According to Wikipedia, the commander of Andrews Air Force Base is Colonel Steven Shepro. Colonel Shepro is also the commander of the 316th Wing, which conveniently for him is stationed at Andrews. To what degree is Colonel Shepro’s command of the base separate from his command of a unit stationed on the base?
There are other units stationed at Andrews such as the 89th Airlift Wing, whose commander is General Margaret Woodward. Does Colonel Shepro have any authority over the 89th Airlft Wing due to his command of Andrews or is it outside of his chain of command? Are their any areas in which Colonel Shepro can give orders to General Woodward?
Are their Andrews base personnel who are not part of the 316th Wing? What is their unit, if it exists? Is their chain of command distinct from the 316th Wing or is it compoased of officers of the 316th wearing a “second hat” like Colonel Shepro is?
If Colonel Shepro was assigned to another unit and a new commander was named to the 316th, would he automatically also assume command of Andrews or might they name a commander from one of the other units stationed at the base? What happens if the 316th is deployed to another base? Presumedly, Colonel Shepro would not command a base he’s not stationed at. But would he automatically follow the 316th or might he be ordered to stay at Andrews and continue in command there?
Comes down to the Col having two responsibilities, one to the base and one to his command. Dual hatting.
He wouldn’t have any authority over General Woodward’s unit, but he could emplace base orders that would affect her unit, as well as any other unit on the base.
There probably is a seperate unit that belongs to the base, known as the Base Unit. In 29 Palms, the Base Unit is simply known as Hq Battalion. They take care of the training areas, military police, supply, base maintenace, stuff like that. So one could assume that Andrews has something similiar.
As far as who assumes command in the event that Col Shepro leaves, that would be the decision of someone higher in the chain of command. The 316th would not deploy to another base, at least not all of it. Some part(s) of the 316th might deploy, overseas for example, but its home base would remain the same.
In the Navy we called these other commands tenant commands - I’m sure the other services do the same.
The tenant commands usually follow a different chain of command than the host command - but are subordinate to host command requirements for base matters. If you break the base speed limit you have to deal with the base CO. The base personnel support detachment will handle your pay and leave; base dental and medical will work on your corporeal form.
General Woodward would be in charge of what her wing does as a wing, from actual flight to who has night duty in the wing’s groundside HQ.
Col. Shepro would have charge of what the General’s wing’s personnel does on “his” base – i.e., ticketing an airman for running a stop sign on base, requisitioning repairs to the sink in the bathroom off the groundside HQ, etc.
The metaphor Mr Moto presented as proper jargon should make this clear. If you work for a company that rents space in a building, what you “do at work” is the proper purview of your own boss at the tenant company, but what you do in the building is appropriately dealt with by the company that owns the building and rents to them. It’s the latter who would provide building security if any, who would make needed repairs and clean the common areas of the building, etc. The parallel should be fairly clear.
Others have answered the bulk of the question, but in the case of deployments, the AF doesn’t deploy on a unit basis like the Army does. We have these deployment buckets - 10 of them, but they operate in pairs. It’s basically like if you got everyone in the Air Force to line up and count off, and then you tell all the 1s and 2s to go play in the sand. Things would be problematic if everyone picked up and deployed, since many jobs don’t have a desert equivalent, and planes can operate from wherever.
So if Col Shepro deployed, his vice would become the acting 316ABW commander. If something happened to his vice commander, either AMC would step in, or a senior group commander in the wing would take the helm. The 316ABW wouldn’t ever leave Andrews, although at any given time, 20% of its members might be deployed.
The other responses have already cleared the OP up pretty well, I’d say, but I wanted to further address this part:
There are absolutely workers on Andrews who are not part of the 316th ABW (Air Base Wing). As stated before, those employees work for one or more “tenant organizations”. On my base, for example, I work for one of these tenant organizations. There are several, and they are quite large. In fact the VAST majority of workers at Wright-Patterson AFB do not work for 88 ABW. Those guys handle the civil engineering, the base cops, services (things like the base restaurants, movie theater, bowling alley, BX and commissary, etc.), among other support functions. Many host organizations exist only to enable their tenant organizations to function. My org, for instance, is all about R&D…and we can’t be bothered to keep the lights on and the buildings standing up. But we need a place to do our thing, so the 88th runs a base where we can work.
Typically (big generalization here) the host unit handles the day to day operation of the base itself, while the other units (tenant orgs) do whatever it is that the base is known for. Sometimes they are one in the same; the 509th bomb wing at Whiteman AFB runs the base and flys all the B-2s. But often times those functions are split.
In a nutshell, , the base commander & his wing run the “hotel”. The rest of the units use the hotel to do their job. And since most useful stuff the Air force does is not at their peacetime base, when they pack up to go fight someplace they leave that hotel behnd & arrive at a forward base where some other base commander & his wing provide the hotel.
As others have noted, the “hotel” is everything from buildings & runways to security, a fuel farm, an ammo dump, etc.
The tenant units do not report to the base commander. Neither does the base commander report to them. They are each responsible to a higher headquearters for doing their job well.
As a practical matter, at the typical Stateside base there is one primary tenant unit. The base commander may not work for that unit’s (usually a Wing) commander, but he/she does need to keep the tenant commander happy. Pissing off your biggest (often only) customer is not good for your career.
Colonel Shepro has a high-profile job and I’m sure he’s an excellent officer. But I assume his primary job is commanding the 316th and most of his past experience has been in units like it. I doubt he has equal experience in things like traffic control and building maintenance schedules. Is there an officer in the base command who is subordinate to Col Shepro but who has more experience in the actual day-to-day operations of the base. So that if Col Shepro were given a new assignment or redeployed, he could tell the new incoming base commander “Talk to Captain Smith about any issues involving the base. He knows all the procedures and will tell you of any problems that arise.”
Who decides which hangars are assigned to which wing, which wing is given runway traffic priority, etc? (i.e., actual base command decisions, not base maintenance, which is what you seem to be discussing above).
A type command is something like a submarine group or submarine squadron, or a destroyer group or squadron (or CRUDESGRU or CRUDESRON, which would include cruisers as well). The air side has its equivalent, too, under the NAVAIR umbrella - NAVAIR is itself a type command, but a large one divided into smaller ones.
These commands have no direct operational role - but have a crucial role for the training, equipping, and administering the units under its umbrella. Deficiencies here affect not only what is happening operationally but follow-on units and units in other theaters - therefore a separate command structure exists to work these out.