61st ABG Named Air Force Outstanding Unit Published March 18, 2013 By Alicia Garges SMC Public Affairs LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- The 61st Air Base Group has won the Air Force's Outstanding Unit Award. This award is presented to numbered units that have distinguished themselves by exceptionally meritorious service or outstanding achievement that clearly sets the unit above and apart from similar units. In a base-wide message, Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, SMC commander, said "the 61st ABG won the award for exceptionally meritorious service from Oct. 1, 2010 to Sept. 30 2012, making our base a better place to live and work." "You may not know that the group earned "Excellent" ratings in Civil Engineering, Personnel and Ability to Survive and Operate during AFSPC's Inspector General Combined Unit Inspection, and that the 61st Medical Squadron was named the Command's top Medical Treatment Facility for handling sensitive medical evaluation boards and ranked No. 2 across the entire Air Force--fantastic! Also during this period, the group completed major quality life and infrastructure improvements in El Segundo and at Ft. MacArthur including the new parking structure, the refurbishment of the base pool, and the upgrades to the Gordon Conference Center to provide live feeds to our geographically separated units," the general said. The 61st Air Base Group provides medical, civil engineering, communications, chaplain, security, logistics, personnel, readiness, and quality-of-life services to the Space and Missile Systems Center and many other Department of Defense units in the Los Angeles basin. It consists of five squadrons and six staff agencies, totaling more than 790 personnel with $608 million in plant assets and an annual budget of $60 million.