mission here, focusing on Air Force professions such as air battle managers, F-15 and F-22 pilots and intelligence specialists. In addition to the mission at the 325th Fighter Wing, students learned about important tenant unit missions here such as Air Combat Command's air-to-air combat competitions that draw units from all over the world at the 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group. They even had the opportunity to tour America's Air Operations Center at Air Forces Northern Command's complex. 

"I appreciated the information about the pilot training curriculum and the Air Operations Center was impressive," said Helen Jeroski, Leadership Bay student. "I absolutely think the Tyndall Air Force Base tour is essential to the Leadership Bay class since Tyndall employs many people in Bay County, hence the economic impact is a large one. But the numbers alone don't tell the story of the base's critical missions to our national defense that go on at Tyndall." 

While experiencing F-15 flight simulators first hand was a highlight for most students during the day; informative briefings by senior leadership, pilots and maintainers provided a full spectrum of Air Force knowledge on what it takes to dominate air and space. 

"Most of the civilian population know that we fly planes, but don't know the many other great things that the base has to offer," said Mr. Chavarria, who enjoyed meeting up with long time friends on the flight line where he maintained Tyndall jets before retiring. "This tour last week really gave them a prospective of how important this base is to Bay County. By having this tour, Leadership Bay students now know how important Tyndall is to, not only Bay County, but to the nation."