New AFCEC preventive maintenance program manager visits Travis AFB

  • Published
  • By Susan H. Lawson
The Air Force Civil Engineer Center Operations Directorate’s new preventive maintenance program manager hit the road recently to introduce himself to the field.

Samuel “Jason” Schmitz recently visited Travis Air Force Base, California, to collaborate with base civil engineers on preventive maintenance best practices and discuss the TRIRIGA software program implementation. TRIRIGA is NexGen IT software which modernizes the civil engineering career field’s approach to managing CE processes.

“I am impressed and thankful Mr. Schmitz is here and that he cares what we are doing,” said Steve Miller, sub-amp manager for heating, ventilation and air conditioning and interior plumbing with Travis’ 60th Civil Engineer Squadron.

“I appreciate that he took the time to sit down and find out how we are implementing NexGen IT; what specifically we are doing, how we are interpreting playbook requirements, and what we are doing to bring NexGen IT to life; and that he is here sharing means and methods that he has discovered at other bases,” Miller said.

During Schmitz’s visit, he met with team members from the operations engineering element to learn about their successes and challenges when implementing a preventive maintenance program. He also met with technical experts representing each craft within the operations flight to work through the business processes of developing, managing and maturing a sustainable preventive maintenance program.

“I have known Jason just shy of 20 years,” said Senior Master Sgt. Nathan McNeely, superintendent of infrastructure systems at the 60th CES.

“I know what he has done to develop our force; working directly with Airmen or leading the charge on programs and policies that impact them,” McNeely said.

Like all other bases that have ‘gone live’ with TRIRIGA, the 60th CES has pushed through a series of hurdles and learning curves, McNeely said, with many more to go.

“This week we have tapped into his enterprise-level perspective to advance Travis Air Force Base's position in the CE evolution. We have also reciprocated this effort by highlighting field-level issues for his team to compile and work solutions that may benefit the entire CE community,” he said adding, “A change of this magnitude will not be without hardships, but our team at AFCEC, to include Jason, continue to deliver answers and solutions every day.”

During his visit with the Travis team, Schmitz was able to validate new business processes provided in the newly published Preventive Maintenance Reference Guide. These refined steps have proven to reduce man-hours by managing asset records and building job plans within TRIRIGA.

“Working with the members of the 60th CES was, is and continues to be a phenomenal experience,” Schmitz said. “Each member I had the honor of working with during the visit was a great example of how our engineers take deep pride in what we bring to the mission and how the challenges we encounter make us better.”

The new reference guide is available on the CE Portal’s NexGen IT page. Additional resources on preventive maintenance can be found on the AFCEC/COO SharePoint site.