OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and the situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Name and describe your organization.

Matthew Scott Lariviere - The organization I am choosing is the United States Air Force.
More specifically, I am choosing the 509th Civil Engineer Squadron at Whiteman Air
Force Base Missouri. A squadron is a group within the Air Force comprised of shops
(different career fields) comprising elements, that then are grouped into flights, and
finally the squadron. I will be speaking frequently about the Infrastructure Flight, the
Water and Fuel Systems Maintenance Shop (WFSM) and the squadron at large. It can be
confusing, but think of a pyramid with the commander at the top and each level dividing
down until it reaches the shop level.

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role).

My role in the organization is that of a front line supervisor. To this end, I am a Staff
Sergeant that supervises three to four Airmen. My boss is the NCOIC (Non-
Commissioned Officer in Charge) of the shop, or the ranking enlisted member. I report
directly to him and his boss would be the Element (Infrastructure) Superintendent who
oversee WFSM, HVAC/R, and Pest Management. I am in charge of several programs and
also lead and rate the aforementioned airmen.

3) Describe the situation, including information you think the will help the reader
understand the most important elements of the situation. (This will require
selectivity: part of the art of case writing is separating the essential facts from the
mass of information that might be included).

The situation at hand is the current one revolving around annual reviews (EPBs –
Enlisted Promotion Boards) that are closing now. There has been some turmoil between
myself and the other NCOs in the shop since we compete for something called a
promotion statement. These promotion statements offer additional points when it comes

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 time to test for the next rank. We are using a new system of writing that has left many
people confused on how to properly capture the activities throughout the year. There is
an obvious disconnect between out flight leadership and the squadron leadership as to
what holds the most weight. My fellow Staff Sergeant was told to primarily focus on
work performance, whereas I had a balance between work, studies, and additional
duties/volunteering. Finally, we had a third NCO who was out most of the year due to a
pregnancy and maternity leave.

When it came time to “push” up names for statements, I wasn’t considered yet the other
two were. However, the NCO told to focus on work ended up not being competitive due
to a lack of education and extra activities listed and the third didn’t have nearly enough of
anything. Following this revelation, the NCO who was told to focus on work was told he
needs to be out of the shop more doing other things and also that the fact this is only his
second base and he only had two deployments showed a lack of breadth of experience. I,
however, am involved in base wide activities, do important jobs, and completed 12
classes last year. None of these were considered due to personal conflicts of personality
between myself and my leadership.

The situation, more specifically, will be focused on how the choosin of whom gets
pushed for a statement played out, how the information flowed before, during, and after
writing the EPBs, and how this played out between the NCOs.