157th Services Flight changes command

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Angela Stebbins
  • 157 Public Affairs
January 12, 2009 --  Saturday of the January drill there was a change in leadership for the 157th Services Flight from Lt. Col. Laurie McAvoy to Maj. Jennifer Haggard. Just as the beginning of the phrase by Alexander Graham Bell states, "When one door closes, another opens," the story of this latest change in command here at Pease reflects. 

During the ceremony, McAvoy was presented with the Meritorious Service Medal for distinguishing herself in the performance of outstanding service to the United States while assigned to the services flight. 

157th Services Flight Base Services Specialist, Senior Master Sgt. George A. Little, read the citation to those that gathered in the celebration. "During this period, Col. McAvoy was instrumental in the refocus of training within the services flight. Her vision brought to reality an annual training deployment of the services flight to Otis Air National Guard Base, Cape Cod and to Badin, North Carolina. Doing focused week-long training allowed services members to concentrate on required services related home station training enhancing unit cohesion and readiness. To ensure that the services flight trained as a unified group, she volunteered to return to Services Combat Training more often than required for her own training. Colonel McAvoy enhanced the base fitness program and created the first ever Services Flight Fitness Club that serves as a bench mark for other units to follow." 

"When Lt. Col. McAvoy came to be our services commander, she did not know anything about services, but she got involved in everything we did, leading by example; she did not expect you to do anything she would not do alongside you. She learned and grew with us," said 157th Services Flight Inventory Management Specialist NCOIC, Master Sgt. Lori Johnson.

Johnson attended the annual services training deployments McAvoy initiated and said, "She had a vision and held each one of us accountable to meet that vision. The standards she held us to were high and through all of it, she was able to create much more camaraderie amongst us as a team. We were all finally able to work together with a mission and a goal. She also had a work-hard, play-hard mentality that worked for us, rewarding us for all of our accomplishments." 

157th Services Flight Lodging NCOIC, Tech. Sgt. Joseph Samson, said, "Lt. Col. McAvoy had a knack for maximizing people's potential and encouraging them to excel. She seemed to know how to find somebody's strengths and helping them focus on those strengths. She also had a great talent with mentoring the new members coming into the flight. Everything the Air Force ever taught us, she brought to the plate."

In regards to the new fitness club, 157th Services Unit Fitness Program Manager, Tech. Sgt. Robert Rojek said, "This program is a stepping stone to get our whole base involved in a circuit training program here at the base fitness facility in building 149. We will be testing this new program over the next few months and offering the end result to all members here upon the completion of our roll-out, estimated to begin around August of this year. This will include fitness classes such as a 'boot-camp' class as well as a circuit training system to offer 10 to 12 different exercise stations, having the individuals do approximately 2-3 minutes of exercise on each station then doing 2-3 minutes of running in-between each exercise, providing a total body workout, then a cool down and stretching with a yoga based stretching routine."

After presenting McAvoy with a memorabilia photo slideshow presentation, the members of the services flight rendered McAvoy one final salute and then welcomed in Haggard as their new commander with a salute as well.