LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Unit and job title: 47th Contracting Flight contract specialist
Why he XLed: Senior Airman Justin Merritt led Laughlin’s T-6 sunshade project contract, developing an acquisition strategy that was $900,000 under the initial estimate. He headed a $200,000 chapel kitchen upgrade, renewing and expanding the 35-year-old annex by 33 percent, boosting fellowship of more than 400 people monthly. Merritt also led a $164,000 water main repair, predicting a failure and wrote an emergency plan, adverting a water outage that would have affected 5,000 personnel. Merritt managed $900,000 in paving projects, identifying and saving $42,000 in duplicate mobility costs, ultimately repairing 17,000 square feet of Laughlin’s streets and taxiways. Lastly, Merritt guided $2.7 million in roof repair projects, coordinating five site visits, with five different base organizations and six vendors, garnering the repair of 35 facilities.