Public Affairs named best in AFMC

  • Published
  • By Mark Wyatt
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – The 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs office here has captured the Brig. Gen. Harry J. Dalton, Jr., Award for best overall communication program in Air Force Materiel Command.

The award highlighted the team’s unexpected challenges and outstanding results throughout fiscal year 2016.

“The PA team did a great job of meeting its communication objectives – publicizing a complex mission, increasing media engagement and maximizing utility of its various media products and platforms,” said Chuck Paone, the team’s director. “At the same time, we encountered a bevy of unexpected challenges that our experienced and dedicated team handled particularly well.”

The Public Affairs Office provides internal information, media relations, community relations, security and policy review and visual information support at Hanscom. The team’s goal is to provide trusted counsel to base and center leadership, keep the workforce and base residents fully informed with accurate information while also publicizing to the American public the importance of Hanscom AFB and its programs.

Among the accomplishments noted in the narrative write up for the award was handling the crisis communication that followed the overnight notification of two deployed Hanscom Airmen dying in Afghanistan in early October 2015. Other challenges included Hanscom being listed in January as a potential facility for housing unaccompanied alien children apprehended at the border, as well as several new or unexpected programmatic and organizational issues.

“During a hectic year that included these pop-up challenges, the team also continued to highlight all the activity of the Air Force’s only active-duty base in the Northeast and the more than 300 weapons system programs managed here,” Paone said.

Through a number of avenues, the PA team consistently was able to provide a flow of news and information.

“The team robustly conducted its PA mission and took on a seemingly unrelenting series of unexpected challenges with gusto and professionalism, dramatically building its key audiences along the way, evidenced by: a 60 percent increase in Facebook ‘likes’; a 25 percent increase in Twitter followers and a huge spike in web views, among other statistics,” Paone said.

The PA team will now compete with other major commands for best in the Air Force.