MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- The station’s Installation Personnel Administration Center passed the Marine Corps Administrative Analysis Team inspection conducted here May 17 and 18 with a near perfect score of 99.31.
The score is a record high for all IPAC s and places the station’s IPAC as the best and most mission capable IPAC team in the Marine Corps.
“For an IPAC to get a score of 99.31 is just unheard of,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bradley J. Goode, station IPAC director. “I‘m sure it will be a record for awhile.”
Goode said he credits the hard work and effective communication between his officers and junior Marines for the IPAC ’s success.
“We’re a very tight group and we do a lot of things together and the results speak for themselves.” said Goode.
MCAT visits and inspects the various IPAC shops in the Marine Corps, approximately every two years, searching out discrepancies in paper work and evaluating how well the administrative team functions.
While the passing score for a MCAT inspection, according to Marine Corps Order 7220.13G, is 90, General James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, has set any score of 96 or above as the high score meriting a letter of commendation signed by his hand.
The station IPAC scored a 97 during the last MCAT inspection.
“I was expecting a 98. I told the Marines if we get a 99, that‘s just off the charts,” said Goode. “I said, ‘Our goal is to get a 98 because our goal is to do better than last time. When I saw that 99, I was just blown away. I was just overwhelmed by the score itself and I was just proud of the Marines.”
One of the things which became apparent to the MCAT inspectors as they carried out their inspections, was that there was no one Marine who stood out from his or her peers.
There was not one go-to guy. “At first I was like, ‘Man I don‘t like the way that sounds what do you mean no one Marine stood out’,” said Master Sgt. Don Miller, station IPAC staff noncommissioned officer-in-charge. “Then he brought it around, he said, ‘That’s because they‘re all superstars and they are all doing what they need to do so the one Marine that you would typically see, the one or two or three in another unit, they‘re all like that here.’”
The majority of the station IPAC is made up of junior Marines, many of whom are straight out of their Military Occupational Specialty school.
“Most of them are straight out of the school house and I know both personnel officers like that,” said Miller. “It means they come here and they don’t have any bad habits. Staff NCOs and the Officers are like the car, the engine and the driver but the corporals, and the lance corporals and the PFCs are the gas and without them your not going to go anywhere. They make stuff happen.”
Pfc. Jenna Ahles, an IPAC first stage audit clerk has been a part of the station IPAC for approximately three months.
“The fact that there are so many new people here in IPAC and we got such a high score, I think it really says a lot about who we are, because for the most part at least half of us just got here and we proved ourselves on paper,” said Ahles. “We know what we’re doing and we take our job seriously. We don’t just do it so we can get through the week. We do the right things.”
Ahles said she believes one of the reasons why her IPAC team is so successful is because everyone communicates well with each other and with the senior personnel.
“Everyone is like such a tight bunch,” said Lance Cpl. Gabriela Venegas, an IPAC travel claims clerk. “We are like a family here. We eat together, we PT together, we play together and we work together. We do everything together.”
Now with their recent success, the IPAC Marines continue to work together, knowing their job is important to their fellow Marines, but also with another thought in mind.
“We have a reputation now and we have to keep it,” said Venegas.