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  • October

    Colleen O'Keefe, Huntsville Center contracting chief, and Albert "Chip" Marin III, Huntsville Center programs and business director, participate in the Society of American Military Engineers Huntsville Post’s virtual Small Business Forum Oct. 20.

    Huntsville Center participates in virtual small business forum

    More than 350 participants, mostly small- business owners and business representatives from across the country, logged in to learn about Huntsville Center’s more than 40 programs and upcoming acquisitions.
  • October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, an observance tied to the Army’s commitment to a diverse and inclusive workforce. The theme, “Increasing Access and Opportunity,” promotes educating employees and hiring authorities about disability employment issues and celebrating the many and varied contributions of workers with disabilities.

    National Disability Employment Awareness Month promotes 'Increasing Access and Opportunity'

    “Emphasis should be on the point that people with disabilities are typically creative problem solvers; they must be able to navigate a world historically designed for people without disabilities,” noted Jennifer Sheehy, deputy assistant secretary, of the Army’s Office of Disability Employment Policy.
  • Completing Fiscal Year 2020 virtually due to ongoing COVID-19 safety precautions, Huntsville Center ended the FY with more than 5,000 contract actions totaling more than more than $2.4 billion in obligations worldwide.

    Army Corps' Huntsville Center closes out FY20 virtually, completes $2.4B in contract actions for global stakeholders

    The $2.4 billion in contract actions increased not only Department of Defense readiness and effectiveness through global medical facility renovations and modernization, resilient power and water utilities projects, military training facility updates and cyber security programs aimed at strengthening our nation’s defenses, it also provided vital support to ongoing federal, state and local programs and projects aimed at improving and increasing our nation’s health and safety during the continued response to the coronavirus pandemic.

  • September

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, is providing technical and contracting support for the U.S. Army Material Command’s Smart Barracks Initiative. Barracks at Fort Benning, Georgia, pictured here, have been selected for the pilot program with plans to implement effective changes across many installations. (Courtesy Photo)

    Huntsville Center supports Army’s Smart Barracks Initiative

    The initiative will strive to modernize Soldier barracks by applying innovations and best practices in smart technology, cyber and physical security, energy systems, and quality-of-life improvements for the Soldiers who call these facilities their home.
  • Workers build a facility at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Huntsville Center has been responsible for fielding, operating, maintaining and training users for the DD Form 1391 Processor System since 1980. The system covers a broad spectrum of unique needs and requirements associated with policies and procedures governing DD1391 forms, which are used for submitting requirements and justifications of funding requ

    If you build it, they will come

    The DD Form 1391 assists users in preparing, submitting, reviewing, correcting, printing and archiving DD Forms 1391 and related data, in accordance with Army Regulation 420-1.

  • August

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville’s Facilities Reduction team has transitioned to virtual site visits in order to minimize the spread of COVID-19 while ensuring the satisfaction of stakeholders. Team members are utilizing a variety of online tools, such as virtual conferencing platforms and aerial images such as the one seen here of a demolition site at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, to gather information needed to develop an effective plan.

    Facilities Reduction Program continues to deliver the program through virtual contracting

    Even programs that generally require intensive on-site visits are finding innovative solutions to maintain the high level of quality expected of Huntsville Center. One example is the Facilities Reduction Program (FRP), which provides contracting services and oversight of projects to eliminate excess facilities and structures at installations across the country, ultimately leading to a reduction in fixed installation costs and an increase in energy savings.
  • Sacramento District’s Bryte Yard teammates Greg Jerman, James Helm, Tony Theard, Vince Diaz and Mike Guidry fashion a ladder as a base for a fall prevention safety display. The display is used to remind workers of the importance of preventing falls in the construction industry. The Sacramento District maintenance yard, located in the West Sacramento community of Bryte, is home to the team of craftsmen with skills in vessel and heavy equipment operation, carpentry, electrical, pipefitting, plumbing, metal fabrication, welding. The Bryte Yard Team will be participation in the virtual 7th Annual Safety Stand-Down set for Sept. 14 -18.

    Corps of Engineers participating in virtual National Safety Stand-Down 2020

    Originally scheduled for May 4-8, the event is rescheduled for Sept. 14 -18. USACE is expanding on OSHA’s efforts to include fall prevention in the workplace to encompass all elements of the USACE mission.
  • Seventeen Huntsville Center employees completed Leadership Development Program Level I and are now working with deeper insights into their personalities and leadership styles.

    Huntsville Center’s professional development program provides foundation for future leaders

    The eight-month long program utilized a variety of methods for delivering content to develop competencies including: communication, time management, conflict management, customer service, contribution to mission.
  • Soldiers of the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team approach a target during a live-fire drill as part of the unit’s 2018 rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La. The U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville is the designated Range and Training Land Program Mandatory Center of Expertise.

    Huntsville Center program keeps service members on target

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville is the designated Range and Training Land Program Mandatory Center of Expertise.

  • July

    In their efforts to increase energy efficiency and resiliency at installations worldwide, Resource Efficiency Managers explore the latest in renewable technologies, such as this wind turbine at Tooele Army Depot in Utah. (U.S. Army photo by John Prettyman/released)

    Resource Efficiency Managers support modernization of defense industrial base

    At the forefront of this mission is the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville’s Resource Efficiency Manager (REM) program, which brings the best minds in the free world together to introduce new technologies and processes that extract every possible unit of energy from the most fuel-efficient and resilient energy-system technologies available. REMs, often called the “energy boots on the ground,” provide vital expertise to develop site energy plans encompassing projects that achieve sustainable, renewable, and secure energy management.

