Photo By Lt. Col. Kristin Porter | Chief Warrant Officer 4 Douglas Sires, Command Chief Warrant Officer for the 807th...... read more read more
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SEAGOVILLE, Texas - Senior leaders from the 807th Theater Medical Command (TMC), 63d Readiness Division (RD), and Army Reserve Medical Command (ARMEDCOM) joined the Seagoville mayor and city council members at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Army Reserve Medical Maintenance Facility at the Seagoville Armed Forces Reserve Center on April 16, 2025.
“This, first of its kind, purpose-built, medical maintenance facility, is an investment in our future readiness, impacting both Soldiers’ skill proficiency and medical equipment availability and readiness,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Douglas Sires, 807th TMC Command Chief Warrant Officer.
The Seagoville Medical Maintenance Facility is the first of three planned centralized medical maintenance activities (CMMA) sites within the 807th footprint, with each organization maintaining a five-to-six state area of responsibility with a varied customer base of Army Reserve units.
The 807th is partnered with the 88th RD for a Milwaukee CMMA, with construction forecasted to begin in November 2025. The 63d RD and 807th completed the Seagoville facility in April, while a Sacramento CMMA is in the planning stages. Locations were selected based on the concentration of medical units, primarily centered on medical logistics companies due to their high density of Biomedical Equipment Specialists. The Seagoville location hosts a medical battalion (multifunctional), a field hospital, a medical brigade, and two medical logistics companies.
Army Reserve Biomedical Equipment Specialists, or 68As, are assigned only to the medical commands, those being the 807th TMC, 3d TMC, and ARMEDCOM, with a duty to perform calibration verification and certification of medical devices and medical device systems. However, with medical devices throughout Army Reserve non-medical units, including military police, engineers, and aerial evacuation units, all units without 68As, Army Reserve policy directs the 3d and 807th to maintain, or help to maintain, the medical equipment throughout the Army Reserve.
“That's a significant lift,” continued Sires.
After serving in roles as a Health Services Maintenance Technician at both the 3d and 807th, Sires looked at the USARC directives, identifying a critical gap in capabilities, and realized that the 807th and 3d weren’t resourced to effectively conduct medical equipment services.
“We don't have the facilities. We have some of the test equipment but limited manpower. We have a few authorized 68A AGR positions, even less that are filled. And then the rest of our manpower is TPU (Troop Program Unit). And depending on where a unit is in the ReARMM (Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model) cycle and if a 68A is required to deploy, attend PME (Professional Military Education), or go to a training exercise, that then takes from our manpower to be able to execute maintenance for all of the medical equipment throughout the Army Reserve,” said Sires.
In 2020, Sires and fellow teammates presented the concept of medical maintenance facilities to senior leaders at the medical commands and received the ‘go-ahead’ from 807th’s then-commander, Maj. Gen. Tracy Smith, who now commands the 63d RD, the division responsible for facilities in the southwestern U.S., including Texas.
“This is individual Soldier readiness, individual Soldier training. Which leads to unit readiness, unit training, and to an organization that is ready to provide a capability to the nation when it needs us,” said Smith.
The Army Reserve established the Medical Equipment Concentration sites, MECS 88 in Ogden, Utah, and MECS 99 at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 2011, aiming to increase medical equipment readiness levels. If commanders did not have the capability to maintain or the necessary facilities to properly store their medical devices at home station, they could turn them in for storage in a controlled environment. The MECS would also conduct the regular services in accordance with manufacturer guidance on the medical devices, ensuring the equipment is ready in a time of need.
While convenient for a unit to have their equipment stored and ready, a commander also balanced what their Soldiers would train on for battle assembly weekends. The MECS solved the maintenance and required services equation for units, but it brought a new level of risk.
“I think there's a fine line there between what they require at home station to stay proficient, either as biomeds, technicians, or equipment operators, being familiar with the deployable medical systems that we have in our footprint. As a nurse, they're probably going to see infusion pumps and ventilators in their regular day-to-day practice. But what they're probably not going to see and engage with on a regular basis is deployable medical systems. In comparison, typically your hospital ventilator is 3-4 times the size of the Army’s deployable and air worthy ventilator. It's different and they need to be familiar with it and how to use it for patient engagement,” said Sires.
