National Guard

 

Tim Hilty, RES ‘05

MG (Ret) Tim Hilty is the Chief of the Joint Staff for the Pennsylvania (PA) National Guard and he is working the COVID-19 situation in that capacity.  He had just retired from military status the end of January 2020 and was settling in this Title 5 civilian position in February when the pandemic soon began to appear.  The PA National Guard has maintained its 24/7 Joint Operations Center since September 11, 2001, with a strong habitual relationship with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), so things ramped up quickly for the Guard, for PEMA, and for the PA Departments of Health, Aging, and Health and Human Services.  State and Federal emergencies were called and COVID-19 task forces formed across the state and region.  Pennsylvania has a force of approximately 17,000 Army and Air National Guard personnel across many organizational structures and with civil support specialties that are needed in times like this.  The regional relationships with neighboring states, especially given multiple hot spots in New York and New Jersey, have also been a factor in COVID-19 responses by Mid-Atlantic states as they share population centers and commuting areas.   PA National Guard responses have been critical in long-term care facilities, at food banks, in logistics and transportation, and in every aspect of medical care.  MG (Ret) Hilty works to coordinate efforts on behalf of the Adjutant General of Pennsylvania and the multiple organizations and agencies throughout the state and FEMA Region III.

MG (Ret) Timothy J. Hilty
Resident Class of 2005
Chief of the Joint Staff
Pennsylvania National Guard

 

I have been able to work COVID-19 support closely with COL Andy Stone (DDE ’18) in assigning Air National Guard (ANG) airmen for his Joint Engineer Assessment Teams (JEAT). The joint construction team consisted of airmen from my 200th Red Horse Squadron and soldiers from his 16th Engineer Brigade. We also fielded a joint construction team to assemble the Disaster Relief Beddown Set (DRBS) at two different correctional institutes (Pickaway Correctional Institute and Marysville Ohio Reformatory for Women). The DRBS kits were deployed from January thru February to Puerto Rico for earthquake response and recently returned home for redeployment in support of COVID-19 response within Ohio. The DRBS is a stand-alone kit that provides housing, showers/latrines, laundry, electrical, and water purification. The kits are in support of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

Michael A. ‘Chewy’ Hrynciw III, P.E.
Resident Class of 2016
Colonel, Air National Guard
Commander, 200th RED HORSE Squadron

 

I am working COVID-19 at the state level as the Chief Procurement Officer for Iowa. I am mostly working in the State Emergency Operations Center.

COL (Ret) Allen L. Meyer
Resident Class of 2007

 

There are several of us on active duty responding to the COVID-19 situation in Ohio.   For example, Soldiers from my brigade and Airmen from the squadron of Col Michael Hrynciw (RES ‘16), an Ohio Air National Guard Officer who is Commander of the 200th Red Horse Squadron, are working together in five Joint Engineering Assessment Teams across the state.  These troops are engineers and tradesmen, with a heavy focus on HVAC and electrical construction — all of them bringing tremendous expertise from their civilian professions.  We’ve assessed over 40 sites and oversaw the selection of seven alternate care facility locations, with three of them being built and four more in a “warm” status to turn on if there is a spike later in the fall.  The opportunity to work with our sister service members, as well as partners from our state departments of transportation, facilities construction commission, and administrative services, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  It has been an amazing experience working at the front end of Ohio’s response.  Ohio is under outstanding leadership, and it has been a true privilege to be part of this effort.

COL Andrew B. ‘Andy’ Stone, P.E.
Distance Class of 2018
Commander, 16^th Engineer Brigade
Ohio Army National Guard (OHARNG)

 

COL Tony Fournier is the Commander of the 48th IBCT in the Georgia Army National Guard (GAARNG). The 48th IBCT has 1575 Soldiers engaged in the fight against COVID-19 in a variety of missions. Medics are augmenting hospital staff in emergency rooms, ICUs, and trauma centers. The medics who volunteered to come on orders were not working on the front lines as their civilian occupation. We ensured that we were not pulling Soldiers off ambulances, out of hospitals, or out of police cars. Other Soldiers are on Infection Control Teams. These teams are disinfecting Nursing Homes across the state of Georgia and by doing so, we are protecting the state’s most vulnerable elderly population. By keeping these residents out of hospital beds, we are also helping to prevent the state from exceeding hospital bed capacity. We are operating testing sites across the state to give Georgians greater access to testing and to help the Governor and medical community gain better situational awareness of how prevalent the virus is in Georgia. We are working at food banks, operation centers, isolation facilities, and we are transporting supplies like PPE and test kits all over Georgia. The GAARNG is heavily involved in the COVID fight. Soldiers are motivated to help the community and proud of the work they are doing to save lives.

COL Anthony Fournier
Resident Class of 2017, Seminar 13
Commander, 48th IBCT
Georgia Army National Guard

 

BG Tommy Mancino currently serves as the Commander of the Oklahoma National Guard’s Joint Task Force, activated to help the Oklahoma National Guard (OKNG) support a whole-of-Oklahoma-government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  He is the senior military representative on the Governor’s COVID-19 Solution Task Force.

As in other states, the Oklahoma National Guard Joint Task Force is just one part of a larger response by the State.  Literally every agency in Oklahoma is contributing to the COVID-19 response and in Oklahoma, the National Guard is in support of the lead agency, the Oklahoma State Department of Health.  Other agencies include the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, Oklahoma Department of Transportation, Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.

The National Guard partnerships are critical to getting through the COVID-19 pandemic.  For example, Oklahoma Guardsmen are helping fulfill, secure, and transport orders of relief and medical supplies to facilities within the 11 identified COVID-19 health administration regions throughout Oklahoma.  They also have to be ready, when necessary, to respond to multiple potential natural disasters and to support the Governor and the Adjutant General (MG Michael C. Thompson, RES ’07) and the people of Oklahoma.

BG Thomas H. ‘Tommy’ Mancino
Army War College Fellow 2014
Assistant Adjutant General (Army), Oklahoma National Guard

Gary Cox, commissioner of the Oklahoma State Department of Health discusses information with Brig. Gen. Tommy Mancino, commander of the Oklahoma National Guard Joint Task Force, at the Joint Task Force’s headquarters in Oklahoma City, March 20, 2020. The OKNG Joint Task Force was activated to help the OKNG support a whole-of-Oklahoma-government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Oklahoma National Guard Photo by Sgt. Anthony Jones)