Maj. Michael Girolami, a Huey instructor pilot for the 459th Airlift Squadron, pitches an idea for improving Air Force retention during an AFWERX-sponsored SparkLab workshop at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Friday, June 23, 2023. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — A pitch to add options to the Air Force retirement system that encourage airmen to stay in uniform won the popular vote during a traveling innovation workshop at this airlift hub in western Tokyo.
Twenty people in six teams took part in an AFWERX-sponsored SparkLab event Wednesday through Friday at Yokota High School. On Friday, each team made a two-minute problem-solving pitch based on a problem in the Air Force or at Yokota, headquarters of the 374th Airlift Wing, 5th Air Force and U.S. Forces Japan.
AFWERX, an innovation arm of the Air Force, kicked off the workshop tour on March 20 with a 75-person event at the Air Force Academy in Colorado during innovation week.
The Yokota pitch on Air Force retention won 49.9% of the vote taken at the workshop’s conclusion.
Under his team’s idea, the Air Force would still have 20-year retirement benefits, which includes 40% of final base pay and 100% medical care coverage, Senior Airman Adam Romero, a crewman for the 374th Maintenance Squadron, told Stars and Stripes at the event on Friday.
“Our pitch includes a 15-year retirement and 12-year retirement options,” he said during his pitch. “If you retire at 15 years, it’s 30% of base pay and 75% of medical care covered. If you retire with our 12-year system, it’s 24% of your base pay but with no medical benefits. It's basically enticing people to continue service with different milestones of retirement.”
Capt. Colton McConnel, a Huey instructor pilot for the 459th Airlift Squadron, pitches an idea about 24-hour library access during an AFWERX-sponsored SparkLab workshop at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Friday, June 23, 2023. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)
Other Spark Lab pitches at Yokota included a means of maintaining better mental health in the Air Force, a class to help identify Japanese Air Self-Defense Force ranks and a web-based application to provide easier and faster access to tools for maintenance personnel.
“Coming up with an innovative idea to help mental health is really important to me,” Senior Airman Kayli Rodriguez, a Huey flight engineer with the 459th Airlift Squadron, told Stars and Stripes on Friday. “It impacts everybody in the Air Force whether they know or not. We have so many resources and things put in place to help, but obviously it still isn’t working. We would rather detriment our mental health than have it impact or even lose our careers.”
In the research phase, Rodriguez said she was shocked about what she learned about mental health problems in the Air Force.
“Twenty-five percent of just the Air Force — supposedly the ‘best’ and ‘happiest’ branch of the military — struggle with mental health issues,” she said. “And we still have suicides every day; I can’t imagine what the other branches are like. I've lost five girls that were in the Marine Corps that I was good friends with to suicide.”
Her team’s solution was to implement yearly mental health checks for everyone in the Air Force, much like the annual physical checkup.
“As much as I am really afraid of talking in front of people, I really believe in what I have for my pitch and I really do believe in this idea,” she said.
These innovation events are important because military members are very solution oriented, Tech Sgt. Joshua Toellner, CEO of YokoWERX, told Stars and Stripes on Friday.
“We feel like there's a problem somewhere and we've already got an idea of how to solve it,” he said.
YokoWERX is an innovation lab at the air base where airmen invented underground mapping software — Infrastructure in an Augmented Reality World — that on March 8 took first place at the Air and Space Forces Association 2023 Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo.
The AFWERX experience was challenging, said Master Sgt. Sarah Hubert, the 374th Air Wing superintendent of religious affairs and a member of YokoWERX’s award-winning team.
“It tests the way you think in different ways,” she told Stars and Stripes on Friday. “So, you may think you have a solution right away, but it really makes you stay in the thinking process and exploring process a lot longer than you normally would with problems, which generates some interesting ideas.”
AFWERX’s next stop is Moody Air Force Base, Ga., in July. Other workshops have yet to be scheduled.
