The mission at Travis Air Force Base is the largest in the Air Mobility Command and the units' responsibilities are spread out - some Airmen fly while others repair, but if you need a part, you trust the 60th Logistics Readiness Squadron Materiel Management Flight to get that part and get that aircraft back in the sky.
"Our mission as the Materiel Management Flight is to provide 24/7 logistic support to the installation's mission," said Staff Sgt. Jorge Contreras Quineche, 60th LRS aircraft parts store supervisor.
Materiel Management Flight comprises 147 Airmen; LRS has 300 Airmen.
"Materiel Management Flight accounts and safeguards 32,000 assets valued at $2.2 million," said 2nd Lt. Alexandria Valdez, 60th LRS customer support officer in charge. "We also manage five thousand weapons and 241 thousand mobility assets, valued at $80 million."
Materiel management provides asset storing, maintaining, issuing and reclaiming (or repairing), capabilities in support of the C-17 Globemaster III and C-5 Galaxy fleet, as well as the wing at large.
"Our aircraft part store maintains readily deployable aircraft mission support kits for humanitarian and wartime contingencies," Contreras Quineche said. "Our central storage section houses our aircraft parts, making them available to issue at a moment's notice, while our individual protective equipment section equips the warfighters with body armor, weapons and mission oriented protective posture gear when tasked to deployment."
When the Air Force is called for humanitarian aid or a movement of troops, materiel management has everything organized and ready to go at a moment's notice.
"Our customer support section provides accurate data and high priority orders tracking in support of our weapons systems and tracking equipment accountability for every unit," Contreras Quineche said. "Our flight service center manages the repair cycle return process for aircraft parts."
When you have a broken part on your car, you take your whole car to get fixed, but for aircraft parts, it's much more of a process.
"I help maintain a database for assets that are broken and getting repaired," Senior Airman Jendra Maker, 60th LRS flight service center journeyman. "Either send it to a shop on base to get repaired, send it out to get repaired, or if it's unrepairable, the item manager will give further guidance on where the part will go."
The flight service center also maintains a close relationship to Boeing, so close that their offices are connected. Having this relationship allows for a faster turnaround for C-17 assets, and eventually the KC-46 Pegasus. When the KC-46 arrives, Travis AFB won't only be adding another fleet of aircraft, but the materiel management flight will be adding more parts to their storage warehouses.
The KC-46 is projected to arrive on Travis AFB August of 2023.
Airmen 1st Class Lainey Harmon, left, and Elaine Arceneaux, 60th Logistics Readiness Squadron materiel management aircraft parts store technicians, check parts in storage racks April 13, 2021, at Travis Air Force Base, California. The 60th LRS Materiel Management Flight is responsible for managing inventory. They administer and operate complex supply systems to ensure financial accountability for all of the utilized supplies. These Airmen ensure every asset - from small screws to multimillion-dollar machinery - is accounted for and where it needs to be whenever our Airmen need them. (U.S. Air Force photo by Nicholas Pilch)
