JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- Like most people during the COVID-19 pandemic, many Air Force employees are working from home to practice social distancing and mitigate the spread of the virus.
However, teleworking for Airmen presents unique challenges, such as how to communicate securely.
To assist with this issue, members of the 15th Wing TRON team, a subsection of the 15th Wing’s Aloha Spark, focused on software to make communicating without a government system easier.
“I think that this is the start to the future of how we operate,” said Maj. Michael Zelinski, 15th Wing Innovation chief. “TRON has turned what used to take three to five years into a matter of months.”
TRON and Platform One, a Department of Defense software development and Information Technology operations team, worked with the company Mattermost, to establish a secure server for the Air Force. Mattermost is an open-source, self-hostable online chat service.
Previously, the only way to securely transfer data was through a government computer.
To start this process, the TRON Team fulfilled system administrator roles for the first three weeks of deployment. They helped onboard 14,000 to 18,000 members of the Department of Defense, out of a total 50,000. This enabled continued communication for Airmen and aircrew all around the world.
“Through Mattermost, we get instantaneous feedback from our customers across the DoD, which is great,” said Staff Sgt. Nate Atkin, TRON project manager. “We were able to communicate with people using our apps, from Safety to Command Post to the Space Force, and others who have stood up their teams in Mattermost.”
The TRON Team actively seeks Airmen who are facing issues and works to make it easier for them to transform the future of the Air Force.
To partner with TRON to solve your next problem, contact Aloha Spark at aloha.spark@us.af.mil