AFMC Command News

Speaker urges crowd to 'break through complacency' at YoCE event

  • Published
  • By Amy Rollins
  • Skywrighter staff
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  Air Force Materiel Command's successful 2011 initiative, the "Year of the Community College of the Air Force," has segued into 2012 being designated the "Year of Continuing Education," and personnel at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are positioning themselves to be engaged in the effort.

"Don't be stagnant," said Keith Tickle, keynote speaker for the base's YoCE kickoff event on March 2, 2012, and a human resource specialist in Workforce Development.

Tickle started his Air Force career as an airman basic, became an award-winning officer and segued into a civilian position.

"If you always do what you've always done, you're only going to be as good as you are right now," he said.

Chief Master Sgt. Eric Jaren, AFMC command chief, provided an overview before the keynote speech. He attributed the idea for YoCCAF to a team of people led by Chief Master Sgt. Mark Brejcha, former 412th Test Wing command chief at Edwards AFB, Calif., in 2009, emphasizing education to the base's enlisted personnel. Jaren credits the success of the initiative to face-to-face communication.

He said that every member of that initial team enrolled in a degree-completion program, too.

"Every last one of you has a story to share about what it took for you to overcome those obstacles that are in our lives to continue to go to school," Jaren said as he outlined his own education path and the statistics outlining last year's YoCCAF success.

This year's initiative is meant to reach beyond enlisted Airmen to officers and base civilian employees to emphasize education for everyone, Jaren said.

"Education transcends career field, it transcends demographics of any kind," he said. "We're going to make the same kind of impact in Air Force Materiel Command in year two, the Year of Continuing Education. ... We're at the doorstep of making some serious change."

Next year's emphasis will be "Year of the Graduate," he said.

"We're going to need to be as educated, to find those efficiencies and work through this transformation to take our Air Force to the next level as we become smaller, leaner and more agile.

"Investment in education is a down payment on the future and is a promise for tomorrow," Jaren said.

At the beginning of his speech, Tickle passed around three wooden boards and two clipboards and asked the audience to write on them why they cannot or can pursue their education further, respectively.

He said, if asked, he would add to the Air Force's three core values -- integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do, -- a fourth value, to "fight complacency."

"You have to take the opportunities that are laid before you today. This is a great opportunity. The command supports this immensely.

"Take the opportunities that lie before you. Capitalize on those and fight your personal complacency to get better," he said.

Tickle also noted that education provides a framework for one's experiences.

"What we learn is 80 percent experience. Twenty percent is what we learn in the classroom, so that 20 percent is what we need to frame these things," he said. "Education frames my experiences so I can learn. If we just have experiences, then what do they mean to us?"

His final point was to avoid making excuses about pursuing education.

"If you take anything away from today, it is, 'I don't have an excuse,'" he said.

After reading the audience's excuses, Tickle then clutched the sheets of paper outlining reasons why education is achievable and punched his fist through the wooden boards.

"Don't wait another minute to decide whether or not to be academically vectored," he said. "The time is now. Speak to one of the outstanding members of the Education and Training Office and get going today.

"Always shop for your next academic growth opportunity to make sure it stretches you and allows you to use your skills and talents in support of your own critical mission known as life. The sky is not the limit. For those of you who choose to push past the excuses, there's an entire frontier to be conquered. But where your career goes is ultimately up to you. Others can knock down barriers and point you toward opportunities, but you must do your part."