Air War College officers gain from seminars, TEC campus

by Master Sgt. Mike R. Smith
I.G. Brown Training and Education Center

6/12/2015 - MCGHEE TYSON AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Tenn. -- About 66 Air Force officers and one Marine Corps officer gathered here June 1-12 at the I.G. Brown Training and Education Center for the fourth Air War College seminar.

The TEC now hosts the seminar twice a year to help provide options for Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command lieutenant colonels in their strategic leadership correspondence studies, said officials.

"Officer PME on the TEC campus has really enhanced the training and education experience for all our students," said Col. Jessica Meyeraan, the TEC's commander. "Last week's retreat is a great example. The addition of the AWC flight, formed up next to the NCOA students, was a fantastic way for us to collectively honor our proud heritage, tradition of honor and legacy of valor."

The officers arrived from across the nation, they networked and they prepared papers on national security topics.

Lt. Col. Dawn Roberson, a facilitator for the Carl A. Spaatz Center for Officer Education, said that selection for these seminars is highly competitive - twice as many applied as were selected.  For the Air National Guard officers, their assigned units selected them to attend as well as sponsored their travel costs.  Air Force officers are centrally funded.

Roberson said that the seminar strengthens the correspondence version of AWC's 10-month in-resident program at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. The TEC version consists of four courses, which can take an officer enrolled in normal distance learning four years' worth of nights and weekends to complete. These seminars support the officers with networking and classroom discussion during the second and fourth course.

"The purpose of this seminar is to let them focus on those studies, discuss them and set aside the distractions and demands at home," said Roberson.

Roberson said that the officers' perspectives from their particular career fields and duty assignments held great value to the studies and writing as well as in networking to future missions. She hopes more will consider the seminar's value in AWC. 

Thousands of officers enroll in AWC's distance learning program each year.