Photo By Eric Franklin | Col. Chad R. Foster, U.S. Army Garrison-Fort Hood commander, highlights the...... read more read more
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KILLEEN, Texas — Robert Gray Army Airfield and Killeen-Fort Hood Regional Airport were presented the U.S. Army 2022 Community Partnership Award March 14 during a city of Killeen council meeting here. The award highlights the joint-use agreement signed in 2001 and the intergovernmental support agreement now in place to share responsibility for the maintenance of all infrastructure at the airfield.
This partnership enhances operation and mission capabilities to sustain and upgrade airfield infrastructure. It has also decreased pavement maintenance time lines and added efficiencies such as increased response to identity pavement deficiencies.
Additionally, as payment in kind for the initial investment by the city of Killeen, Fort Hood provides all air-traffic control and crash rescue support to the Killeen-Fort Hood Regional Airport.
This is all important because between 50-60% of all traffic at the airport is Fort Hood-centric.
“This is a partnership that I’m very proud of,” expressed Mike Wilson, the executive director of aviation operations for Killeen. “I go to joint-use conferences all over the country and visit with other airport directors that are on joint-use military based, and I began to talk about some of the things that we’ve done and that we’ve accomplished, and they look at me and they say, ‘How are you able to do that?’ And I say, ‘Well myself and the military team work together.’ ‘You work together?’ ‘That’s right.’
“So, I say that just to say that our partnership is very much unique,” Wilson continued. “The partnership that we have just doesn’t happen in a lot of the joint-use bases across the country, and it benefits both the city and the military. That’s what a good partnership does; when both sides benefit, that’s the win.”
Fort Hood received three total partnership awards in 2022, including partnership with the city of Killeen Fire Department and the Central Texas Emergency Management Working Group. Fort Hood was the only installation in the Army to receive more than one award.
The Army Community Partnership Awards Program seeks to highlight examples of exceptional cooperation and diligence that will encourage continued collaboration to achieve the full potential of community partnerships.
“Fort Hood is one of those installations specifically designated to send out large amounts of combat power wherever our nation might need it. We do that (in) two ways; we do it with our giant awesome rail facility. And we do it with our aircraft,” expressed Col. Chad R. Foster, U.S. Army Garrison - Fort Hood commander, during the city council meeting. “And the military and civilian partnership at that facility is second to none. It is unique and special in our military in general, not just in the Army.”
The award was presented on behalf of the Department of the Army by Foster to Tracy Crawford, U.S. Army Garrison – Fort Hood’s director of the Directorate of Aviation Operations, Wilson and Jay Starr, deputy director of Fort Hood’s Directorate of Aviation Operations.
The award highlights the partnership that currently exists, though it wasn’t always set up this way.
“Our joint use relationship has not always exhibited the level of partnership that you see today,” said Crawford. “In the late 1990’s/early 2000’s, there was very much an ‘us versus them’ mentality when it came to military and civil partnerships. The relationship you see today is the result of a conscious and focused effort between the Directorate of Aviation Operations and city of Killeen Aviation Department. Leadership realized early on that there were both military and civil benefits to our joint use partnership and that a successful relationship would require close partnership in all present and future airport operations and initiatives.
“The convenience of a Regional Airport right at our ‘back-door’ provides tremendous benefit to both the Fort Hood and the city of Killeen communities,” Crawford continued. “Additionally, the Fort Hood and city of Killeen joint-use relationship allows us to partner in the maintenance of the airport and to utilize not only Department of Defense funds but also State of Texas and Federal Aviation Administration funds to sustain and upgrade the airport environment which significantly benefits both Fort Hood and the city of Killeen.”
U.S. Army Community Partnership Awardees were evaluated using the following criteria:
· improves Soldier/family quality of life
· improves or enhances readiness
· modernizes a service, system or process
· provides cost or other efficiencies
· expands capability
· improves community relations
“Seventy-five percent of our military families live off of the installation. They are your neighbors; their kids go to school with your children and their friends. That’s what’s special - this is a single community,” Foster shared. “This is not two separate communities helping each other; this is a single community leaning on each other when we need to.”
| Date Taken: | 03.23.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 12.07.2023 17:57 |
| Story ID: | 459445 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 35 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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