Naval Facilities Engineering Command: Supporting the Maritime Strategy

July 2010 Navy

by Rear Admiral Greg Shear, Civil Engineer Corps, USN (Ret); Former Commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, and Chief of Civil Engineers

Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) celebrates three significant anniversaries this year, its 168th, the 143rd of the Civil Engineer Corps (CEC), and the Seabees’ 68th. Each organization, from its inception, has played a role in the support of our nation’s defense.

First established in 1842 as the Bureau of Yards and Docks, NAVFAC manages the planning, design, construction, contingency engineering, real estate, environmental, and public works support for Navy shore facilities throughout the world. As a major Navy Systems Command, NAVFAC delivers timely and effective facilities engineering solutions and has an annual volume of business in excess of $16 billion. NAVFAC delivers these services primarily through the local Public Works Department, located at each naval base, which is responsive to the requirements of the local base commanding officer.

CEC officers are the Navy’s warfarequalified licensed architects, engineers and acquisition professionals responsible for executing and managing the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the Navy’s shore facilities. CEC officers are typically assigned to pubic works, acquisition or naval construction force jobs where they use their background to arrive at innovative engineering solutions for the Navy. Additionally, they are on call to deploy to places like Haiti where the recovery operation gained a contracting officer and professional engineer with each CEC officer sent. Today, nearly 1,900 CEC officers serve globally on active duty or as members of our Active/Reserve Component, working closely with the Seabees and NAVFAC’s approximately 20,000 civilians to deliver a broad array of products and services.

The Seabees are a key enabling force of highly skilled personnel, trained in both construction and defensive combat, and deployed worldwide to perform contingency construction, provide humanitarian relief, and accomplish important related tasks. Seabees specialize in a variety of vertical and horizontal construction tasks and can organize into elements as small as four-man fire teams for detachments at remote sites. Over the past 68 years, the Seabees have repeatedly demonstrated their skills as fighters and builders, from their creation during WWII to the current conflicts and all manner of humanitarian missions in between. The Seabees’ motto, “We Build, We Fight,” says it all.

All three provide integral support to our nation’s Maritime Strategy, summarized by the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Gary Roughead, at the recent 26th Annual Seminar of the Conference of Defense Associations: “The sea remains the domain of commerce, communication, and resources. It endures because sea power has proven, over the course of history, to be a flexible, adaptable, rapid reaction force that a nation can use regardless of time or situation – as long as the right capability and capacity exist.”

Every day and in every theatre of operations around the world, CEC officers, Seabees, and NAVFAC civilians support the Maritime Strategy by strengthening Navy and Marine Corps readiness through the application of their core capabilities in expeditionary force support, engineering contingency response, high-quality and sustainable facility construction and maintenance, energy security initiatives, and environmental stewardship.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 alone, for example, NAVFAC managed a program of $16 billion, almost double the budget from 2006, and executed an unprecedented contract workload, awarding in excess of 44,400 actions that totaled nearly $10.8 billion. The following items illustrate what NAVFAC, the CEC, and the Seabees are all about, as the work included:

• Providing professional engineering expertise at forward operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan; building schools and community facilities in the Philippines and the Horn of Africa; drilling water wells in Djibouti and other African nations.
  • Approximately 3,000 Seabees are currently deployed to more than 25 major sites in support of six Combatant Commanders.
• Supplying critical Table of Allowance equipment to expeditionary forces.
• Maintaining vital waterfront facilities at home and overseas.
• Finding and implementing alternative and renewable sources of energy.
  • Awarded 26 financed energy projects and 14 energy conservation investment program projects valued at $157 million to reduce consumption by 603,000 MBTU (renewable energy systems account for 40% of this reduction).
• Providing full facilities lifecycle support for Navy and Marine Corps installations.
• Advancing the military build-up master plan, environmental impact statement, and acquisition planning for the relocation of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam.
• Constructing state-of-the-art medical facilities for wounded warriors and their families.
• Awarding and managing American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) projects, with nearly $2 billion in ARRA contracts awarded to date.
• Assisting the people of Haiti to return to normalcy after a devastating earthquake.

This elevated workload is expected to continue into the foreseeable future; and NAVFAC, the CEC and the Seabees are striving to become more agile and flexible to meet the needs of the Department of the Navy and other Defense Agencies. The challenges of an increasingly complex world and the hard realities of war mean these three organizations’ unique skill sets and ability to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances will continue to be in high demand. While the future cannot be predicted with any certainty, they will be prepared to further the Maritime Strategy wherever and whenever they’re needed.