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Command Post gets facelift

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Elliott Sprehe
  • 27th Special Operations Wing Public Affairs
CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  As construction continues unabated around base, there is an area in a particular building that has, over the course of past months, been quietly remodeled to house the 27th Special Operations Wing command post. 

During the renovation, the command post worked out of a temporary location, patiently waiting to return. The remodel was related to the base's change to an Air Force Special Operations Command mission as well as the change to the Air Force Incident Management System. Communications systems needed to be updated to reflect the changing mission of not just the base, but the Air Force as a whole. 

"It's serving a new paradigm where government agencies are now more integrated," said Maj. Kevin Martin, 27 SOW command post chief. 

The updated information hub is based on the concept of the installation/incident command center, which is slightly borrowed from what firefighters in California use to streamline the flow of information between different agencies to efficiently resolve various situations. 

"All government agencies were mandated to be on the same page so that organizations could speak to each other, both civilian and military, without using jargon or different acronyms," said Master Sgt. Christopher Dietz, 27 SOW command post superintendent. 

With the updated communication platforms in place at the command post, there are now better capabilities to coordinate and communicate with civilian agencies, whether they are local, regional, state or national. It also aids in communicating with higher headquarters, including AFSOC and Air Force headquarters. 

The command post is used as an arm of the wing leadership to coordinate responses domestically and abroad, said Major Martin. These can include security-related military responses as well as responding to natural disasters or other emergencies with civilian agencies. 

"The capability now is that we can have the ICC up and running handling an incident overseas or something similar and at the same time if some natural disaster happens on base, the Emergency Operations Center can be activated," said Sergeant Dietz. 

After the EOC is activated the two can run simultaneously to each other without interfering with each other.

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