Captain selected for recognition

  • Published
  • 96th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Each year, the Military Times Media Group, publishers of Air Force Times, honors service members who demonstrate professionalism, dedication to other service members and service to country. 

This year, Capt. Rosaline Mailandt-Norris received accolades and a notable achievement recognition for her duties while the Deputy Flight Commander of the 96th Communications Squadron's Infrastructure Flight. She led 139 personnel in four work centers in the operations and maintenance of the communications-electronics infrastructure here. 

Lt. Col. Rob Lyman said he nominated Captain Mailandt-Norris because she is a great example of the Air Force core values. 

"Her integrity is above reproach," he said. "Her overwhelming amount of community service is the definition of service before self." 

Before taking the reins of the infrastructure flight, Captain Mailandt-Norris was the Chief of Information Protection. During that time, she helped to provide a 99.94 percent uptime on a $58 million network along with a team who launched countermeasures for 22,000 devices on Eglin. 

"I maintained operational control of Eglin's four firewalls which allowed more than nine million emails to be processed for users on Eglin," she said. "Our team stopped over 171 billion illegal access attempts maintaining our cyberspace borders for the warfighter." 

Captain Mailandt-Norris said transitioning to the infrastructure flight was challenging,"but with an excellent team of men and women in the flight supporting me, I made the transition." 

Among her duties with the infrastructure flight was ensuring the integrity of 1.9 million miles of buried cable worth over $1 billion and delivering the first CITS second generation wireless local area network to the Eglin flightline, which reduced aircraft maintenance and launch turn times, and overseeing a land mobile radio (LMR) upgrade that added 19 new sites to the LMR system and coverage for the entire Florida region. 

Captain Mailandt-Norris, who was also the 96th Communication Group's company grade officer of the year, impressed the judges with her community service. Colonel Lyman agrees. 

"I have yet to find an officer with as impressive a resume of community service," he said.
 
The captain has been active in the "Big Sister" program since 2006, taking two young girls under her wing. She was the competition director for the 2007 Special Olympics basketball competition and the group's 2007 Air Force Assistant Fund project officer. She also orchestrated seven test proctors to assist Niceville High School's Advanced Placement Department administer more than 900 AP tests. 

Since the award, Captain Mailandt-Norris has been reassigned to the Joint Fires Integration and Interoperability Team to assist joint force commanders and service headquarters in planning, coordinating, and executing joint fires at the tactical level. Colonel Lyman is confident she will continue to emulate the tenants of the award. 

"Captain Mailandt-Norris is definitely a top-notch USAF professional and highly deserving of this recognition."