JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- The 15th Wing completed its first class of Multi-Capable Airman (MCA) Tier 1 training, effectuating Air Force Chief of Staff (AFCS) Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr.’s “Accelerate Change or Lose” doctrine.

The Air Force’s MCA initiative directly supports the application of Agile Combat Employment (ACE), by training Airmen to be capable of accomplishing tasks outside of their core Air Force Speciality codes.

“Multi-capable Airmen are the backbone of a larger force pivot toward this goal,” said Maj. Joshua Moore, 15th Operations Group director of ACE. “Small teams of Airmen will be able to support operations that used to require hundreds of personnel and robust infrastructure.”

Tier 1 serves as a baseline set of advanced expeditionary training tasks that all MCAs will receive, while Tier 2 focuses on cross-utilization training specific to an AFCS, and Tier 3 is wing-specific training dependent on wing’s priorities.

The first class consisted of 35 Airmen representing 25 different AFCS’s. They received basic training on a variety of topics including airfield operations, cargo loading and unloading, rules of engagement, and night-vision device fundamentals.

With the 15th Wing primarily operating in the Indo-Pacific, the largest combatant command on the globe, MCA capabilities are a must.

“Given the size of our force and our area of responsibility, we have to be able to punch above our weight class intimes of peace or times of war,” said Moore. “Multi-capable airmen will allow us to more effectively answer our nation's call whether it is for disaster relief operations or conflict with peer competitors.

The 15th Wing’s ACE Team plans to see its first qualified team of MCA’s by the end of 2022, when they have completed both Tier 1 and Tier 2 training.