Linebacker of the Week: WL-7 Jazzmin Balbas

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Akeem K. Campbell
  • 36th Wing Public Affairs
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam --  Jazzmin Balbas, 734th Air Mobility Squadron passenger and baggage processor work leader, was recognized as the 36th Wing’s Team Andersen Linebacker of the Week, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Nov. 8, 2023.

The Team Andersen Linebacker of the Week recognizes outstanding enlisted, officer, civilian and total force personnel who have had an impact on achieving Team Andersen’s mission, vision and priorities.

As the processor work leader of passenger and baggage, Balbas ensures transportation documentation is forwarded to Air Mobility Command accounting and finance, enabling the proper accounting annually for Transportation Working Capital Fund missions. She collects all mission documentation for accuracy, updates information in Global Air Terminal Execution System, and performs final quality control checks to various work center files while compiling overall workload totals. She also maintains historical data for passenger, cargo, mail, and aircraft movements. Finally, Balbas resolves over/short/lost shipments, as well as audits and edits documentation for accuracy prior to submission to Headquarters AMC.

“I’ve worked in passenger travel for seven years, and I have a lot of knowledge about the regulations,” said Balbas. “I use that knowledge to help the Airmen be more proficient with their job.”

Balbas’s exemplary contributions underscore her dedication, problem-solving abilities, and strategic vision, making her an invaluable asset to the organization. She exhibited exceptional leadership in the Air Terminal Operations Center as the data records technician where she undertook the critical responsibility of consolidating mission data and documents for 9,000 sorties, 7,000 passengers, 36 patients, and 23,000 tons of cargo. Her efforts were pivotal in providing accurate workload data, a prerequisite for optimizing the squadron’s fiscal year 2025 military construction allocation. Moreover, she resolved discrepancies in the Defense Transportation System records, pinpointing and rectifying 15 erroneous lost cargo entries, thus saving the U.S. Air Force up to $25,000.

Balbas also played a key role in streamlining processes by delivering comprehensive training to three classes on proper transportation discrepancy reporting, ensuring adherence to Defense Transportation Discrepancy Reporting through electronic filing systems. Her contributions extended to financial management records, where she successfully recovered 40 missing PAX orders, preventing a substantial revenue loss of $112,000 for AMC. In a notable instance, Balbas’s investigative acumen revealed erroneously shipped F-22 Raptor cargo aerospace ground equipment to Guam, enabling their prompt retrieval and rerouting to their intended destination. Her meticulous oversight extended to quality control checks on 8,600 consolidated flight packages, where she identified errors in the Global Air Terminal Execution System aircraft re-handle log and corrected workload data for 10,000 tons of cargo, underscoring her unwavering attention to detail and commitment to excellence.

“Honestly, for me it’s all about the team,” said Balbas. “It’s one team one fight and everyone helps each other out. The coworkers are like a second family so if I’m going to be recognized, I want my team to be recognized as well because they contribute to my success.”

The term Linebacker is rooted deep within Team Andersen’s history. Operation Linebacker II took place on Dec. 18, 1972, and was the largest number of heavy bomber strikes launched by the U.S. Air Force since the end of World War II. During the operation, B-52s from Andersen flew round-the-clock bombing missions over North Vietnam to destroy major targets in Hanoi and Haiphong in an effort to bring the Democratic Republic of Vietnam back to negotiations.

The recipient will have the opportunity to sign a “Linebacker” football jersey that will be displayed in the Wing Headquarters building.

Way to go, Balbas!