NCOs team up for 363 ISRW INTEND ‘22 Leadership Symposium

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. AJ Hyatt
  • 363d Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Wing
JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. --  Three months ago, one senior NCO at the 363d Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Wing began to brainstorm with the goal to solve problems within the Wing. Over the course of a few months, this idea molded into the INTEND Leadership Symposium.
 
Senior Master Sgt. Nathaniel May, 36th Intelligence Squadron, was the creator of this event. May, along with Senior Master Sergeants Jonathan Hollis, Adam Weingarten and Candice Johnson, planned and executed INTEND 2022.
 
INTEND 2022, which was held July 11-15, 2022, was a forum for rising and highly motivated NCOs to identify, address, and provide a solution to a problem set they see effecting their Group or Wing. 
 
Over the course of the INTEND Leadership Symposium, nine NCOs engaged in a variety of team building activities, professional development seminars, self-paced work and daily interaction with Senior Leadership, and learned techniques with the goal of acquiring skills to quickly and effectively identify, analyze, and solve current and emerging problems.
 
According to May, learning these skills directly correlates to proficiency in Airmen Leadership Quality IV and improving the unit with emphasis on decision-making and innovation.
 
Prior to arriving at Langley for the symposium, volunteers had to submit a 1-page paper with a problem that has be affecting their Group/Wing.
 
When the participants arrived to Campus Langley, they were broken into two teams and given four problems to solve based on the papers that they submitted to the Wing. 
 
“Each team chose their problem set [out of the four] and then over the course of four days - they set out on a journey to collect data, perform interviews and come up with solutions,” said Weingarten
 
The symposium benefited the Wing in many ways.
 
“The best part of INTEND was learning about different missions, and being granted an opportunity to grasp the scale of not only the Wing, but the intelligence community as a whole,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jervell Jones, 20th Intelligence Squadron, Det. 1 holistic target development supervisor.
 
According to Weingarten, this symposium also assisted with NCO cross-collaboration and cross-talk between all groups within the Wing. Additionally, it broke down assumptions and barriers that “all INTEL NCO’s work very similar jobs in each group.”
 
“Another positive from INTEND was learning to leverage Wing resources to provide multiple potential solutions to complex problems,” said Hollis.
 
Currently, the goal is to conduct INTEND symposiums twice a year. The next symposium will be targeted at Senior NCOs and company grade officers.
 
“I strongly advise anyone to go through the next iteration of INTEND,” said Jones. “We were also given an opportunity to brief our issues at the NAF [Numbered Air Force] level to some degree. Platforms of that degree do not come often, and taking advantage of it is always advised.”