Page 5 - Nellis AFB Bullseye 6-19-15

BULLSEYE Feature 5June 19, 2015

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Young impression leads Airman to career, RPA innovations

By Airman 1st Class Christian Clausen U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Christian Clausen

432nd Wing/432nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs Tech. Sgt. Kevin, 15th Reconnaissance Squadron intelligence operations supervisor and intelligence flight NCO in charge, poses for a
photo June 9, 2015, at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. Kevin created a program called Squadron Intelligence Reconnaissance Interface,
CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — which is an application used by remotely piloted aircraft crew members to execute the mission more efficiently while being more
During one’s life there’s often a moment situationally aware. SIRI helps aircrews by acting as a search engine to quickly relay conversions, locations, abbreviations and other
when something is said or done that will information resulting in over 58 command functions on the most used secure internet relay chat by RPA aircrews.
stick with them for the remainder of their
life. squadron gave me tons of feedback asking having a secure Wikipedia-type website for Air Force missions, it may seem Kevin had
for more functions and I implemented the intelligence community to inspire col- a destiny to be in the career assigned to
These actions are the things that mold us everything I could.” laboration and awareness with other units. him. Actually, his job is far from what he
as individuals and grow our beliefs and mor- thought he would be doing.
als. It can be unimaginable just how much He attributes the success of the program “I saw that the Central Intelligence
simple words have the ability to change or to the creativity of his squadron members Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency “I signed up to do computer program-
shape one’s life. For Tech. Sgt. Kevin, 15th and his knowledge of how to write com- wanted to create something like what I was ming and that’s not what I do at all,” he
Reconnaissance Squadron intelligence op- puter script. having ideas about and I started to coor- said laughing. “I remember my first day of
erations supervisor and intelligence flight dinate with them,” Kevin said. “I worked technical school the instructor giving us
NCO in charge, it started when he was an “Tech. Sgt. Kevin’s creation of SIRI is closely with them to help implement it in bomb specifications. Not knowing what he
impressionable young man trying to make the story of how bottom-up innovation 2005 and now the entire Department of was talking about I raised my hand asking
it through basic military training. occurs in the Air Force,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Defense uses it.” when we we’re going to start learning about
Keeney, 15th RS commander. “Airmen see computers and I received a confused look
“I remember my instructor saying ‘if a problem, design a novel solution, and it Later he was selected to be a technical from him.”
you’re not 15 minutes early, you’re late,’” is rapidly adopted to help combat opera- school instructor, grooming the future gen-
Kevin said, chuckling as he reminisced. tions.” eration of intelligence Airman. He spent Despite this, Kevin never became
two years teaching the enlisted operations discouraged. He continued to excel at
Little did he know that advice would His innovative skills aren’t new to him, intelligence course and another two teach- his job and still use his computer skills
strongly mold his work ethic and stick rather, they are the culmination of nearly ing the intelligence officer course. to benefit the Air Force.
with him 12 years later as he continues to two decades of learning and application.
improve the intelligence career field and While there he created a website for the Kevin has made significant improve-
mission within his squadron and Creech “I remember when I was a kid learning intelligence officer’s course. Little did he ments to the intelligence community,
Air Force Base, Nevada. how to program video games on an old know, his future officer in charge would leaving his ‘footprints’ engrained into
(Disk Operating System) machine, most go through the course using the same the Air Force for years to come.
Stemmed from the guidance he received of my Airmen probably don’t know what resources he had developed.
in basic training, his discipline of time- that is,” Kevin said as he laughed. “After “Kevin is one of those great problem
management has resulted in improved that I got interested in doing web design “The website is a one-stop-shop for solvers who don’t wait for someone else to
processes and tools created for mission and software programming. That’s where many resources we use for information,” give him the solution,” Keeney said. “He
efficiency at every duty station he’s been my passion is.” said Capt. Carlos, 15th RS intelligence took the initiative to combine his intel-
assigned to. flight commander. “Even now I still use ligence savvy with his off-base education
This passion, coupled with his need to it because it’s so convenient and saves me to create a program that would have
His latest creation is a program called challenge himself, has also spawned other time.” taken years for our acquisition system
the Squadron Intelligence Reconnaissance improvements to the intelligence career to complete. Ultimately, his innovations
Interface, codename SIRI. It’s an application field. For such major and long-term improve- have helped the Air Force save lives.”
being used by remotely piloted aircraft crew ments to the intelligence community and
members to execute the mission more effi- As a senior airman, he saw a benefit for
ciently while being more situationally aware.

“The program will alert crew members
of threats in the area, as well as decrease the
amount of time it takes to complete tasks
so they may focus on the mission,” Kevin
said. “That time saved can help them pass
information quicker and mean the differ-
ence between life and death situations.”

SIRI helps aircrews by acting as a sort
of Internet search engine. They can search
answers to conversions, locations, abbre-
viations, brevity words, rules of engage-
ments, munitions specifications, call signs,
and many more. This is particularly helpful
when working with coalition partners to
quickly convert measurements or identify
call signs with aircraft.

“Rather than having to take my eyes off
the screens to use multiple resources to find
an answer, SIRI can relay that information
instantly,” said Capt. David, 15th Recon-
naissance Squadron pilot. “That allows
me to focus on the mission and maximize
my time.”

This innovative program has been con-
stantly improved over the last year since its
inception and now can perform 58 com-
mands, much more than its original design
to complete only one.

“I wanted to write a program to calculate
Air Tasking Order dates, which can be a
very tedious [process],” Kevin said. “Once
it was approved and in use, members of my