AFDW&You: Meet Lt. Col. Mark Paine

  • Published
  • By Air Force District of Washington Public Affairs

The Air Force District of Washington encompasses more than 30,000 Airmen in 1,758 units stationed at 500 locations in 108 countries. AFDW Airmen execute varied missions around the world alongside service members and civilians from different Air Force major commands, joint units and international organizations. AFDW highlights Airmen in these unique missions in its series, “AFDW and You.”

The Airman: Lt. Col. Mark Paine is a Bioenvironmental Engineer at the Defense Health Headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia. His hometown is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

The mission: I am a Bioenvironmental Engineer working in environmental health at the Defense Health Agency. I assist the Military Health System transformation with respect to environmental health. This includes assisting with the development of environmental health metrics. 

The highlights: The Military Health Transformation is creating opportunities to facilitate collaboration among the services, and I have the opportunity to foster this collaboration with respect to environmental health. The ability to collaborate at the DHA-level is unique for a servicemember.   

The challenges: I arrived to this position during COVID while literally all of my co-workers were teleworking. In addition, the vast majority of my peers in related organizations were teleworking. I overcame this by making introductory personal phone calls to them, rather than having coffee with them face-to-face in the office.