WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Down the quiet hallways of building 4014 tucked in offices throughout, members of the 445th Force Support Squadron actively work to provide necessary resources and support to more than 2,600 Airmen in the 445th AW and 655th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing.
Comprised of seven sections, the FSS scope of responsibility is substantial, and at one time or another, every Airman has relied on their proficiency and efficiency.
Those sections include the Military & Family Readiness Center, military personnel flight, sustainment services flight, education and training, communication flight, civilian personnel, and manpower.
“The FSS supports the mission by ensuring each member, both inbound and outbound, always have the necessary benefits and entitlements in place,” said. Lt. Col. Timothy Johansen, 445th FSS commander. “This assures that Airmen can successfully complete the job at hand while deployed or here at home. The FSS ensures that every Airmen is fit tested, ensuring that readiness standards are always met.”
According to Johansen, the FSS is like a smaller version of the group level as the squadron covers a breadth of functions like the sustainment services flight, many times shortened to services, focuses on lodging, food service, fitness, readiness and mortuary affairs.
For Senior Master Sgt. Victoria Moore, 445th FSS sustainment services flight superintendent, providing top quality service in these areas enhances wing morale.
“We provide essential services that assist an Airman through their entire career,” Moore said. “We make sure everyone is taken care from the beginning to the end.
“When I first got here, Airmen were not able to choose the hotel they wanted during unit training assembly weekends and the options were limited,” Moore continued. “Having spent almost 10 years in the hospitality industry, I felt it was important to give Airman that choice. We made modifications to the Automated Lodging and Reservation System and lodging procedures that included the use of the app and website. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Trusted to maintain enlisted personal records, services ensures Airmen are staying current in their readiness and are deployable. While programs and processes like lodging and fitness are familiar, it is the unseen and often overlooked functions of services that keep the wing operational and prepared to face the challenges that lie down range.
Once deployed, services provides meals and safeguards against food contamination.
“One of the easiest ways to take down a large amount of people is to contaminate their food,” Moore said. “So, when we go down range and deploy, we are constantly performing quality assurance for all food we give to our Airmen. We make sure that the things that we ordered, received and cooked are exactly as expected, because that is one way that the enemy tries to hurt us.”
Services is continually working to improve upon their procedures to ensure the quality of life and death. Moore recognizes it is a difficult subject but takes pride in knowing services will manage an Airman’s mortuary affairs with dignity and respect.
“Mortuary Affairs is new for the team here,” the flight superintendent said. “I had a team back at Andrews Air Force Base that I was a part of, so I bring that experience to the fight here. It can make the team feel nervous at times to talk about mortuary procedures, but it is an unfortunate reality in our career field. Honestly, to be with an Airman until the end is an honor and it's one of the most powerful things we are privileged to do.”
Moore said she also believes the key to services is loving what you do and understanding the impact that work has on the success of the wing.
Another facet focusing on support of Airmen and their families includes the Military & Family Readiness Center, also considered one of the wing’s helping agencies.
“We have a wide variety of programs we’re responsible for,” said Shanna King, M&FRC director. “We’re kind of the overall helping agency for the Air Force.”
Functions that fall under the M&FRC include the Transition Assistance Program, Commander’s Key Support Program, newcomers, personal financial readiness, deployment support and more. They are also the main point of contact for Month of the Military Child and the Air Force Aid Society.
“We’re a big umbrella for anything that’s not really mental health, equal opportunity, or sexual assault and prevention but’s it’s a helper function, that would be us,” King said.
In order to deliver mission ready combat forces who are mentally sharp and physically prepared to answer the nation’s call at any time, Airmen and their families must also be prepared.
“If your family is not ready, you’re not going to be ready,” King said. “If your family is not solid or you have stressors, you’re not going to be focused when you’re here, and you’re definitely not going to be focused if you have to go into a deployed situation.”
King explained the M&FRC aims to help families focus on financial, deployment and family readiness to help them have less stress during daily and deployment life which is something core to the squadron.
“With the FSS mission being ‘People First,’ we’re here to help people, and people are what we do,” she said.
Or as Johansen puts it, “People are our mission, and our mission is people.”
With the focus on people, the military personnel flight aids with common access/identification card issuance, evaluations, career advisor functions, in/out processing, promotions/demotions, basic military training ship and return functions, Service Group Life Insurance coverage, casualty reporting, deployment functions, Personnel Support for Contingency Operations, and managers personnel systems accesses.
The education and training office deals with testing, career development courses, tuitions assistance and acquiring training line numbers for those attending formal schools.
The civilian personnel office is the liaison for the 445th and 655th leadership to hire civilians. The function also submits requested personnel actions for civilian employees and deals with the civilian retention packages and bonuses.
According to Johansen, the manpower office “deals with spaces not faces.” This means they managing the wing’s unit manning document, advising leadership on strategic alignment, completing manpower change and organizational change requests, analyzing support agreements, and more.
Customer support is a key focus for the communications flight.
“The communications flight provides end-user support for both 445th AW and 655th ISRW Airmen,” said Master Sgt. Joshua Hall, 445th FSS communications flight client systems technician NCO in charge. “We diagnose and repair hardware, software, and network issues.
We install and configure application upgrades, reimage computers and ensure cybersecurity requirements are met as directed by the 88th Communications Squadron. Lastly, we direct and coordinate the Tier-2 and Tier-3 level Comm related issues to the 88th for resolution.”
Hall said the flight ensures the wing’s readiness as the backbone for communication at all levels from flight scheduling to intelligence gathering to being able to hold Team’s meetings throughout the week.
“The communications flight is essential to all command and control of information throughout each unit,” Hall explained. “When it isn’t working, delays in those efforts that require communications could be catastrophic for everyone involved who is relying on that continual flow of information over the communications platforms they use.”
According to Hall, the “support and initiative” from the traditional reservists during unit training assembly weekends make the flight function.
“The drive and desire to learn and their ability to not be afraid to ask questions when they don’t know something has been inspiring,” he continued. “Their initiative that they have when it comes to helping members of the 445th has been nothing short of amazing so far this year. I can’t wait to see how much we can accomplish throughout the rest of 2025.”
This dedication is held by all Airmen in the 445th FSS and ensure the squadron lives up to the support in its name.