Two Airmen who embarked on Air Force careers after
graduating from California high schools define teamwork as aerospace and
operational physiology flight technicians with Joint Base San
Antonio-Randolph’s 359th Aerospace-Medicine Squadron.
Senior Airman Heather Uman and Airman 1st Class Ariana
Rodriguez serve as instructors, teaching pilots and other aircrew members the
skills they need to function safely at altitude and handle any emergencies they
encounter. They also work together to manage the schedules of the flight’s 18
instructors and the 6,000 students who come for training each year.
“They develop and maintain administration and scheduling
operations for both the flight and the six pipelines we provide training for,”
Staff Sgt. Rhea Stitham, 359th AMDS Aerospace and Operational Physiology Flight
NCO in charge of administration and scheduling, said. “They are very efficient,
deliver high-quality customer service and come up with innovative ideas.”
Rodriguez, who attended high school in the Orange County
coastal city of Huntington Beach, Calif., said she and Uman have different
personalities, but they also share important traits.
“I’m Type A and she’s Type B, but we’re both pretty positive
and we both like to work a lot,” she said. “We can clash, but it’s also a good
thing. We balance each other.”
Uman, who went to high school in California’s capital,
Sacramento, said she enjoys working with Rodriguez.
“She likes to get things done now,” she said. “I understand
her work ethic.”
Uman said she and Rodriguez are responsible for the entire
scheduling section, but “do a lot more than that.”
“We have to check
which instructors are available, because there are days when people aren’t
available,” she said. “It’s very busy, with a lot of moving pieces.”
Neither Uman nor Rodriguez envisioned the aerospace
physiology career field when they were in high school.
Uman, who aspired to be an artist and was not interested in
a military career, took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery only
because it was common practice for students at her high school to take the test
due to Sacramento’s proximity to Beale Air Force Base, Calif.
Four months after she took the test, Uman found out the Air
Force was interested in her. With encouragement from her mother, who told her
about the educational opportunities – not to mention the paycheck – the service
would offer her, Uman visited a recruiter whose career field happened to be
aerospace physiology. She soon entered basic training and attended technical
school in that same career field.
When Uman reached technical school at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base, Ohio, she found out something the recruiter had not told her about
the career field: She would have to teach.
“I had to get stage fright out of the way,” she said. “But I
got more comfortable with it and now I like teaching. It just took practice.”
Unlike Uman, Rodriguez knew she wanted to join the military.
Her brother was a Marine, but she felt the Air Force provided her with the best
job opportunities and more stability, so she enlisted in 2013 after graduating
from high school in 2012.
Rodriguez said her recruiter found her an “awesome
opportunity” in the career field of aerospace physiology, which suited her
because of her ability to work with people and her social nature. Her stumbling
block was science.
“I’ve always been a good public speaker, but I’ve never been
a science person,” she said. “Tech school was fun, but difficult at times. I
like the hands-on portion as far as actually working with a student and
instructing, but getting through the academic portion definitely required a lot
of studying.
“I was told that once I got through my upgrade training at
my first duty station and received my five-skill level that everything would be
a lot easier, and it was,” Rodriguez said. “It was just a matter of
understanding and memorizing the information, then regurgitating it in a way
for students to understand easily.”
In their roles as instructors, Uman and Rodriguez educate
aircrew members, whether they’re taking initial or refresher training, on combating
the effects of high altitude on the human body through the use of the altitude
chamber, which simulates those effects, including hypoxia. Uman said she and
Rodriguez cover a variety of equipment, but focus on the oxygen regulator;
oxygen mask; CRU-60, a piece that helps connect the regulator and mask; and
helmet.
“We also cover the types of oxygen cylinders the students
will encounter when flying operationally,” she said.
In addition, they instruct students on the use of the Barany
chair, which helps aircrew members combat the different forms of spatial
disorientation.
In the classroom, the technicians cover items and topics
such as how cabin pressurization works, how eyes dark-adapt, emergency
equipment, parachutes, how to inspect equipment and basic survival techniques
to survive a plane crash.
Stitham described Uman and Rodriguez as “highly motivated
individually,” but also said they “encourage each other to excel professionally
and personally.”
Both of them are active in community service efforts, including
membership in the Team Randolph Airmen’s Council. Rodriguez served as president
last year, while Uman was the organization’s secretary.
Their work and service efforts have not gone unnoticed. Uman
has received coins for coordinating a promotion ceremony and participating in
American Indian Heritage Month; Rodriguez has earned a coin for her work as
TRAC president and was honored by the New Braunfels, Texas, Chamber of Commerce
as JBSA-Randolph Airman of the Quarter for the fourth quarter of 2014.
Uman said she, Rodriguez and other aerospace and operational
physiology technicians are “directly impacting the Air Force.
“We’re teaching them life-saving techniques,” she said. “If
they didn’t have this information, who knows how they would react.”
(Editor's note: Joint Base San Antonio Front and
Center is a series of stories highlighting outstanding members of the community
while showcasing their impact on the missions that take place at JBSA.)