Robins AFB launches ‘Full Throttle Hiring’

In physics, concepts like “space and time” are often considered infinite. Extending without boundaries.

“Jobs” on Robins Air Force Base sort of have the same concept.

“We’re always going to be seeking employees to cover that attrition,” said Melissa Rivera, Branch Chief for the Human Resources Management Branch on Robins. “We lose at least 70-plus a year sheet metal mechanics, for example, and another 70 aircraft mechanics a year. We’re always short on engineers, so this is always going to be something that we’re doing year to year.”

The “something” Rivera was referring to was the “Full Throttle Hiring,” initiative currently going on. The goal, she said – but see “always” – is to hire approximately 600 people for the Air Logistics Complex side of the house.

“The ALC,” she said, giving more context to the attrition aspect, “we lose on average, we are always targeting five (hundred) to six hundred people a year, always because of our natural attrition rates of retirement separations, different reasons. People resign and whatever the case may be.

“That has been pretty standard (the five hundred to six hundred). This past year with the hiring freeze, obviously, we were a little bit behind the curveball. So, we were shooting a little higher, but it was slow. It was a little slow rolling.

“So, these 600 that we were going after were actual immediate gaps, not including projected attrition. So, while this is a current initiative to close those gaps up, this is a continuing thing for the ALC.”

Rivera came to Robins in 2006 from Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts. She started on the Air Force Reserve Command side of the house, then moved to the Electronics Maintenance Group before coming to the Human Resources branch in 2010; first as an employee, then as section chief and now in her current position.

Tim Huey is second in command – now section chief. “He’s been a recruiter for me for years,” she said. “So, he knows exactly what to look for, you know, he’s the only one I rely on to fill these positions.”

The positions referred to not only include sheet metal, aircraft mechanics and engineers, as already mentioned, but also electronics mechanics, nondestructive tests as well as aviation industry logistics business professionals. They include both Wage Grade and General Schedule positions. (Different pay systems set by the federal government to differentiate between different position descriptions.)

Sheet metal mechanics, Huey said, “repair the skin on the aircraft. The shell, the body, pretty much.” Aircraft mechanics and engineers are fairly self-explanatory. Nondestructive tests, are like “checking an X-ray of your leg to see if you have a broken bone,” Rivera said. Only, “They’re looking for cracks in the airplane,” said Huey. “They’re running … Think of an ultrasound.”

There are several skills, Rivera said, that have the same criticality, “but I will tell you, for example, there are some hard-to-fill skills that are not. The numbers aren’t the same. You have, where you have large numbers, like your sheet metal mechanic … We have probably around 800 sheet metal mechanics at any given time.

“Those are the skills that we have a higher attrition rate. They’re not as hard to fill, but they’re very critical to the mission, so we’re constantly having to fill those also.

“On the flip side, you have your NDIs. They are lower in numbers, probably less than 40 that we need, but they are very hard to fill. So, we’re constantly looking for those too.”

Engineer is another position she said they are always short on – a “nationwide problem, I think.”

Then you have support functions, she went on. “So, you have your HR type positions. You have kind of like your business type, your business node type people that support the logistics of the depot.

“So, anything from a maintenance workload analyst to a program management specialist to management analysts, data analysts. I have an analysis team that is able to take all of our HR data and translate it for us. And what does this mean? What are we going after? It’s because of what that team’s doing.

“So, any type of safety. We have safety. We have quality (control). Finance. So management operations, things like public affairs. They work a lot with our protocol office.

“And so just any type of support function that you can think of that will support the mission. You have planners and schedulers out there also. They’re doing just like it sounds, planning and scheduling of the aircraft.

“We have expediters out there and tools and parts attendants, supply type people, keeping the warehouse. That’s more your logistical side of it.

“So, a lot of positions out there. People moving parts on a forklift. People maintaining the parts in a warehouse. So that’s where your logistical side comes in.”

Robins does have a pipeline through the technical colleges and universities across the state, she said. The hiring freeze did affect it, she added, “but we’re reestablishing that. We are starting our pathways program up again, which is basically interns, taking college interns from the technical school.

“So that’s going to be starting up again here soon, hopefully late this fall. And that will allow us to keep that pipeline going and take the students that are currently enrolled or recent graduates.

There is no “typical age limit,” she said, and Robins is always looking for those transitioning from military to civilian life, she said. They also do hiring events; there was one Aug. 11 in Perry in which she said they had about 400 people show up and selected 124 for the interview process (still ongoing).

The next hiring event will be in October and then in December – opposite months (dates to be announced) and they are also planning a “virtual” event. “And every other month we’re going to take resumes from that event and do scheduled interviews.

“So, this is going to help people that can’t show up to the ‘in-person’ or just are out of town or maybe they’re at another military installation, retirement, just, you know, for whatever reason, they’re not at the in-person.

Robins jobs, of course, come with a benefits package. Retirement. Thrift Savings Plan (similar to a 401K). Annual and sick leave. Paid Parental Leave. Up to five and a half weeks paid annual leave. Health benefits. Life insurance. And don’t forget “job security. In the news, everybody saw early on a couple of years ago that the federal government was laying off and doing a lot of that. But at the depot, at any depot really, it’s a different type of funding. It’s called working capital funds. We don’t do that.

“So, we weren’t touched. We didn’t lay anybody off. Nobody was terminated. Nobody was separated.”

The rewards are also like the job openings. They just keep on going.

“I’m a military brat. You know, I come from a military family. So, you know, when I lost my ID card, I was like, ‘I’m getting a job. I’m not losing my benefits. You know, out there, something as simple as having the gym, a facility, for free, things like that

“But oh my gosh. It is the most rewarding thing. I would never leave the government. To know that you’re a part of something so big is amazing, and it’s very satisfying, very rewarding. It can be a little difficult too at times, don’t get me wrong, but those aircraft that we work on, people fly on them.

“You know, it’s so important. Their lives are in our hands, really. And when they go out there and you look at the recent Operation Epic Fury, for example, you know, it was so important for us to get the aircraft out there. One of the F-15s went down somewhere and come to find out, you know, those pilots survived in that parachute. Well, that parachute was packed right here in our installation.

“So, something like that is just, it gets me almost emotional because it just means that much. To me, there’s nothing more rewarding than that than. Doing something that is so big that it touched somebody so far away and to know that their lives are in our hands means a lot.”

Interested in applying? Then visit one of the sites the WR-ALC is using for the open positions:

• https://workatrobins.com/
• https://afciviliancareers.com/
• https://www.usajobs.gov/

Also, for more information visit www.robins.af.mil/Units/WR-Air-Logistics-Complex/.