Minnesota aviators honor innovative people with awards
The Minnesota National Guard’s Inver Grove Heights-based 34th Expeditionary Combat Aviation Brigade, known as the Red Devils, started a new tradition on March 9, 2024. The unit celebrated the hard work and dedication of some aviators within the organization by hosting a special award event.
“This ceremony is about better recognizing and acknowledging the hard work and dedication of people within our organization,” said Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew McGillivary.
Most of the awards handed out were for completing training known as “ground school.” Ground school is a mandatory course for individuals who are wanting to become crewmembers and an elective course for those who want to remain maintenance. This course covers every system and subsystem of an aircraft along with night vision and aeromedical training.
At advanced individual training school, aviators learn the basics of foreign object debris prevention, tool identification and usage, and technical manual navigation. Ground school builds upon that base layer by teaching the operation of the helicopter and how each individual component works. The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter course is one weeklong and the CH-47 Chinook helicopter course is three and a half weeks long. There were 14 aviators who completed this course recently.
Next, the “Rudy Gomez Top Dog” award was presented to Army Sgt. Armando Noel.
“Rudy was a flight instructor,” said McGillivary. “He loved crewing, hard and brutally honest flights, wild humor while on downtime, and competition. I wanted to name this competition after him to make it more personable to us because he was an amazing person and an absolutely a badass as far as crewmembers go. If we had a hall of fame, he’d be in it.”
The criteria to be selected as the top dog included possessing the most flight hours throughout the year, having no records or evaluation infractions, being an active and positive member of the program, and not being an instructor.
The unit ended the evening by recognizing Army Sgt. Logan Painschab as instructor of the year. This certificate was created to recognize the aviator who has put in a lot of hard work.
“It’s impressive when an instructor flies 200-300 hours a year while also managing two different flight programs,” explained McGillivary. “I’ve done that kind of workload in the past, going over 300 hours statewide while managing a lot of records… it’s a beast that takes its toll.”
“An instructor has to go above and beyond to get my attention for me to create a certificate,” said McGillivary. “We had one this year.”
The significant contributions of this year’s awardees was celebrated by unit’s battalion commander.
“The achievements we celebrated,” said Army Lt. Col. Jed Gadient, “are a testament to the high standards and relentless spirit of the Red Devils.”
Story by Capt. Kate Sulzle
Minnesota National Guard