  • June

    Army Sgt. 1st Class George Hummel, a biomedical equipment specialist with the 807th Medical Command, inputs data while maintaining medical equipment at the Medical Equipment Concentration Site for the 88th Readiness Division in Ogden, Utah, April 17. Huntsville Center’s Resource Efficiency Manager Program provides the 88th RD with site energy plans encompassing projects that achieve sustainable energy management at the 88th RD’s more than 250 sites located across 19 states.

    REM’s exceed energy savings goals for the Army Reserve

    With 579 facilities totaling more than 10 million square feet of facility space, Rachel Kemper, REM for the U.S. Army Reserve’s 88th Readiness Division, headquartered on Fort McCoy, Wis., continues to deliver the program and exceeded energy savings goals for the 88th RD throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
  • More than 800 Huntsville Center employees from Huntsville, Alabama, Omaha, Nebraska and Alexandria, Virginia, logged into an online meeting platform to hear the words of Huntsville Center leaders praise the workforce for a job-well-done during unprecedented times.

    Virtual town hall recognizes achievement, brings workforce up-to-date

    More than 800 Huntsville Center employees from Huntsville, Alabama, Omaha, Nebraska and Alexandria, Virginia, logged into an online meeting platform to hear the words of Huntsville Center leaders praise the workforce for a job-well-done during unprecedented times.
  • Paratroopers with 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), practice cordon and search tactics during warfighter training at Fort Carson, Colorado, in 2018. Huntsville Center’s Range and Training Land Program prepared programming cost estimates for a shoothouse at the post to support the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s project approval and funding process.

    Huntsville Center, Omaha District delivers range to Army special forces

    Last September, Huntsville Center’s Range and Training Land Program prepared a programming cost estimate for a shoothouse at Fort Carson, Colorado, in support of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s project approval and funding process.

  • May

    Personnel apply absorbent rolls to a simulated hazardous material spill during a training scenario at U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz in 2019. U.S. Army Installation Management Command garrisons are more efficient and effective at management, tracking, and reporting of hazardous materials thanks to the Environmental, Safety and Occupational Health – Management Information System implementation team of Huntsville Center’s Environmental and Munitions Center of Expertise.

    Huntsville Center improves hazardous materials management

    Previously, many installations used other more costly user licenses, such as the Hazardous Materials Management System, or other commercial databases that required annual renewal fees to manage their HM or HW data. Licensing costs were greatly reduced with the single EESOH-MIS application.
  • Technicians use electromagnetic metal detectors to determine if an item below ground is a military munition. Huntsville Center’s Ordnance and Explosives Military Munitions Design Center manages and executes many of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Military Munitions Response Program projects for Formerly Used Defense Site and Base Realignment and Closure sites.

    Huntsville Center plays key role in South Carolina remediation project

    Work to clean up former Camp Croft, a Formerly Used Defense Site, began following the April 1 contract between U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District, and a joint venture of Weston Solutions, Inc., of Peachtree Corners, Georgia, and Zapata Inc., of Charlotte, North Carolina.

  • April

    Dr. Charles Brandon, Director, Army Office of Business Transformation Process Improvement Program, awards Carolyn Harris, Huntsville Center's Program Improvement Manager, her Lean Six Sigma Master Black belt certificate in December. Harris is one of six MBBs in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

    Army awards Harris with Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt

    Harris is the 163rd member to be awarded Master Black Belt in the Army and currently one of six Corps of Engineers’ MBBs since the Army Lean Six Sigma deployment began in 2005.
  • A Resource Efficiency Manager recently instituted a 50001 Ready team to meet energy and water security resilience and reduction goals at Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Radford, Virginia. Huntsville Center manages the REM program for the Army.

    Resource Energy Manager improves munition plant’s energy resilience

    A Resource Efficiency Manager attending 2019 Energy Exchange and REM Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, received updated 50001 Ready information that led him on a path to improve energy efficiency at Radford Army Ammunition Plant, Virginia.
  • Evan Meier, the son of Thomas and Katherine Meier, and 6th grade student uses his 3D printer to create face masks and face shields for local hospital workers. Inspired by his aunt and YouTube program, "Smarter Every Day," the youth joined forces with 235 other Huntsville, Alabama, volunteers to make over 3,800 shields for area health care and first responders treating COVID-19 patients.

    Madison youth joins effort to help hospital workers

    Evan’s interest in making the masks, then face shields began earlier in March when his aunt sent them a link to a community project in Boston where they were making 3D filtered masks. That message resonated with the young student “engineer.”
  • Don Monk, a project management specialist with Huntsville Center's Medical Outfitting and Transition Division, delivers the program from his home office in Birmingham, Ala. Monk has been teleworking regularly for years and has a set routine.

    Telework is the norm for Huntsville Center workforce

    For some employees, working from “Fort Living Room” is a relatively new way of doing business
  • A mission-essential employee walks down a hallway at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville

    Deceptively Quiet – Huntsville Center’s army of unseen professionals

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville stands deceptively quiet. The hallways, workspaces and meeting rooms are empty. What you can’t see is the army of Huntsville Center professionals tucked safely away in their homes, working feverishly to do their part in fighting the coronavirus pandemic that has gripped our nation and launched us all into a historic, unified response. Huntsville Center engineers and technical experts are providing conceptual engineering solutions to very real challenges. And the Corps of Engineers, FEMA and our federal, state and local partners are turning them into reality in record time.