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Cleaning house: Base inn staff earns top scores during AF lodging accreditation inspection

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  • By Staff Sgt. Chad Thompson
  • 90th Space Wing Public Affairs
Warren's Crow Creek Inn staff passed an Air Force lodging accreditation inspection here March 11.

The inspection ensures lodging staffs around the Air Force uphold the strict standards for maintaining their facilities, said Tech. Sgt. Gregory Hallett, 90th Force Support Squadron.

Eighty-five percent or better is needed to pass the 1,400-point inspection that consists of two main areas: direct guest impact and administration.

The inspection covers parking areas, reception, employees' attitudes, front desk procedures, reservations, housekeeping staff, manager responsibilities, training, overall teamwork and funds handling.

The Air Force Services team in San Antonio travels to lodging facilities around the world to complete these checks. When the inspection is over, they let each facility know their strengths and weaknesses.

Sergeant Hallett said training, a good attitude and teamwork is what made Warren excel this year.

"It was a complete team effort," Sergeant Hallett said. "Civil engineering was an enormous help completing construction and maintenance issues. The entire force support team was a tremendous help with getting the carpets cleaned and doing small touch ups around the buildings. The attitude of everyone that was helping was just great. You could really see that everyone wanted to help us do well on the inspection this year."

"Attitude was the key to our success this year, and it was infectious," said Master Sgt. Richard Stiles, Crow Creek Inn superintendent. "You can see it on the staff members' faces that they enjoy what they were doing and that morale is really high right now."

Effort and attitude aren't the only aspects that contributed to the staff's success this year. They also have projects to improve guest impact, Sergeant Hallett said.

The staff hopes to have wireless Internet capabilities soon and is also in the process of upgrading the cable to allow guests to order pay-per-view movies while staying at the inn.

"We are trying very hard to compete with the downtown hotels," Sergeant Hallett said about the inn quality. "We want to make the Crow Creek Inn the place people want to stay. So they think of coming to us before possibly finding a hotel to stay at in Cheyenne."
Doing well on the accreditation inspection is only the beginning Sergeant Stiles said.
The staff hopes to do well enough in 2009 to go up for an innkeeper award.

An innkeeper award goes to the best large and small lodging facilities in the Air Force.

To compete for the award, a facility has to score 90 percent or better on the accreditation award for at least two cycles. This was Warren's first, so they will have to maintain these standards to compete next year, Sergeant Hallett said.