Understanding Air Force hospitality

  • Published
  • By Brian Brackens
  • 377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Kirtland Air Force Base --  On April 25, the Thunderbird Inn dining facility at Kirtland Air Force Base was awarded the John L. Hennessy award, the Air Force's top hospitality honor.
The award recognizes dining facilities that demonstrate excellence in the food service industry.
After winning a gold plate, Air Force Material Command's top hospitality award, the Thunderbird Inn represented AFMC in the competition for the Hennessy Award.
Winning top awards has been the standard that Robert Vick, manager of the Thunderbird Inn dining facility, has set.
"Since I started working at Kirtland in 2002, winning the Hennessy Award has been a goal," he said. "We want to show that a team that has people with disabilities can be competitive."
In the past six years, the Thunderbird Inn has won the Hennessy Award three times.
Mr. Vick attributes this achievement to the high benchmarks he and his team have set.
He said that after the dining facility won the award in 2005, they kept working, focusing on the basics and setting high benchmarks year after year.
Officials of the Hennessy Award evaluated the dining facility in more than 50 categories.
"A lot of people think that winning a food service award is all about cooking," said Mr. Vick. "But it's not that. We are evaluated on everything from our accounting, to training, to how we take care of our personnel. It's everything."
Mr. Vick said that winning the Hennessy Award was a team effort.
"Winning this award means that Kirtland AFB has the best food service operation in the entire Air Force," he said. "If we didn't have base leadership support and the support of our customers, this never would have happened."
He said that the staff at Thunderbird Inn is motivated by the Airmen they serve.
"We are motivated by our Airmen," said Mr. Vick. "That's our mission. My team understands that. Making sure that they get a safe, hot, tasty meal in a great, relaxing environment is important to us. When they leave here, we know that they may not come back to this base. Some of them will go out and be in a foxhole or desert overseas, fighting for our freedoms and the best compliment for us is when they're sitting in their tent saying, 'I wish I was back at the Thunderbird Inn.'"