Det. 3, PACAF Air Postal Squadron civilian claims Air Force award

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Maeson L. Elleman
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  For the second year in a row, a member from Detachment 3 Pacific Air Forces Air Postal Squadron has claimed the Air Force Information Dominance Outstanding Civilian Assistant award.

This year, Yutaka Hokama, a postal specialist for the detachment for more than 13 years, swept the category for his hard work from Oct. 1, 2012, to Sept. 30, 2013.

According to Hokama's award package, the Okinawa-native screened 245,000 packages for damage, quality controlled 1,400 mail billing documents for the U.S. Department of Defense and contributed to the third consecutive "Outstanding" rating on a Wing Safety inspection.

"I'm very proud of him and what he does for the unit," said Nick Tolosa, postal detachment chief for Detachment 3. "Contributing as significantly as he does just helps the overall team accomplish our main goals every day. He sets a great example for the other folks out there."

Hokama is responsible for numerous duties around the detachment from transferring packages for delivery to using an ion scanner to detect bomb traces. Additionally, he acts as a liaison for the civilian airliners that bring in the mail each day.

Though he has earned several quarterly awards throughout his career, he said he's more excited to have earned this particular recognition.

"This is my first time winning an annual award in my entire working career on a military base," Hokama said. "I'm not working for the award ... I'm surprised that I won."

Tolosa said Hokama's award also says a lot about the unit as a whole.

"It's fantastic," Tolosa said. "This is an individual award, but really, it's a reflection of Detachment 3 and our support for Okinawa through mail. We have a lot of outstanding individuals just like Mr. Hokama ... providing the best customer service we can."

The detachment is responsible for all mail being delivered to and coming from military installations on Okinawa - a task that led to the successful delivery of roughly 10 million pounds of inbound post and parcels last year alone.