Commander conducts SAPR exercise – unit does the right thing Published Oct. 23, 2013 By Joe B. Wiles 71st Flying Training Wing Public Affairs VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- Senior Air Force leaders have made clear that sexual harassment and sexual assault have no place in today's Air Force. One local commander decided to go beyond briefings and PowerPoint slides and try to catch her people doing the right thing. "In the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response briefs, we hear about those who have done wrong and about what not to do," said Maj. Dorinda Mazza, the 71st Comptroller Squadron commander at Vance Air Force Base. "I thought, what about rewarding good behavior, recognizing the positive." After discussing it with Terri Presa, the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator at Vance, Mazza decided to conduct an exercise in the workplace. A photo of an actress in swimwear on the beach was displayed at the desk of a lieutenant temporarily assigned to the office while waiting for his pilot training to start. "I wanted to see if anyone in my unit would say something about a questionable photo in the work place," said Mazza. She picked the lieutenant's desk because she thought an airman would be easier to approach than the new officer in the organization. It needed to be a challenge for her people. The lieutenant's desk was in a central location so everyone would eventually pass by the photo. Some thought it was a picture of his girlfriend. Others just noted it was a nice photo. The exercise began on a Monday morning when the photo was placed on the desk. It remained on display until an NCO decided that it had to go. Mazza had instructed her team leads not to comment on the photo during the exercise. "They are the ones everyone else would have expected to act. But we want to grow a culture that demands doing the right thing. I needed to see one of my other folks step up." She wasn't disappointed. Tech. Sgt. Tamica Rippke sits at a desk right behind the lieutenant. Ironically, she was attending a Resiliency Training Assistant class that week. The class included a section on SAPR. She first noticed the photo Monday. Although it didn't seem important at the time, she would give it more thought over the next two days of training. "We were discussing SAPR and how similar situations can have a negative impact in the workplace," said Rippke. The class covered how to talk with someone about a problem without causing a conflict. "The training refreshed my memory on what was proper and what was not proper," she said. It was after class Wednesday she decided the picture had to come down. She approached the lieutenant, discussed the picture, then asked him to remove it from his desk. After the exercise was over, Mazza gathered the folks in the unit to talk about what had happened. She discovered there had been a number of discussions between members of the office about whether the photo was appropriate or not. "I had wanted the picture to be right in the middle of the gray area," said Mazza. If it had been too blatant, someone would call it out quickly. If it had been too conservative, nobody would have notice. "Our people get in trouble over the gray areas of behavior," she said. Those gray areas include a joke that "isn't that bad," or a questionable social interaction that is "only flirting." Mazza doesn't plan any similar exercises in the near future. "I needed to see if my people would have the courage to address a problem," she said. They did.