Photo By Senior Airman Mateo Parra | Susan Veazey, Regional Director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Local...... read more read more
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CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. – Leaders from the 27th Special Operations Wing hosted Susan Veazey, Regional Director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation, to discuss potential community infrastructure improvements and cooperation opportunities, here, April 23, 2024.
Veazey first met with 27th SOW leadership, 27th Special Operations Mission Support Group leadership and representatives from the 27th Special Operations Civil Engineering Squadron to learn about The Steadfast Line’s unique mission, challenges and community infrastructure support needs, and discuss how OLDCC could help.
OLDCC, in coordination with other federal agencies, delivers a program of technical and financial assistance that enables states, local governments, and communities to:
--plan and carry out civilian responses to workforce, business, and community needs arising from Defense actions
--Cooperate with their military installations and leverage public and private capabilities and deliver public infrastructure and services to enhance the military mission, achieve savings, and reduce operating costs
--Increase military, civilian, and industrial readiness and resiliency, and support military families
Through these objectives, OLDCC provides grant funding that enhances installation resilience while also enabling civilian responses to local impacts to state and local governments to help communities support the military mission. This helps forge enduring partnerships that build trust and help respond to change and shape the future.
With the moniker “One Livable Community,” OLDCC aims to ensure improvements are made that support the installation, local jurisdictions, and states.
“Our focus is to increase the readiness of the nation’s installations in a way that also builds and sustains communities,” Veazey said. “Without strong communities, our installations really can’t thrive and carry out our missions.”
Areas of consideration related to installation resilience include impacts to water supply and capacity, transportation, security, wastewater infrastructure, severe weather, medical facilities, emergency response capabilities, community support facilities and utility improvements that impact federal military preparedness.
When the base meetings concluded, Veazey and 27th SOW leadership departed for a working lunch in Clovis with community leaders and the recently formed local Armed Forces Support Committee, where Veazey spoke on the OLDCC grant process. After the presentation, U.S. Air Force Col. Jeremy Bergin, 27th SOW commander, shared some of the wing’s project priorities, including water and energy resilience, wastewater treatment, mental health services and local recreational resource availability.
“One thing I value about Cannon is the close community partnerships we have, spread across several municipalities and one federal installation,” Bergin said. “These initiatives strengthen the resiliency of both Cannon and our communities, meaning our Airmen can readily project unconventional airpower anywhere in the world on behalf of American citizens.”
There are two ways a community can participate in Installation Resilience program activities. One way is through the service nomination process in which the United States Air Force may nominate the installation for assistance or through the community nomination process in which state and local governments may submit an inquiry to the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation.
Then, the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation will evaluate existing or potential resilience and encroachment issues to determine if a project is reasonable and beneficial to supporting the military mission.
According to OLDCC, they have a total of 250 active grants valued at $1.5 billion with 73 grants being executed in the current fiscal year, valued at $168.1 million.
To learn more about OLDCC, visit their website here: Home | Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation (oldcc.gov).
| Date Taken: | 04.26.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.26.2024 18:16 |
| Story ID: | 469683 |
| Location: | CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, NM, US |
| Web Views: | 100 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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