Blog Posts tagged with "Defense Commissary Agency"

What’s your B.H.A.G.? What were our Big Hairy Audacious Goals? Did we define our B.H.A.Gs? Did we meet them?

After a fast-paced week of meetings and events, the 2011 EUCOM Quality of Life Conference wrapped up Thursday on a positive note. Several senior leaders on hand to hear the final briefs and recommendations of working group delegates. Thirty-five delegates representing all five component services and eleven Healthy Living Initiative stakeholders from agencies such as Chaplain Services, Department of Defense Dependent Schools-Europe (DoDDS-E), Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) and the base and post exchanges, spent the week in deep and sometimes heated discussion on important issues involving the quality of life of our Service members and their families. The mission of the working groups was to look at current quality of life programs across the Department of Defense, identify redundancies and make informed recommendations to senior leadership which programs should be enhanced, sustained, and in some cases, discontinued.

Carrie Shult facilitates the Health of the Force and Family Working Group

Facilitator Carrie Shult led a lively and productive discussion about Healthy Lifestyles Initiatives in the Health of the Force and Family working group. They were charged to define the Healthy Lifestyles Initiative and provide a communication and marketing plan. They decided:

• “HLI is not a program;” It is a positive, collaborative campaign which markets through existing programs and partnerships.
• “HLI is not duplication;” It promotes and enhances existing programs.

During the conference, the group filmed several PSAs for healthy living, and wrote an additional PSA to be presented to the First Lady, Michelle Obama, for filming. The EUCOM Commander, Admiral Jim Stavridis, and his family have already endorsed the Healthy Living, Stronger Together Initiative and Logo through several public service announcements currently running on the Armed Forces Network.

Frank Battistelli and Brian Kirby facilitate a discussion

The remaining three working groups were at full throttle from conference start to finish. The Service and Family Member Working Group, facilitated by Frank Battistelli, represented a very diverse demographic population stationed across Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the UK. This group explored issues involving housing referrals and assignment processes, and expanding childcare services and counseling services to support family readiness.

The Remote and Outlier Working Group, facilitated by Eric Damm, drew individuals from locations ranging from Azerbaijan to Turkey and from military communities ranging in size from 4 to 4000. The group discussed programs such as the virtual High School, Army Spouse Employment Program, and the Spouse Fit for Life initiative, and found they have real potential to improve QoL for remote and outlying military communities.

The Single and Unaccompanied Service Member Working Group, facilitated by Sandra Schlosser tackled issues with inconsistencies across the services involving overcrowding and inadequate unaccompanied housing assignments.

Fleet Master Chief Roy Maddocks presents Lori Warchol with a EUCOM Senior Enlisted Leader coin for her role as Special Operations Command-Europe's action officer.

EUCOM’s Fleet Master Chief Roy Maddocks wrapped up the conference by thanking all the participants and presenting some with challenge coins – a true honor for those familitary with this military custom . In his closing remarks he pointed out that our most precious assets and valuable resources are our people. With all that is expected of our forces today, quality of life plays a vital role in our national security.

Maddocks reminded us of some of the successes from past quality of life conferenceslike the stigma attached to seeking mental healthcare which was addressed during the 2009 conference; top leadership recognized this as real problem affecting our service members and their families, and have made it a priority to remove the stigma and encourage members to seek the help they need.

Now that the conference has come to a close, we can reflect on what we have learned about quality of life. With all the budget constraints and across the board cuts, quality of life programs are in jeopardy of falling by the wayside, or becoming inadequate.

Dep. Asst. Sec. of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy, Mr. Robert L Gordon III’s question from the beginning of the conference was: What are our Big Hairy Audacious Goals? Our B.H.A.G. is to sutain and enhance our best quality of life programs through joint efforts and public and private sector partnerships. As far as meeting this goal, it is a continuing effort that starts with leadership, but involves us all.

Captain Deanna G. Goudeau
Air Force IMA
HQ EUCOM QoL Staff Support