14 FTW on road to “King of the Hill” Published June 14, 2013 By Airman 1st Class Charles Dickens 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- As the need for more cost savings increases throughout the Air Force, Air Education and Training Command has begun an initiative to motivate Airmen to improve their savings and move toward achieving a Cost Conscious Culture (C3). The first-ever AETC C3 "King of the Hill" competition began June 10 which allows all bases within the command to vote on which cost savings measures they like most. The contest pits each base's best C3 idea against each other in a bracket-style elimination event. For those who are eliminated, there is also a "Loser's Bracket" which allows bases with great ideas another opportunity for glory. The 14th Flying Training Wing's submitted C3 idea is the changes and solutions that were made to decrease airflow and increase energy efficiency in the paint booth. The innovative solutions created for the paint booth saves over $125,000 per year in energy and operations and maintenance, reducing energy consumption by 50 percent and maintenance painting backlog by 75 percent. The first round of the "King of the Hill" competition consisted of the 14th FTW's paint booth solution versus the 37th Training Wing's idea of issuing handheld tablets or e-readers to Medical Education and Training Campus students. The 14th FTW won the first round and moves on to the second round (ninth round of the competition) which will take place June 20 against the Headquarters of AETC. The "King of the Hill" website also tracks the participation each organization has in the voting process by each person assigned to the organization and by daily participation. As of the writing of this article, the 14th FTW has 18.77 percent total participation base-wide. "Throughout the competition, I am personally asking each of you to go to the "King of the Hill" website once a day and vote for the best idea you see on that day," said Col. Jim Sears, 14th Flying Training Wing Commander. "While it is important that we compete well, I am more interested in learning what some of the great ideas are, throughout AETC, that we might be able to use in making us more innovative, efficient and better able to execute our mission to produce pilots, advance Airmen and feed the fight." To vote during the "King of the Hill" competition, please visit https://www-r.aetc.af.mil/sc/c3/wp/main.asp# and cast your vote! This website must be accessed on a CAC-enabled computer.