JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. –
"I truly love helping the airmen," said Tech. Sgt. Julius King, 11th Civil Engineer Squadron unaccompanied housing NCO in charge. "There are different ways we can help, and being dorm manager is my way."
King enlisted in the year 2000 as a pharmacy technician. While his work in the pharmacy helped people, he wanted to help Airmen in a different way.
He became the dorm manager May 21, 2016, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
"My job is to fight for what the Airmen want," said King. "But more importantly, fight for what they need."
King felt the Airmen needed physical renovations to the dorm buildings, including new washers and dryers for the laundry rooms in each building and furniture upgrades for the dayrooms and living quarters of building 1624. Other renovations planned include a game room for building 1657.
"It's part of a quality of life initiative for the airmen," said Staff Sgt. Cody Luginbill, 11th CES Airman dorm leader. "It's leaving things better than when we found them."
King also wants to instill a sense of pride in the dorm residents.
"I want everyone to be proud of where they live," said King. "To take ownership and hold others accountable."
To help with accountability, King made changes to the bay orderly program, where dorm residents are assigned for a week to help maintain the dorm grounds and common areas, and added additional projects to it. One of the projects was to clean out the storage lockers, provided to Airmen, of abandoned items. He plans to make the lockers more accessible to the Airmen.
King hopes that if Airmen have more pride and accountability they will be quicker to report any maintenance issues to prevent major problems.
"The biggest challenge is getting the residents here to put in a work order," said Tech. Sgt. Billy Planas, 11th CES facility maintenance NCOIC. "Most of the things we get can be fixed before they get worse."
Improving the quality of life of the Airmen, both physically and mentally, is how King hopes to give the dorm residents a great living experience to impact the total mission.
"The people I'm helping here are the heart of the mission," said King.