EOS launches new course for UTMs

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Robert Hicks
  • U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center Public Affairs

The first iteration of the Maintenance Training Management course was launched at the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center headquarters at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, August 22-26, 2022.

This five-day course is designed to be a building block for unit training managers and give them the fundamental knowledge for their duties once they join a maintenance unit.

According to Master Sgt. Justin Miranda, Maintenance Training Management Course director, all UTMs are prior servicemembers from different career fields all around the Air Force, most of which are unfamiliar with the maintenance career field and the in-depth training it requires.

“While there are challenges of being a training manager in every career field, maintenance has its own Air Force instructions that are very in depth on what kind of items a maintainer needs to complete to include high priority critical tasks, and in-depth programs that need to be tracked in metrics,” Miranda said. “It is a lot of information to take in and it’s not required in other career fields, but it is in maintenance.”

The course is currently targeting Air Mobility Command, Air Combat Command, Global Strike Command as well as our total force partners. Plans are in the works to open the course for all major commands in the future.

“This course is 100 percent beneficial,” said Master Sgt. Jarmeea Otten, assigned to the 1st Fighter Wing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. “There are two angles to look at it; the first is knowledge based and the typical day-to-day operations in maintenance for a UTM to deal with. The second is the course provides perspective from a leadership position being able to gain that empathetic mindset for the junior enlisted Airmen that I work for.” It provides a beneficial insight to what the Airmen are going through and what potential problems they can run into.”

Miranda stressed that he wanted the Airmen to know they are not alone. The UTM community is a team, he explained, and they understand that they all have their own challenges up and down the chain.

“This course is long overdue,” Otten said. “There’s a certain anxiety that comes along with being a UTM and knowing you are going to be assigned to a maintenance unit.  This course will certainly ease that anxiety and I am thankful they decided to create a course that would help Airmen out.”

Miranda added, it’s been a long time coming and he’s excited to see what the future brings to the 3F2s.