MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- The Thomas N. Barnes Center for Enlisted Education’s Foundations Force Development Section received the 2024 General Muir S. Fairchild Educational Achievement Award during a ceremony on Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, June 11, 2025.
The Order of Daedalians award, established in 1964, is presented annually to an Air University person, team or organization that made the most significant contribution to Air Force education during the year.
“The team did a phenomenal job on Foundations,” Col. Damian Schlussel, Barnes Center commander, said during the unit’s acceptance remarks. “They put these courses together in nine months when it should have taken two or three years.”
Retired Col. Al Allenback, Daedalians member and former 42nd Air Base Wing commander at Maxwell AFB, presented the Foundations team with the award and said that this year’s winners join a 60-year legacy honoring educational excellence at Air University.
In 2024 the Foundations team revolutionized the Air Force's enlisted educational ecosystem by building and launching the Enlisted Airmanship Continuum Foundations Courses for junior enlisted, noncommissioned officer and senior noncommissioned officer in just nine months, enhancing the skillsets of more than 400,000 enlisted Airmen.
During development, the Foundations section collaborated with Headquarters Air Force, major commands, Air Reserve Component counterparts and subject matter experts to significantly elevate force-wide proficiencies, aligning curriculum with Air Force senior enlisted leader objectives.
As the courses launched Air Force-wide, the team coordinated and delivered 30 on-location classes across four major commands, developing and instituting innovative, outcome-based educational strategies now recognized as the gold standard.
“Although it’s the Foundations team that is standing up here to accept this award, it’s really on behalf of the entire enlisted professional military education enterprise and 8T career field [instructors, curriculum writers and development advisors],” Schlussel said. “It was the entire team that made Foundations possible.”
The week-long Foundations courses were developed to bridge the gaps between formal enlisted professional military education courses such as the Airman Leadership School and Noncommissioned Officer Academy. The courses replaced base-level professional enhancement seminars and will become prerequisite courses for more formal EPME.
Foundations courses are facilitated by development advisors and trained NCOs on all Department of the Air Force bases.