94 AW Financial Management earns award

24 Feb 2006 | Master Sgt. Angelita Colón-Francia

The 94th Airlift Wing’s Financial Management section was recently named the winner of the Air Force Reserve Command’s financial acts and services award. 

The honor was given as a result of the AFRC’s financial management and comptroller of the year award competition that recognized four organizations and 16 individuals for contributions made during fiscal year 2005. 

The award nomination reflects the reasons why the section from Dobbins Air Reserve Base was deserving of the recognition. Within a week following Hurricane Katrina, volunteers from Dobbins rallied to support fellow Airmen and their families from the Gulf Coast region that were evacuated to Dobbins. To handle the influx of evacuees, the finance section quickly setup additional workstations to process travel entitlements for displaced Airmen from Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. 

Side-by-side with finance personnel from Keesler, the 94th AW’s finance section spent long work hours and weekends developing a matrix to make sure hurricane evacuees received every entitlement available. 

The knowledge that many of the finance personnel from Keesler left their own displaced families, destroyed homes and civilian jobs to help process other members of the 403rd Airlift Wing, the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron and the 815th Airlift Squadron motivated the Dobbins team to work quickly and efficiently to provide the best financial support possible. Within a two-week period, the section processed more than 700 vouchers and kept customer service open continuously while evacuees relocated to Dobbins enroute to other safe-havens. 

Retired 94th AW comptroller Ms. Rosie Avant wrote in the award nomination that despite never working together before, the personnel from Dobbins and Keesler functioned as one team with one mission – to promptly pay every evacuee what was owed with compassion, respect and professionalism. According to Ms. Avant, the section was “a living example of service before self.” 

The AFRC award means the 94th AW finance section will represent the command and contend against other Air Force-level command nominees to be n