AFREP: Saving the Air Force time and money

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Aaron Montoya
  • 49th Wing Public Affairs
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Saving money is important no matter who you are, and when it comes to large ticket items, having a highly trained individual who can repair equipment as opposed to buying replacements is very valuable.

That's exactly what Staff. Sgt. Mark Hawkins, Air Force Repair Enhancement Program lead technician is doing for Holloman. The AFREP program has trained Hawkins to repair items around base that would normally be replaced or repaired by an independent contractor, which can get expensive.

"The AFREP training was in Tucson, Ariz. for a month and a half," said Hawkins. "It's a very difficult training, they teach us to do soldering on a NASA level, and dealing with circuit boards. That way I can repair a circuit board, if it's burnt, I can go in and replace all of the components. If the board is populated, I can isolate the affected component and replace it to save the wing from having to buy another circuit board."

AFREP was designed to save the Air Force time and money by training existing personnel to repair important and hard to find items that are used on a regular basis.

"We are here to save and avoid the wing costly money from equipment that's either too difficult or expensive to repair and having contractor come out to repair it," said Hawkins. "We are 2M certified and we fix everything that's not under an Air Force Specialty Code or warranty. That goes for printers, shredders, gym equipment and more. It's not just flight line stuff that we fix, it's base-wide. Anything that's broken that we can avoid the Air Force from having to buy again or replace."

Even though AFREP is currently a two-man shop, that doesn't stop Hawkins from putting up some impressive numbers in the short amount of time he has been the lead technician.

"I have saved $176,000 in avoidance," said Hawkins. "Things that I have fixed to avoid that cost include a mobile tower for the maintenance squadron which was $150,000, printers and shredders ranging from $500 - $1000, a plastic heat bag for medical which was $5000, projectors which are $500 - $600 a piece and communication cords which cost $600 a piece. They can't be bought anymore and if you can find them, they take about six to eight months to get here. I have repaired 16 of them and saved the Air Force $10,600."

In less than a year, Hawkins has proven that AFREP will be a valuable asset to the base with his performance and he expects to see the involvement from the rest of the base to increase drastically as time goes on.

"I'm probably going to need someone else to help, instead of just me going out. It's going to get big because I'm sure everyone is going to start bringing their things here and that's what we need, we need to start saving money," said Hawkins.

Money avoided and money saved are different, but Hawkins thinks that the future potential savings can benefit Holloman.

"I think this program is good, and hopefully instead of just avoiding money, we can start saving money so we can put it back into the wing to help the base," said Hawkins.

Job satisfaction plays a large part in a person's job performance. Hawkins enjoys his work with AFREP and the numbers speak for themselves.

"I like this a lot, mainly because I can actually see the progress that's being made as far as saving the Air Force money. I can see the numbers as they tally up," said Hawkins. "Knowing that it's all from the training that I received and knowing that I'm actually helping."