Team MacDill completes first BRAC project

  • Published
  • By TSgt Denise Hauser
  • 827th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The official Command Post of the 6th Air Mobility Wing and the 927th Air Refueling Wing, is the first integrated building of Team Macdill. It is also the first BRAC completed project since the 927th ARW moved from Selfridge ANGB, MI to Macdill AFB, FL in May 2008.  The building was completed and fully operational on June 1, 2009; three months ahead of the projected completion date of Sept 2009.

The building includes the Command Post,  Military Operations Center (MOC), Wing Scheduling, Mission Planning, Intelligence, Tactics, Plans and Programs, and Maintenance Scheduling; all mission critical operations.

Plans for the building began in 2005 when Selfridge was first officially on the BRAC list.   The original project manager was Ed Gossling, Civilian Personnel Contractor.  Joanne Gray, Civilian Contractor for Civil Engineering at Selfridge was the lead engineer for the project. Kevin Gokmen of CMSI architecture was the lead architect, and James Wiggins of Chugach Contracting was in charge of design. Col Doug Schwartz, 927th Operations Group Commander did most of the site surveys for the building.  Chugach was the civil engineering contracting company and did all the original design planing.  Danner Construction did all the renovation.  Capt Kay McRoberts, 927th Chief of Equal Opportunity, took over as the project manager in July 2008, and lead the project to completion.

The planning process for the building was very in depth, and took alot of hard work and dedication of everyone involved.  The process included plans for the building, furniture purchase, all technical equipment for a fully functional command post, coordinating all post construction issues, coordinating the actual move in, all communications issues such as phones and computers, and over all making sure the process was seamless.

A dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Command Post took place on June 19, 2009.  Col Larry Martin, 6th Air Mobility Wing Commander and Col Kenneth D. Lewis Jr, 927th Air Refueling Wing Commander gave speeches of gratitude to everyone involved in the hard work and dedication it took to get this projected completed.  

"It was an incredible journey.  It was alot of fun, stressful, but overall a great experience."  stated Capt. Kay McRoberts, Project Manager and also the Chief of Equal Opportunity for the 927th Air Refueling Wing.