Contra Costa Times November 17, 2003
Reserve redesigner ready to shake up north state bases
By Kiley Russell
DUBLIN - The new commander of Camp Parks keeps two photographs of the Pentagon in his office -- one taken before and one taken after the world's largest building was attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.
The shots of Lt. Col. James Doty's former office stand in stark contrast to each other and were arranged by his wife, Charlotte, because "you just have to have reality slap you in the face and that will keep you on track, I guarantee," she said.
Doty knows all too well the slap of reality. He was walking toward his job when a hijacked airliner slammed into the building, destroying his office along with a huge section of America's military nerve center.
"We lost a lot of friends, and if it would have been a minute later, we would have lost him. It was very scary," Charlotte Doty said.
The attacks of Sept. 11 threw the country's political and military leadership into a frenzy of re-evaluation. The fighting men and women of the United States needed new directives, new training, new support structures, new equipment and a new organizational rubric.
Coincidentally, these were the areas in which Doty was working before the attacks, and he continued that work until he assumed command of Camp Parks in July.
"I worked on the complete redesign of the Army Reserve. ... I dealt with the organizing, equipping and setup of all the Army Reserve units for the Department of the Army," Doty said. "I got to work with the Army's senior leadership on almost all of the big organizational, structural changes."
For six years, the 42-year-old Doty, a combat engineer by training, worked on the Army Reserve's redesign and how it could best dovetail with the "regular" Army. For the past couple of years, he was the country's No. 2 officer in charge of figuring out how the Reserve could reinvent itself to meet its ever-widening role in national defense.
The job involves deciding how many of what types of units are going to be in the Army Reserve versus the National Guard versus the active duty Army, said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
It's the type of work that requires precise organizational skills, a nimble mind and well-honed political instincts. It's the latter that, if lacking in an officer working inside the Beltway, can prove especially burdensome to a military career.
"Politics is a necessary component. That's a difficult thing for a guy who works in troop units to get accustomed to when you get to Washington," Doty said. "Out in the field, it's kind of very simply 'Follow the rules and do it this way,' but there, the political nuances are very, very difficult to master and so you have to learn the battle rhythm of Washington to be successful, at the same time not sacrificing any of your values or principles."
It's a job Doty was well-suited to, according to former Pentagon colleagues, and it was an experience that will serve him well as the commander of Camp Parks.
While most commanders don't get exhaustive preparation on how to run a base before they actually drive through the front gates, Doty understands how the Army operates at the highest levels, and he's well-versed in its arcane funding mechanisms and command structure.
"He's a very smart individual," said Maj. Ron Dix, who worked under Doty at the Pentagon. "I think he's probably forgotten more than I'll ever know. He'd have a stack of papers in front of him but he'd be able to find anything, and anything he couldn't find would be in his head."
"He understands the unit level, he understands the resourcing level, so I think he's certainly equal to this job, but it is a daunting task," said Brig. Gen. Jim Snyder, a Reserve officer whom Doty describes as a mentor.
Indeed, the 2003 graduate of the Army War College is charged with merging the commands of Parks, Monterey County's massive Fort Hunter Liggett and two smaller installations in Sacramento and San Jose.
Doty will work with his superiors to study how best to combine the bases. They will look at which jobs need to be changed, which need to be contracted out and which should stay government positions, and also at which base those jobs should be stationed.
"By and large, we're not messing with the rank and file. If you talk about it in civilian terms, it's a management shake-up," Doty said.
Traditionally, Parks and Hunter Liggett, both of which train active and reserve military personnel, have competed for "customers." By combining the bases, the military hopes to eliminate that competition and improve efficiency.
The new super-base is called U.S. Army Garrison West Coast and should be up and running by the end of next September.
At his new job, Doty also will oversee a long-planned land swap deal and some much-needed improvements to Parks, a World War II-era base. The deal will give 188 acres of now-vacant land in the middle of Dublin to a private developer in exchange for some on-base projects, such as building new housing for soldiers.
While this is Doty's first command assignment, he has endured multiple cross-country and overseas transfers since he enlisted at 17, after graduating from a military high school in Kansas.
"I'm originally from Kansas, but I consider myself a Texas native who owns a house in Virginia and who lives in Dublin, Calif.," said Doty, whose father is a retired noncommissioned officer and Korean War veteran.
His partner in many of those moves, Charlotte Doty, is "a perfect Army wife," he said.
The pair raised four now-grown children and are raising two of their grandchildren, a 3-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl.
"They're cute but they're very ornery," he said.
As for the move to the Tri-Valley, Doty said he was led to expect something, well, more like San Diego.
"Everyone told me that I would love California weather, but this is the first place I've been where I can be hot and cold in the same day," he said. "I think they were confusing it with Southern California, because everybody says, 'Well, you can swim and it's going to be warm in the wintertime.'"
© Copyright 2003, Contra Costa Times
