APEC offers professional education to Airmen

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Nicholas Benroth
  • 23rd Wing Public Affairs
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  Professional military education provides all Airmen the opportunity to acquire management and leadership skills to help them excel in their careers.

At Moody, leadership is reaching out to instruct and prepare a new group of Airmen with the start of the Airmen Professional Enhancement Course.

APEC is a three-day course offered to airmen first class and senior airmen with two to three years of service and are not attending airman leadership school. The course covers topics ranging from ethics and core values to dress and appearance.

"This course isn't mandatory for us to offer, so we can cover the topics that we feel will benefit Airmen in their career," said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Heather Hughes, 23d Force Support Squadron career assistance advisor. "We try to collect as much feedback from each class as possible to reach out and best teach the Airmen, and understand what they are looking for."

Each student is given a course survey to rate how they think each instructor did and if the information they taught was beneficial.

"We hand pick these briefers from the base to speak at the course," said Hughes. "They are all senior leaders and volunteers who are motivated. They may have no teaching background but just want to share their experiences with the Airmen."

Hughes started APEC in November 2011, after spending some time working on the other PME courses like NCO professional enhancement course to get them to the point where they need to be because those courses are mandatory.

"Everybody seems to have really enjoyed the class and it's more than just college courses which make up most of our education," said Hughes. "This is something that they may not have the chance to get that often."

The first class held in November consisted of 15 Airmen and as the class moves on to its third they are yup to a total of 25 per course.

"This was an interesting course, I enjoyed a lot of the instructors that briefed," said Senior Airman Steven Poulos, 23rd Equipment Maintenance Squadron. "I think my favorite part of the course was the Enneagram test."

The next APEC course is scheduled for the first week of May and one following in June. Airmen looking to apply for the class or others like it can log into the Community of Practice website and locate the Moody career assistance advisor page.