Photo By Command Sgt. Maj. Ryan Matson | From foreground, U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Emory Faber, a military police officer from...... read more read more
NOTE: This is the sixth in an 11-part series on the 652nd Regional Support Group, out of Helena, Montana. The unit arrived in Poland September 26, 2019, to begin a mobilization where they became the first Army Reserve unit responsible for the operations of 11 (originally 10) base camps throughout the country. The series breaks down what teams do at each base camp. This story focuses on the Poznan base camp.
Poznan base camp has “gone postal.”
In October, Poznan became the fifth official U.S. Army Post Office established in Poland, following the first four at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Drawsko Pomorski Training Area, Powidz and Zagan base camps. Those four Army Post Offices (APO) were started about five years ago during the beginning phases of Atlantic Resolve.
In February, the Poznan APO expanded with the help of the 652nd Regional Support Group, an Army Reserve unit out of Helena, Montana, tasked with managing base operations by running mayor cell teams at all 11 base camps throughout the country.
“With the 652d RSG assisting with the mayor cell duties (hosting billeting and accesses for both assigned Soldiers and accesses for mail delivery) being expertly coordinated, mail flow in and out of Poznan has greatly increased and the quality of life has definitely grown,” Darrell McKown, the U.S. civilian postmaster for the country of Poland, assigned to Area Support Group Poland, said.
The establishment of an APO is big news at the small camp that is home to a few hundred American Soldiers and a handful of Polish Army Soldiers. It is even more important now as Soldier’s movements are restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and rely on mail delivery to bring products from the outside world.
The 652nd coordinated a large workspace and helped Soldiers from the 444th Human Resources Company, a Reserve unit from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who runs the APO, with their move to the new area. Now the Poznan APO is working to become the first operational full-service APO in the country. McKown said stamps and other supplies have already been ordered and he expects Soldiers to be able to send and receive mail directly at Poznan within the next few months.
The APO is just one in a list of improvements to the base camp for the 652nd mayor cell team, which consists of mayor Capt. Jacob Ahmann, an intelligence officer from Bozeman, Montana, deputy mayor Staff Sgt. Billie Endress, a signal support systems noncommissioned officer from Denver, Colorado, and Spc. Emory Faber, a military police officer from Helena, Montana.
Ahmann’s team arrived at Poznan in late January and immediately went to work. Within 30 days, the team had secured 40 improved mattresses from Powidz base camp for the 484th Movement Control Battalion, a new incoming unit that had recently arrived. Besides the post office, the team has overseen massive renovations projects at many of the buildings on the base camp and assisted in the addition of a Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System machine. This allows Soldiers to be issued a new ID card in Poland, or get one replaced. The new machine saves the Army money, as prior to the machine coming to Poznan, Soldiers would have to travel to Germany for these services.
“It saves Soldiers a massive amount of time, since pretty much every base except for Bemowo Piskie Training Area is within three hours of here,” Ahmann said. “You can schedule an appointment online – it comes up as the only one in Poland. That’s a big win for Area Support Group Poland – the only thing we do with it is facilitate the process.”
Ahmann’s team was also proactive in the COVID-19 plan. By mid-February, as cases were starting to form in Europe, he worked with the Polish liaisons in identifying one of the buildings currently being renovated as isolation areas if needed.
“We were able to establish four isolated bedrooms in a different building, away from the general population, as well as a secondary medical examination office for the 1st Infantry Division medical staff to utilize for anyone exhibiting signs of the Coronavirus,” Ahmann said.
While the streets may be empty now, Poznan, home to more than a half a million people, is the fifth-largest city in Poland. Ahmann and his team are within walking distance of numerous cafes and restaurants, a large mall, the Old Town district, a major rail station, and several universities. The base camp doesn’t have an actual post exchange store, but an Army and Air Force Exchange Service truck visits twice a month. The truck is also especially important to the Soldiers during the time of restricted movement.
Mayor cell duties were previously being handled on the base camp by the 1st Infantry Division, the main tenant unit located on Poznan. Ahmann said he inherited a well-working mayor cell from 1st Sgt. Craig Carroll, the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st ID first sergeant, but was able to take current processes and make improvements by being able to devote his team’s complete focus on them. This also freed up the 1st Infantry Division to concentrate solely on their primary mission. Now, the Polish and contractors on the base camp deal with the same familiar faces for everyday needs.
Ahmann’s group also streamlined the process for base access. In the past, base access requests would go to the 1st ID HHC, who would forward the requests, one at a time, to their Polish counterparts.
Endress put together a skeleton tracking system which Faber manages as one of his primary responsibilities. He tracks the requesting person’s basic identification, the date of the request, and the day it was received by the others involved in the issuing process. Faber notifies the requestor when their pass is ready, and the person must then sign for the pass, thereby eliminating the possibility of a person claiming they never received it. In addition to improving physical security, the cases of people requesting a pass and having to wait weeks for it or calling and e-mailing multiple times about the status of their pass, have been eliminated.
“It’s also easier for the Polish,” Faber, who spent the first half of his deployment at Powidz before coming with to Poznan with Ahmann, noted. “Instead of receiving 20 different requests from different people throughout the day at different times, it’s all in one spreadsheet coming from the same person, at the same time each day. It’s sped up the process literally from months to sometimes days.”
Endress’ main responsibility with the team, meanwhile, is handling work orders. He enhanced the work order process by designing an electronic submission and tracking system, so people don’t have to physically fill them out and bring them in. He drew on his experience by doing some of the same duties at BPTA, a much larger NATO base, for the first part of his deployment before coming to Poznan.
One thing I’ve learned from working in the mayor cell - it’s all about visibility,” Endress said. “You want visibility on basically everything; that’s kind of our job. We’re not plumbers, we’re not electricians, we’re not security, we’re not training managers, but we need to know what’s going on in all these areas so that these people can do their jobs efficiently.”
While Endress enjoyed his time at BPTA, he said he is very happy at his new home, too.
“I feel like I’m the luckiest guy on the deployment,” Endress said. “I love my job, I love my team, I love the experience I’ve had and I love where I’m at. I’ve got to have two pretty different experiences. BPTA is completely different from Poznan, so I’ve got to have two different deployments in nine months.”
| Date Taken: | 02.28.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 04.22.2020 10:55 |
| Story ID: | 368085 |
| Location: | POZNAN, PL |
| Hometown: | BOZEMAN, MONTANA, US |
| Hometown: | DENVER, COLORADO, US |
| Hometown: | HELENA, MONTANA, US |
| Web Views: | 761 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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