Military personnelists centralize into MPE

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Dillon White
  • 341st Space Wing Public Affairs Office
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. --  Unit- and group-level commander support staffs moved their operations to building 1191 to form the military personnel element Jan. 2. 

The initiative to redesignate the military personnel flight into the MPE is a result of manpower reductions in personnel slated to occur in the next five years. 

"Transition and transformation are the new buzz words for personnel," said Maj. LaMont Coleman, 341st Mission Support Squadron MPE commander. "We are cutting away at some of the old way of doing business and embarking upon new grounds for many of the personnelists who are not familiar with the former Consolidated Base Personnel Office concept. Many of the personnelists I've spoken with today are excited about the change- a bit nervous, yet positive- that personnel resources are re-uniting in a central hub for our warfighters." 

Airmen will have immediate access, or "one-stop shopping," for all their personnel needs Major Coleman said. 

These needs will include assignments, separations, retraining, promotions, reenlistments, evaluations, common access and identification cards, defense enrollment eligibility reporting systems, service member's group life insurance, records, duty status, adverse actions, leave transactions and readiness. 

The personnelists at building 1191 are adapting to their new environment and are already noticing the advantages of being centrally located, said Staff Sgt. Corey Sales, 341st MSS MPE transactional management supervisor. 

"The move has made contacting other personnelists a lot more convenient," Sergeant Sales said. "Communication is a large part of my job and if I need something from another personnelist, they are right down the hall." 

This physical accessibility will nullify the possibility of phone tag, Sergeant Sales said. 

"I came from an office of four people," he said. "My new office is comprised of 11 people so we are concentrating on team building and learning about each other as well as our new processes." 

As the MPF made its transition to the MPE, other changes took place with regard to the requirement to maintain personnel information files. 

"Due to the loss of commander support staff personnel who administer the PIFs," said Capt. Ronald Bell, chief of Personnel Services Delivery Operations at Air Force Personnel Center, "commanders can now decide not to maintain PIFs, so they can channel their time and energy into other significant programs and issues impacting their units." 

According to Air Force Instruction 36-2608, PIFs are only mandatory when officers receive a letter of admonishment or letter of counseling and their commander does not create an unfavorable information file. 

"The process will not affect most Airmen at Malmstrom, although it could have an affect on how squadron commanders manage their programs, in particular PRP, if the decision is made to remove PIFs from respective squadrons," Major Coleman said. 

"PIFs hold the bulk of information regarding enlisted personnel and officers, which makes it easier to centrally manage potentially disqualifying information as well as key documents like performance feedbacks. I suspect most PRP units will keep their PIFs, while other units will gradually remove PIFs from their files." 

The MPE staff fully appreciates customer support and patience over the next couple months as they embark on a new way to provide personnel support to warfighters and commanders, Major Coleman said. 

"I have a saying that the MPE is the 'emergency room' for personnel issues," the MPE commander said. "And with the recent change to how we operate, we will have plenty of patients that will get just what the doctor ordered ... great customer service."