As Sires and his teammates developed the medical maintenance facility plan, they kept one eye on the “Train as We Fight” concept.
Sires reflected on his first deployment to Afghanistan in 2003 with a field hospital, where he was lucky to have a dedicated work area.
“Some of those Soldiers who were in the medical logistics company found out when they were going out on contact repair teams that they were lost. AIT (Advanced Individual Training) taught us to work on medical equipment but not deploy forward, plan for a mission, figure out what the equipment density of the customer is, take all the necessary tools and test equipment, and do the necessary services at the forward line of troops,” said Sires.
In the medical maintenance facilities, full-time and TPU 68As will be expected to perform maintenance, plan for the execution of contact repair teams going forward, and maintain communication and coordinate with the customer, ultimately building a large contingent that is able to plan and execute missions forward.
“This facility allows for tiered maintenance; forward deployed contact repair teams handle the lower-level services while equipment needing specialized tools or expertise is evacuated here for repairs and/or service, and return,” explained Sires.
In previous forward medical maintenance support missions, there were many times when highly technical devices would not be serviced because there was no way to do it. Now, technicians will be prepared with the critical skills to conduct service just as in a theater of operations.
When teams evacuate equipment to the medical maintenance facility, maintenance officers like Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sy Bee, who manages the medical maintenance for the 176th Medical Brigade at Seagoville, determines the service schedule based on priority units and the need to surge the workforce, bringing in additional 68A Soldiers to meet the demand of an emergent mission.
“The Seagoville Medical Maintenance Facility now provides the dedicated space for 68A Soldiers to have a dedicated mission, enhancing the field level technical maintenance capabilities,” said Bee.
Still in the works is a medical gasses room with built-in ventilation to allow higher level services on ventilators and anesthesia apparatuses.
“That's why we're building this facility. If you're going out to support a unit with a small equipment density, like an FRSD (Forward Resuscitative Surgical Detachment), where the newest version of their MES (medical equipment set) UA267D has approximately 100 medical devices in it, and only maybe 20 of those are highly technical, you would perhaps send a five-person team. Whereas if you were sending a contact repair team forward to do a dental unit, which has just a ton of equipment, your configuration would be a little bit different. And this capability is huge in giving that ability to evac equipment back so services can be conducted throughout the week or on BA (battle assembly) weekends and then return them to the customer for training or use for missions,” said Sires.
The 807th has approximately 7000 medical devices spread throughout 23 states, and roughly half of those are at units’ home station, so Sires says his team knows their internal support requirements.
“What we don't know, and it's really hard to get an answer on, is, what's the requirement for supporting those other USAR units throughout the 807th area of operation. When I did the initial analysis that led up to this facility and the others that we're working on, I determined that there were probably around another 3000 medical devices spread across the non-medical MSCs (major subordinate commands),” said Sires.
As the medical maintenance facilities stand up, the medical logistics companies will be responsible for developing SOPs (standard operating procedures) for distribution to the non-medical MSCs promoting the maintenance capability. Customers and medical logistics companies will then coordinate through GCSS- Army (Global Combat Support System – Army) to identify support requirements, effectively supporting high priority units and ensuring those units can meet operational demands.
Historically, Army regulation requires a 90% operational readiness rate for equipment. In Sires’ initial analysis, he noticed that the Army Reserve medical device readiness rarely exceeded 60% readiness, and much of that 60% was equipment enrolled into the MECS. The MECS has facilities, dedicated personnel, a dedicated mission, and capabilities to meet the regulatory requirement.
“That tells me that if we have the facilities, we mission our people, we give them the resources they need to execute the mission, we will be able to hopefully meet the regulatory requirement,” said Sires. “[We had believed] the Army Reserve was not staffed to do that. But the analysis told us we have the manpower. We have the test equipment. The issues were not all the manpower was in the right place and a lack of appropriate facilities. So here we are in Seagoville.”
The goal is now to meet or exceed the regulatory requirement in medical device readiness across the Army Reserve.
“This is an Army Reserve answer to an Army Reserve mission,” stated Maj. Gen. Beth Salisbury, commanding general of the 807th TMC.
| Date Taken: | 04.25.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.25.2025 14:22 |
| Story ID: | 496222 |
| Location: | SEAGOVILLE, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 76 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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