VISION: We will detect and defeat the next air attack on America Published July 29, 2015 By Col. Michael J. Norton EADS Commander Rome, New York -- The EADS Strategic Planning Council met on June 11 and approved this Vision Statement. It inspires and guides all our actions in the Sector as we guard America's skies today and continually increase our readiness to detect and defeat tomorrow's threat. This vision applies equally to all of us, whether you are characterizing air tracks in the Surveillance section, patrolling the perimeter in Security Forces, or maintaining our highly complex network of command, control and communication systems. The Council spent a large part of our June session reviewing unit member feedback on morale and organizational health and discussing improvement opportunities identified by members such as communication. I strongly encourage all of you to take the time to complete the unit climate assessment survey ASAP. Last year, only a third of the surveys were completed. This year, we set a modest goal of 2/3 completion. Be part of the solution! I'm very happy to welcome several new key staff members who will energetically support our unit members. Our new DSG chaplain, Lt. Col. Enio Aguero, addresses a long-standing gap in our spiritual and family care. Ron Blassingame, our new Community Support Coordinator, will champion quality of life and personal readiness programs for the new Community Action Information Board (CAIB)/Integrated Delivery System (IDS). Michelle Leonard joined the Support Squadron as the Emergency Management and Administrative Support Coordinator. Please give them all a warm welcome. The major ops event in June was the J-NEST (Joint National Capital Region Enhanced Surveillance TTP) exercise the week of June 22-26. The test consisted of split, simultaneous live and DMO operations on our ops floor in support of development, testing, and evaluation of TTPs to detect, identify, and engage cruise missile threats to the NCR (helping us to achieve our new Vision!) The J-NEST project team gave high praise for the professionalism of EADS crews. I was very impressed with each crew's focus on a successful test. While countering multiple cruise missiles can only be accomplished with a high functioning team, I'd like to single out some superior performers. Maj. Jen King was instrumental in test planning and developing TTPs. Maj. Mahoney and Capt. Crumb demonstrated exceptional skill on position. The DMO team...Flounder Dorfman, Eric Svailand and Huck Huckabone...did an outstanding job working through system issues and a difficult architecture to ensure test completion. Kudos to our security forces team...EADS' Finest...who are now in the third month at FPCON BRAVO. Thanks for keeping us safe! Thank you to all of you who put in so much effort on behalf of Col Dewey's retirement events. He was genuinely touched.