Sembach transfer enhances dental mission

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Michael Voss
  • 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  The Sembach Annex Consolidation and Transfer plan, used to direct the necessary actions for the consolidation of functions currently located at the Sembach Annex, Germany, to other locations, has left many of the facilities on the base empty. The Area Dental Laboratory, however, is one of the few remaining manned buildings on the Annex, but a move is coming.

Soon, ADL personnel who work at Building 151 on Sembach Annex will accept control of their new facility, Building 301A, behind the dental clinic located here on Ramstein.

The scheduled mid-April move comes as the Air Force prepares to transfer Sembach to the U.S. Army on Oct. 1. It will enable ADL servicemembers to not only serve their normal customers, but also puts them closer to their supporting organization, the 86th Dental Squadron.

The ADL, who provides service to U.S. Air Force's in Europe, European Command and U.S. Central Command, is one of three Air Force Area Dental Laboratories in the world. Working together with the ADL at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. services the Continental United States, and the lab at Kadena Air Force Base, Japan, they provide products for full-mouth rehabilitation to all DOD servicemembers and beneficiaries.

Unlike a dental clinic, Air Force Area Dental Laboratories do not see any actual patients; they deal only with order forms, or 'mouth sheets' as they call them.

"We are a dental lab," said Lt. Col. Donald Sheets, Sembach ADL flight commander and prosthodontist. "If a patient needs dentures or a crown, they usually don't make those in the clinic; we make them here in the lab."

Although the ADL has called Sembach Annex its home since moving from Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1996, the building they occupied was a general purpose facility turned into a full medical clinic.

Today, the ADL is all that is left in the building, the rest of the personnel have already moved.

"We will lose some space, but a lot of dental laboratory work today is being done by computer automated design and manufacturing versus a lab technician," said the prior-enlisted doctor. "Instead of a technician making a crown, we can have a computer make it, saving space and time."

In addition to helping enhance the ADL mission of supporting CENTCOM and EUCOM, providing consult services and providing education and training to doctors and technicians throughout USAFE, the move to Ramstein will also reduce stress on many of the unit's personnel.

"The Ramstein ADL will be designed specifically for our purposes. Not to mention, it will help make the simply support elements most take for granted easier to access," said Master Sgt. Gary Johnson, ADL flight chief. "Some weeks I travel back and forth to Ramstein for meetings two to three times a week."

The move will also enhance the productivity of the ADL technicians who often have to head for appointments at Ramstein and leave a position on the bench unmanned for a majority of the day.

In the coming weeks ADL workers will box-up supplies and prepare dental laboratory equipment like burn-out ovens, laser-welders and porcelain furnaces, for the 20-mile trip to the new facility.

With a lot of work ahead of the unit, they all acknowledge completing the mission is what it's all about and the change will help.

"The move will enhance our mission by not taking us away from our mission as much to complete the everyday things involved with being an Airman," said Colonel Sheets.