20 years with Civilian maintenance

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Cody Dowell
  • Altus Air Force Base Public Affairs
The 97th Maintenance Directorate has been hiring civilian maintainers for 20 years at Altus Air Force Base, Okla. Known as the Altus Team Excellence in Aircraft Maintenance, the 97th MX is a mainly civilian work force that is responsible for maintaining Altus AFB’s aircraft.

The majority of civilians who work there are retirees or veterans of the U.S. Air Force. Currently a third of maintainers have no prior military experience.

The maintainers of Altus AFB play an essential part of the base mission of forging combat mobility forces and deploying Airmen warriors.

“If we don’t get the planes in the air, the base doesn’t get loadmasters and pilots trained,” said Ed Glover, 97th Aircraft Maintenance Division C-17 Globemaster III dayshift supervisor. “Without us, the planes just sit on the ground.”

The maintenance department is responsible for making sure the aircraft are able to take off for training or to supply cargo for occasional real-world missions.

“All the Airmen who come here for training will go on to different bases and couldn’t fly their actual active missions without the training that we provide,” said Glover. “So we don’t only play a part of Altus’s mission, but for missions around the world.”

Since the fall of 1996, the maintainers have been responsible for working on the C-5 Galaxy, the C-17 Globemaster III and the KC-135 Stratotanker and have been providing noticeable high quality maintenance service on the bases aircraft.

“At first it was hard integrating civilians into the maintenance work force because some of the people needed training,” said Johnson. “We have improved since then and every year we keep getting better. The performance of the A-TEAM speaks for itself. There are plaques and posters on the walls saying that we have met about 99 percent of our sorties.”

The 97th MX has supported the Altus AFB mission for 20 years with timely and superior civilian aircraft maintenance by accomplishing what the Air Force requires. Without these maintainers Altus AFB could not forge combat mobility forces.