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Officials praise transition to joint base

Mar 16, 2011

By Marisa Petrich (Northwest Guardian)

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. -- There may still be a few bumps in the road, but assistant secretaries for both services found that the transition is going well from Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment Katherine Hammack and Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Logistics Terry A. Yonkers spent March 9 and 10 touring the installation, talking to Soldiers and Airmen and identifying best practices.

Just a month after the one-year anniversary of officially merging Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, the secretaries acknowledged that some things need refining, but the overall outlook is good.
"Attitudes are exactly where they need to be," Yonkers said. "So it's the willingness to take on those challenges, to meet them, and to come out the end of this with a success that is really, I think, one of the rewarding and heartwarming parts of our discussions on joint base."

In fact, the undersecretaries found that there are already benefits in terms of economics and best practices.

Joining the installations has created opportunities for innovative solutions. For example, merging the Lewis and McChord virtual networks in 2010 was initially expected to cost about $13 million, but the collaborative effort of technicians on both sides led to costs estimated closer to $250,000.
The idea is that finding efficiencies and the type of thinking that goes with it will lead to even greater savings in the long-term.

"The thought process in joint basing was there would be some economies," Hammack said. "And certainly as we're in an era where budgets are capped, and we're going to be facing declining available resources, we need to look to see how we can become more efficient."

Yonkers and Hammack also looked at efforts to be more environmentally efficient at JBLM, including the base's waste management program, net-zero waste initiatives and discussions on increasing energy security to prevent JBLM from relying on a vulnerable utility grid.

"We did hear some really fantastic things that are going on here, that I think are models for other installations that they can learn from," Hammack said of the programs.
This, after all, is part of the point.

"Sort of the starting-out position was there's the Army way, there's the Air Force way, or there's the highway," Yonkers said.

But now leaders are finding ways to select the best ideas from different branches and installations, work together more efficiently and apply these methods throughout the military.

"The best practices that are coming out of joint basing, where the Air Force and the Army or the other services are learning from each other, are lessons and best practices that can be taken back to individual organizations that might not or may never be a joint base," Hammack said.

Being open to best practices ultimately gives everyone - Soldiers, Airmen, and civilians - the chance to identify inefficiencies and be involved in the solutions.

"That's the most exciting thing about visiting an installation, is to talk to those who are serving their country and doing it with a passion for what they're doing," Hammack said.