San Angelo leaders gather to sign partnership agreements

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Matthew Stott
  • 17th Training Wing Public Affairs

San Angelo leaders gathered to publicly sign two Memorandums of Understanding during the Quarterly Community Partnership Update meeting at the Business Resource Center on Jan. 25.

The meeting included updates from the three main working groups established last year: Joint Emergency Management and Disaster Response Training Facility, K9 Military Working Dog Facility, and Skilled Workforce Development. This was followed by a facilitated brainstorming session for other potential partnership initiatives. Finally, representatives from the base and the community signed the two partnership MOUs.

The first MOU establishes the parameters for cooperative support between Goodfellow and the Concho Valley Workforce Development Board to recruit Airmen separating or retiring from the Air Force for training under the Career Skills Program. Partnerships under the Career Skills Program are designed to help transitioning service members develop workforce skills and potentially secure internships or employment within the local community.

The second MOU is a community partnership between the 17th Training Group and Angelo State University to provide students, faculty, staff and members of the surrounding community opportunities for exposure to prominent guest speakers. ASU has experience showcasing speakers through various speaker series while the 17 TRG seeks to contribute with the introduction of a 17 TRG-sponsored Doolittle Speaker series focused on technology and national security, on-base advertising for the ASU speaker series events, and 17 TRG attendance. This partnership will help both community and base members enhance professional understanding of key events and topics based on insights from prominent speakers.

Goodfellow now has 28 active agreements with the signing of these two MOUs, which is the most amount of agreements with community partners in the entire Department of Defense.

17th Training Wing Community Partnership Specialist Stephanie Grunze-Swanson played a key role in the organization of these MOU signings.

“The way ahead for the AFCP Program at Goodfellow is to create opportunities enabling our base and community leaders to find creative, unconventional solutions to address immediate and long-term needs and requirements in our community and base,” said Grunze-Swanson. “There are several initiatives, in various stages of development and infancy, we expect to become partnerships in the near future.”