MacDill Partnership Council

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Ned T. Johnston
  • 6th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, is a unique base in that the host unit, the 6th Air Mobility Wing, employs just a fraction of the military and non-military personnel who work on the base. This is because MacDill is home to 38 tenant units all with their own unique missions.

To put this into perspective, the 6th AMW only has 3,120 out of the more than 15,000 personnel assigned to MacDill. Naturally, this creates a distinct need to have open channels of communication between the tenant units and the 6th AMW, so that the needs of all the units on the base are met.

Monday, July 27, 2015, was the first of many-to-come quarterly MacDill Partnership Council meetings between senior representatives from MacDill's tenant units and the 6th AMW leadership.

"These meetings are designed to open up communication and give our tenant units a voice and a forum to be heard, as well as a place for us here at the wing to let you know what is happening," said Col. Joel Gartner, 6th Mission Support Group commander.

The meeting started off with briefings from various units from the 6th AMW to let the tenant unit representatives know about future construction and contracting projects. MacDill is in the middle of an aggressive road construction project, so this information was well received from the tenant units.

"The beauty of this meeting is getting this feedback and information and being able to take it back to my unit and let my people know what is happening on the base and how to react to the coming changes when they happen," said a senior representative from Marine Corps Forces Central Command.

When all the representatives from the 6th AMW were done with their presentations, the tenant units took the floor and started giving feedback about issues they had and commendations for the work done by the Airmen in the 6th AMW.

"We encourage all units to be a part of these meetings. We want to you say 'here are my biggest issues,' and we want to get you results, not just a list of excuses," said Gartner.

The next MacDill Partnership Council meeting is scheduled for December, to talk about events in the new year and progress on issues brought up in the inaugural meeting.