SMSgt Zorn receives Gen. Lew Allen Jr., Trophy award

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Katrina Heikkinen
  • 434th ARW Public Affairs
GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. --  Returning from a deployment often brings feelings of excitement for Airmen when they see their friends and families. But for one Airman, he won something more.

Senior Master Sgt. Christopher Zorn, 434th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, production superintendent, recently received the General Lew Allen, Jr., Trophy.

“Senior Master Sgt. Zorn is the key leader in the daily sortie production for the Wing's primary flying mission as the production superintendent for the AMXS,” said Lt. Col. Dwight Meese, 434th Maintenance Group commander.

A humble recipient of the award, Zorn returned from a deployed to discover he had been not only nominated, but the recipient of the award.

“I’m thankful that I got this award and I was recognized,” he said. “But my work is from the work of others – crew chiefs, specialist and all the maintainers.

The annual award is named after the 10th chief of staff of the Air Force, whose legacy was attention to detail and technical expertise and credits the accomplishments of base-level officers senior NCOs in their performance of aircraft, munitions or missile maintenance directly involved in aircraft sortie generation.

“When I was deployed to Turkey I was responsible for overseeing all the maintenance, ground operations, ground movement of the aircraft and scheduling inspection,” Zorn said.

Zorn said the best part about his job is when he’s faced with making on-the-spot decisions.

“I like a challenge,” he said. “I like being able to think ahead. “[In Turkey] we 14 airplanes but only 13 were flying because one was broken so I had to figure out the movement, movement and make everything work. Some days this job can get monotonous, but favorite part about this job is the spontaneous part; making a decision right now and making the right decision. If we don’t make the right decision, then a chain of events could start that puts you behind.”

According to Zorn, when he was deployed to Turkey, mission effectiveness rate was extremely high.

“We had a 99.2 percent mission effectiveness rating which meant we made 99.2 percent of our air refueling,” he added.

Zorn, who served on active duty from 1985 to 1989 as a crew chief before transitioning to the Air Force Reserve, has been an Air Reserve technician in the aircraft maintenance world since 1989. Although Zorn said he is grateful for the award, he doesn’t think he deserve it.

“I come in every morning and I go through the flying schedule, then I go through last night’s discrepancies and I set up the lineup,” Zorn said. “I brief the expeditors on what needs to get done for the day and they go out and they brief the mechanics and they go out and carry out the job. They’re the ones that do all the work. They’re the ones that make this happen day in and day out; not supervision. We just guide them and they do all the work. They’re the reason why we are the top air refueling wing in the Air Force.”

The 434th ARW is the largest KC-135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command. Men and women from the Hoosier Wing routinely deploy around the world in support of the Air Force mission.

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