DENVER (AFPN) - Seventy Air National Guardsmen are slated to begin working at the Air Reserve Personnel Center later this year for the first time in its history.

The new Guardsmen are a result of the center taking on personnel services for the Air National Guard, increasing the ARPC's workload to nearly one million customers.

"We are consolidating our work force from the field to ARPC and bringing the workload here," said Lt. Col. Donald Johnson, an Air National Guard adviser to the commander at ARPC. Colonel Johnson is helping spearhead the transition of Guardsmen in the field to their new jobs at ARPC.

Two Guardsmen are already en route to ARPC, leaving 68 positions available. The announcements for those positions will close Aug. 2.

Guard personnel members working at ARPC are a significant milestone for the center and the Air National Guard, he said.

"This will be the largest group of Air National Guard personnelists in the United States working together to support the total air Reserve component," Colonel Johnson said. "It's going to be a totally integrated organization."

Nearly 50 of the new Guardsmen will work in ARPC's Directorate of Personnel Services.

"This is huge," said Dave Aldrich, the DPS director. "Typically we have these stove pipes -- Guardsmen do Guard work. Now, they're going to do (air Reserve component) work."

The Guardsmen will be on four-year active-duty tours, meaning their service is identical to active-duty Airmen.

"We're going to embed these folks in the work force," Colonel Johnson said. "When you walk through the building you're not going to know the difference between active, Guard or Reserve."

Colonel Johnson said the new Guardsmen will improve the relationship between ARPC and their customers and the Air Force's concept of total force.

"It creates a better unity between Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve. It strengthens that bond," he said.

(Courtesy Air Reserve Personnel Center News Service)