KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- Air Force-level awards for 2015, announced this summer.
The office has the Small Organization Alternative Dispute Resolution Program of the Year, and Equal Opportunity Director Richard Knudson received the Solomon Starks Jr. EO Director of the Year award.
Knudson said his office has six members including him when it’s fully staffed, but only two people from the award-winning team are there now due to permanent changes of station and promotions. He and Robert Liddy, who runs the affirmative employment and disability programs, remain.
Knudson expects to again take the office to the next level after new people arrive in September.
He said his award and the office award were based on the same efforts, with him as leader and his staff doing much of the legwork.
“I’m appreciative and thankful they were willing to help and we had a good team, and we’ll build a new one in 2016 and into next year,” he said.
He said his award involved many people’s efforts, including leaders above him and his staff.
Knudson has worked in Equal Opportunity for 28 years, 24 on active duty in the military and four as a civilian.
He said he’s always had good support and facilities, and continues to have a great working relationship with leaders across Kirtland Air Force Base.
Among the highlights of the office’s efforts was the extra time the alternative dispute resolution program manager spent preparing both sides in a dispute for mediation so everyone would know what to expect.
“Just to make them comfortable increases the success of it,” he said.
The program aims to solve problems quickly and get people refocused on the mission, Knudson said.
The Equal Opportunity Office also started using Controlled Access Cards to track attendance at classes. Knudson said that change saves hours of time personnel had spent entering names and social security numbers into a computer, removed human error and eliminated the problem of illegible names on sign-in sheets.
Other agencies on base have also begun using the CAC attendance system now, he said.
“We continue to partner with our diversity office,” Knudson said.
He works to “capitalize on the synergy” among Equal Opportunity, diversity and affirmative employment programs.
Equal Opportunity also interacts with leaders to help get accommodations for employees with disabilities. These accommodations could be anything from getting a special keyboard for mobility or vision disabilities to helping an employee who needs a pacemaker get clearance to continue a job in a secure area where wireless-enabled devices, such as pacemakers, are banned.
“It keeps complaints from happening,” Knudson said.
The Kirtland office also helped get Air Force approval to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-recognition word-processing software, and assisted unit commanders with interpreting results of the Defense Equal Opportunity Climate Assessment and implementing changes based on that data.