AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar -- Leaders from various civil engineer and contractor squadrons across the Air Forces Central command area of responsibility gathered here, for an annual Installation Coordination Board Nov. 28-30, 2018.
The Installations (A7) Directorate creates, coordinates, and delivers Civil Engineering and Operational Contracting capabilities to enable AFCENT's mission of delivering decisive air and space power on behalf of U. S. Central Command for the security and stability of the region.
The board was hosted by Col. Arno Bischoff, AFCENT A7 director of installations, and his team to identify gaps, resources and risk mitigation measures for both CE and contracting professionals.
“This is an opportunity for the commanders and superintendents of the various expeditionary civil engineer and contracting squadrons, along with other key representatives, to share information about lessons learned, best practices, areas of improvement and identify anything we as a staff need to work on,” said Bischoff. “The other part is having that face-to-face interaction and building relationships with each other and networking.”
During the board, Bischoff talked about challenges the career field addresses, especially in a deployed environment, as Airmen learn new systems while maintaining continuity of operations.
“The complexity in the AOR is challenging for a number of reasons,” said Bischoff. “However, even though we have these challenges, we are still moving the ball down the field by transitioning from temporary facilities to more enduring permanent infrastructure to establish these air bases. In some cases, we are expanding and improving upon a base so we have the footprint we are being asked to provide to serve the purposes of Central Command, our country and these regions.”
AFCENT’s A7 provides oversight for various mission capabilities ranging from facility management and maintenance, to fire protection and explosive ordinance disposal. They also employ more than 1,900 Air Force Expeditionary Prime BEEF and RED HORSE engineers and contracting Airmen across the CENTCOM AOR.
Sharing information with the multiple bases in our AOR can be as simple as picking up a phone. However, Bischoff believes the face-to-face communications that happened during the board builds relationships much faster.
“Building relationships amongst the engineering and contracting community is important,” said Bischoff. “We have an opportunity to spend time together physically, where in some cases they might know someone because of a recall roster, and now they are able to put a face to the name and feel more comfortable reaching out to each other because of the networking built during this Installation Coordination Board.”