HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - Several Army aviators, units and industry partners were recognized for their outstanding performances in support of Army aviation and the ground Soldiers during the 2015 Army Aviation Association of America Functional Awards ceremony Thursday at the Von Braun Center.
The AAAA Functional Awards address a specific area or specialty within the Army aviation community. Selection of a Functional Award winner is made by the most appropriate agency representing the functional area in conjunction with the Army Aviation Branch at Fort Rucker.
Those recognized include:
• Chief Warrant Officer 4 Graham Ward, Headquarters Department of the Army, G-3/5/7 DAMO-AV with the AAAA Aircraft Survivability Equipment Award. Ward's contribution to the advancement of aircraft survivability equipment span science and technology initiatives, research and development efforts, and funding strategies and decisions for ASE in excess of $2.6 billion.
• Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jeremie Zabko, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion from 25th Combat Aviation Brigade with the AAAA Aviation Mission Survivability Officer Award. Zabko excelled at advancing aviation mission survivability knowledge within the 25th CAB and across the AMSO field.
• Staff Sgt. William Bell, Company D, 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) with the AAAA Avionics Award. He is known as the best Night Stalker avionics trainer in all aspects of aircraft maintenance, aircraft recovery and basic Soldiering, personally responsible for over 300 maintenance man hours while deployed in support of combat operations during Operation Enduring Freedom.
• 603rd Aviation Support Battalion, 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade with the AAAA Outstanding Logistics Support Unit of the Year. Not only did the unit provide assistance in preparing and deploying aircraft for missions to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom's Sentinel, to Iraq in support of Operation New Dawn, to Germany in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, and two battalion aviation taskforces to Joint Readiness Training Center rotations; the unit also provided support packages of Soldiers and equipment for OND, OAR, and both JRTC missions.
• Shawn Hoban with AAAA Materiel Readiness Award for a Contribution by an Individual Member of Industry. Under Hoban's leadership, the New Equipment Training Team conducted approximately 75 percent of all E model Aviator Series Qualifications and 100 percent of the differences training to the entire AH-64D and AH-64E model fleets.
• Millennium System Services Inc. with the AAAA Materiel Readiness Award for Contribution by a Small Business. With a nearly 1,000 percent growth over the last year, the company completed AH-64E series qualification for 437 Apache aviators and conducted approximately 75 percent of all E model Aviator series qualifications. MSSI also completed more than 65 AH-64E maintenance test pilot qualifications.
• Project Manager Apache New Equipment Training Team with MSSI and VT Group with the AAAA Materiel Readiness Award for a Contribution by an Industry Team, Group or Special Unit. This group provides the nucleus of the NET Team which would train aviators at the first 11 units while gradually handing the training requirement over the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence.
• The Boeing Company with the AAAA Materiel Readiness Award for a Contribution by a Major Contractor. The Apache PBL team significantly exceeded the Apache Project Manager's requirement of 85 percent materiel readiness. The team has demonstrated a 93.8 percent materiel readiness overall, with needs in-theater satisfied 95.9 percent of the time.
• Joint Task Force Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize with the AAAA Fixed Wing Unit Award. Using a fleet of manned and unmanned aircraft, TF ODIN helped to defeat the threat of IEDs in Iraq by providing aerial intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance support to ground commanders. The success of TF ODIN in Iraq led to the creation of TF ODIN-Afghanistan in 2009. JTF ODIN's Soldiers, sailors, airmen, government civilians and contractors now provide 65 percent of all aerial ISR support to Afghanistan as well as all of the conventional counterintelligence, human intelligence, biometrics and forensic support to coalition warfighters across the CJOA-A.
• Sgt. 1st Class William Romanoff, 3rd Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment with the AAAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems Soldier of the Year Award. Romanoff's most notable contributions were the implementation of reporting procedures and standing operating procedures; coordinating maintenance to produce a 92 percent operational readiness rate of the Heavy Cav's 12 RQ-7B Shadow UAS; integrating supplies which assisted project manager UAS to develop demand stockage levels for future units; and working with QinetiQ-North America to develop a deployed tactical server for use with UAS-Initiative, an automated logistics maintenance management system.
• Company E, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) with the AAAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems Unit of the Year Award. The company played an instrumental role over the past 12 months while supporting OEF, Operation Freedom Sentinel and Operation Inherent Resolve. They flew over 1,063 combat sorties and 10,387 hours in support of Joint Special Operations Forces throughout the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. From August 2014 to July 2015, the Soldiers of Echo Company successfully executed hundreds of reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, and close air support missions and is directly credited with well over 340 Enemy Killed in Action and 38 Enemy Wounded in Action during autonomous engagements.
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