News

Progress ongoing in creating Joint Base Lewis-McChord

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Joseph Wingard
  • 62nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs
MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  Development of Joint Base Lewis-McChord reached a significant milestone this week with the expected signing of the Memorandum of Agreement by the vice chiefs of the Army and Air Force.

The MOA was developed locally and finalized in May after months of work by McChord and Fort Lewis leadership and key staff agencies from both bases. The MOA outlines in general scope how the two services will work together as the Joint Base forms in 2010.

The next step in development of JBLM has been under way since May as key staff agencies continue to work closely to prepare detailed plans consolidating installation support functions of McChord and the Fort Lewis Garrison into a Joint Base structure. These plans will be assembled in one document that will form an operational plan.

The OPLAN is a key document in implementing the MOA.

"The idea of the OPLAN is not to plan the daily operations of organizations, it's really designed to detail how they are going to merge," said Lt. Col. Joseph Snow, deputy director of the JBLM Initiative. "We need to determine how we are going to consolidate and become a Joint Base. We all have a responsibility to figure out how that will be done, and in fact many teams from both installations have been working very long hours to develop quality products."

The JBLM OPLAN is essentially a resource transfer and consolidation plan, which details the personnel and property that will come under the control of the Joint Base Commander to perform installation support functions, according to Lt. Col. Barb Henson, 446th Airlift Wing joint base liaison.

"Since the 446th AW does not perform installation support and because we do not actually own the real property that we occupy, none of our personnel (no civilian, air Reserve technicians, or traditional Reservists) nor any of our resources have been identified to transfer to the joint base," said Colonel Henson.

"Some people are probably wondering about the potential impact of having the Army manage our buildings instead of the 62nd Airlift Wing, after we transition to JBLM," said the colonel.

As the colonel explains, the Secretary of Defense has provided formal guidance that protects the basic interests of all units that reside on a joint base. One provision is a set of Common Output Level Standards for facilities that requires they be maintained at a common set of quality standards and that work order requests are handled in a timely manner.

"Another provision protects the rights of current occupants. Simply put, units that occupy facilities cannot be relocated unless those occupants agree to the relocation," said Colonel Henson.

To date, approximately 14 of 22 specific OPLAN annexes addressing key JBLM installation support functions have been completed. Those that remain primarily require review that is already scheduled to occur.

After the OPLAN is completed this fall, the JBLM installation support functional managers will begin to focus on developing policies and operating procedures that will guide how support will be provided to the units residing on the joint base.

"At that time, I anticipate hosting a series of meetings with some of the Ft Lewis functional managers to ensure their directorates are prepared to provide for our UTA support and to accommodate our training requirements," said Colonel Henson.

The 62nd Communications Squadron, a key service provider of the future JBLM information management function, has worked with their Fort Lewis counterparts on development of a communications annex since May.

"We've been working together quite well and are in contact each week concerning subjects that are being written into our annex," said Charles Hawthorne, 62nd CS deputy director. "This has been a beneficial process and we both have a mutual understanding of how we will support customers on the Joint Base. We anticipate a final annex review on Aug. 29."

As development of the OPLAN continues, the JB Partnership Council continues to prepare for the future. A three-day JBLM table top exercise is scheduled to start Aug. 19. The exercise has been locally developed to simulate predictable stresses to installation support functions that could occur on JBLM. Representatives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Army and Air Force higher headquarters will observe the event.
The event is the first JBLM exercise and is to be led by the future JBLM Command Team, Army Col. Thomas Brittain, future JBLM commander, and Air Force Col. Kenny Weldon, future JBLM deputy commander. Colonel Brittain currently serves as the Fort Lewis Garrison commander and Colonel Weldon currently serves as McChord's 62nd Mission Support Group commander.

Following the exercise, Joint Base planners will study the results to ensure lessons learned are documented for consideration in future JB plans.

The exercise, documentation of lessons learned and the continued development of the OPLAN are the next tangible steps leading to signing of the JBLM OPLAN by Colonel Brittain and Colonel Weldon, currently scheduled for Nov. 12.

Once the OPLAN is signed, the JB team will prepare an operational order to carry out the OPLAN -- the final step in implementing the MOA. The OPORD is scheduled to be signed by Colonel Brittain Jan. 14 and JBLM will reach initial operating capability Jan. 31.  (Sandra Pishner, 446th Airlift Wing Public Affairs, contributed to this report.)