Commentary: Air Force engages industry to build partnerships Published Jan. 22, 2013 By Joe Sciabica AFCEC Director JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas -- On any given day at more than 160 installations worldwide, the Air Force is projecting airpower to protect our nation. Those installations are the platforms from which we fly, fight and win in air, space and cyberspace. Maintaining sustainable installations is an enormous effort. Consider this: - There are 634 million square feet of buildings on more than 10 million acres of Air Force-controlled land. That's the equivalent of 89 Microsoft Corporation physical plants on land roughly twice the size of New Jersey; - With more than 75,000 units, Air Force military housing combined is about the same size as Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia, combined; - The 154 million square yards of pavement our civil engineers maintain could pave 229 Dulles Airports; and - The total cost to replace the Air Force physical plant is estimated to be $225 billion, about the same as Toyota's worldwide annual revenues. The Air Force Civil Engineer Center plays a significant role in the Air Force's ability to project airpower globally by helping sustain our installation warfighting platforms. The AFCEC team is responsible for providing enterprise-wide installation engineering services and support that include facility investment planning, design and construction, CE operations, real property management, energy, environmental compliance and restoration, and readiness and emergency management. The unit conducts its operations at more than 75 locations worldwide. As the defense budget shrinks, our ability to provide civil engineering support to installations becomes increasingly difficult. We can no longer count on consistent and predictable funding to meet our sustainability needs. We can no longer afford to look to taxpayers to foot the bill for all of our installation support requirements. AFCEC is turning to private industry for solutions by tackling environmental remediation, renewable energy development, installation maintenance and a host of other programs through public-private partnerships. At two recent events in San Antonio, private developers, contractors and representatives from a variety of companies met with AFCEC and Air Force civil engineer leaders to explore public-private partnerships. Nearly 400 people turned out for an AFCEC Industry Day the morning of Jan. 15 to hear about Air Force CE business opportunities, and about 100 people attended an agency presentation on renewable energy projects later that afternoon. The people who attended those events are eager to partner with the Air Force. They know the Air Force brings leverage to the table which allows us to use tools such as strategic sourcing, performance-based contracts, enhanced-use leases, strategic divestiture, and privatized housing and utilities. To succeed, even as funding decreases, we must use our size and buying power much like any major corporation, and the good news is private industry wants to work with us. A shining example of what a public-private partnership can yield is happening at the former Reese Air Force Base near Lubbock, Texas. Reese was shuttered in 1997 as part of Base Realignment and Closure law. In order to return the property to community use, the Air Force first needed to clean up groundwater contaminated by cleaning solvents that had been used for many decades to maintain the base's aircraft. Original plans estimated the cleanup would take 60-70 years to accomplish, but due to the Air Force forming a unique partnership with Arcadis - the service's first environmental performance-based remediation contract - the cleanup is 99 percent complete in less than nine years. And they did it using molasses as the agent! That's the type of innovation the Air Force has relied on and will continue to rely on in its ongoing partnerships with private industry. It's bang for the buck! Partnering gives the Air Force access to the best technology and brightest minds private industry has to offer. In return, we get installations capable of supporting our warfighters today and tomorrow.