AF selects MTL of the year: Superintendent credits family support

  • Published
  • By Jose T. Garza III
  • JBSA-Lackland Public Affairs
6/14/2012 --  6/14/2012 - JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas -- The superintendent of military training, 37th Training Support Squadron, was recently selected as the 2011 Military Training Leader of the Year.

Master Sgt. Alucia Davis received the award for her service as an MTL with the 37th TRSS Airman Transition Assistance Flight in 2011.

A native of Donovan, Ill., Davis has been a MTL for seven of her 18 years of active-duty service.

Some of Davis' accomplishments during the award period included standing up the 37th Training Group's Airman Transition Assistance Flight, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland's first-ever MTL Advisory Council, and the base's first drill-down competition.

"I'm humbled, thankful, and very blessed to receive this award," Davis said. "I have a family and a husband who supports me."

Davis calls her husband, Senior Master Sgt. Keith Davis, superintendent for the Military Personnel Section, 802nd Force Support Squadron, her mentor.

It's he who persuaded Davis to become an MTL.

"He asked me one day, 'Hey, what do you think about being a military training leader?' and I said that I wasn't interested and I enjoyed my job in personnel," Davis said.

"He told me that I needed to think outside the box. He pushed me outside my comfort zone so I could be an MTL and I fell in love with it," she said.

While Davis credits her husband for encouraging her to continue to achieve more success than she has already obtained, her husband said he takes very little credit for her achievements.

"If she wants to give me a percentage of credit, it needs to be .01 percent and she needs to take the other 99.99 percent because she put in all the hours of hard work and stood up the programs she was involved in," he said.

While at the ATAF, the 37th TRSS' goal was, "to have a lot of character development for the Airmen and trainees who were about to leave the Air Force," Davis said. "Sometimes they get forgotten so it was our job to help prepare them for civilian life.

"We would set up the College Level Examination Program for them," she said. "The Airman and Family Readiness Center gave us briefs on how to teach them resume writing classes and the financial aspects of saving money because most wouldn't know how long it would be until they found a job."

When Davis is not preparing Airmen for military training, she is involved in other projects. The military training leader of the year is currently the JBSA-Lackland Top III vice president. The Top III is the largest private organization in JBSA.

While helping build homes for Habitat for Humanity, she logged 370 volunteer hours and supervised a home build for local underprivileged families.

She is currently working on her applied arts and sciences degree with the University of Incarnate Word.

"I like staying busy and participating in projects I believe in," said Davis. "I don't do projects just to get promoted. I like helping people and making a difference anywhere I can."