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Angolan Army, AFRICOM Staff Tour Naval Construction Training Center

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS130207-05
2/7/2013

By Chief Engineering Aide (SCW) Peter S. Sydow, Naval Construction Training Center Gulfport Public Affairs, and Susan Lester, Center for Seabees and Facilities Engineering Public Affairs

GULFPORT, Miss. (NNS) -- A delegation from the Angolan army and their escort from the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) toured the Naval Construction Training Center (NCTC) Feb. 1.

The NCTC Director of Training Operations, Lt. Robert Carr, led the tour with translation support from Chief Warrant Officer Jeremy Rich from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 11.

The delegation toured several companies and practical training areas at the school and observed how basic construction training is provided students in the classrooms and laboratories.

The delegates observed training up-close as they donned hardhats, eye and hearing protection and watched Seabees in the construction mechanic, builder, and steelworker laboratories execute individual skills training exercises.

Cmdr. Scott Anderson, NCTC commanding officer, joined the delegates during the tour.

'The tour was a great success, followed by some discussion on what they hope to do to develop a future engineer capability and capacity,' said Anderson. 'They were very engaged throughout the tour, asking a lot of questions about the length of courses, material and equipment usage, and sustainment of training.'

Carr noted that the Angolans expressed interest in sending students to NCTC 'A' and 'C' School courses along with a few specialty schools.

'They showed interest in Planning and Estimating and Construction Inspector courses, to develop their engineer capability,' said Carr. 'They also showed interest in opportunities to work with Seabees in the continuing education and experience of their future engineer forces. We provided the delegation officers a copy of the NCTC command brief, translated into Portuguese.'

'We made it clear that we are only able to assist in developing the training relationship,' added Anderson. 'Everything's obviously still in the very early stages, but it will be interesting to see how things develop.'

NCTC provides specialized, basic and advanced construction training to more than 9,000 Seabees, Airmen, and Soldiers each year.

For more information about the Naval Construction Training Center in Gulfport, Miss., visit https://www.netc.navy.mil/centers/csfe/gulfport/.