Tribase Senior Master Sergeant Bechdel -- One of 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year

  • Published
  • By Peter G. Park, Commander's Action Group
  • JIOCEUR Analytic Center
ROYAL AIR FORCE MOLESWORTH, England --  The Air Force Personnel Center has announced that JIOCEUR Analytic Center  Intelligence Directorate Superintendent, Senior Master Sergeant Mary A. Bechdel has been selected as one of the 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year.

She will go in September to the U.S. Air Force Association (AFA) Air & Space Conference And Technology Exposition 2009 In Washington DC, where she will receive her award and serve for the next year as a member of the Air Force Enlisted Council.

Is she excited about the award and opportunities to affect the future of the Service? You bet she is: "The first thing I did was tell my mother, who immediately told all the other patients at the hospital she was in at the time!"

JAC Senior Enlisted Leader, Navy Master Chief John C. Frakes said " What a great honor for Senior Master Sgt. Bechdel to represent the Air Force here among the Joint Community as one of the 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year. Although she just arrived, this award is a true testament to her leadership abilities, which are welcomed and needed each day as the new Intelligence Directorate Superintendent. What a luxury for us to have this caliber of a Senior Noncommissioned Officer among us; as we say in the Navy, "Bravo Zulu" Senior Master Sgt. Bechdel."

At the JAC, Senior Master Sergeant Mary A. Bechdel is responsible for five divisions of 420 personnel. Senior Master Sgt. Bechdel manages personnel from four services, multiple disciplines, and is responsible for matters affecting the morale, welfare, training, discipline, recognition, and effective utilization of all enlisted personnel assigned to the Directorate.

This award recognizes 12 outstanding enlisted personnel for superior leadership, job performance, community involvement, and personal achievements. AFA honors the 12 Outstanding Airmen at its annual convention in Washington, D.C. The program was initiated at the Air Force Association's 10th annual national Conference, held in New Orleans in 1956. The Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, a general officer and selected Air Force Major Command command chiefs form the selection board. The Air Force Chief of Staff reviews the selections. The 12 Outstanding Airmen are awarded the Outstanding Airman ribbon with the bronze service star device and wear the Outstanding Airman badge for one year. 

Senior Master Sergeant Bechdel, who hails from Albuquerque, NM has worn the intelligence specialist badge for the last 11 years, but her eyes sparkle when she talks about her first 13 years in the Air Force as a Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory specialist, practicing metrology, the scientific study of measurement. 

"Did you know that If you take a dark and a grey hair from the same person of the same length they will weigh differently on a precision scale? " said the Sergeant.  Her work measured critical performance parameters of Air Force systems such as jet engines. 

Since retraining into intelligence in 1998, she has served at three squadrons of the 480th Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing, and most recently as Operations Superintendent at the 13th Intelligence Squadron at Beale AFB, California. 
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The other 11 Outstanding Airmen of the year who will join Senior Master Sergeant Bechdel in Washington in September are: Staff Sgt. Johanna Aviles from Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., Master Sgt. Tyrone Bingham of Offutt AFB, Neb., Senior Airman Channel Bolton-Scholl from McChord AFB, Wash., Tech. Sgt. John Carter assigned to RAF Mildenhall, England, Tech. Sgt. Manuel Herrera of Scott AFB, Ill., Tech. Sgt. Benjamin Horton from Hill AFB, Utah, Tech. Sgt. Jennifer Laufer assigned to Maxwell AFB, Ala., Tech. Sgt. Marisol Lozada of Cannon AFB, N.M., Master Sgt. Christopher Pollock from Kadena Air Base, Japan, Senior Airman Alexander Royal of Peterson AFB, Colo., and Senior Master Sgt. Jeffery Steagall from Peterson AFB