RAPID CITY, S.D. – The South Dakota Army National Guard’s Construction and Facilities Management Office won the Fred Aron Award for Excellence in Facilities Programs for being the best-performing facilitators program in the nation.

Col. Kimberly O’Keefe, Army National Guard installations division chief, presented the 2012 award to Col. Kit Cline, SDARNG construction and facilities management officer, at the annual CFMO Conference in Atlanta, in April.

South Dakota out-performed the other 49 states and four U.S. territories in the nine performance areas used to tabulate the winning score. These areas include: military construction program execution, financial management, budget estimate and energy management, to list a few.

“I attribute the team’s success to their ability to work together, their work ethic, and their desire to continually improve processes,” said Cline.

There are three different categories of planning that go into consideration while maintaining military installations: Master Planning is a 25-year vision, Future Years Defense Plan is a five-year process and Military Construction design and construction is a four- to five-year process.

“The biggest challenge is planning and programming to meet the changing needs of the Army National Guard,” said Cline. “The compilation of the planning leads to the operation and maintenance of facilities for the next 100 years or more.”

The CMFO has shifted focus from the Joint Force Headquarters and Training Center facilities on Camp Rapid to constructing a much-needed readiness center in Watertown.

“As the National Guard transitioned from a strategic reserve to an operational force, we’ve got more personnel and new equipment that’s bigger, stronger and faster and it doesn’t fit in existing buildings,” said Cline. “The older buildings don’t meet today’s needs; which leads to the need for military construction to build new armories.”

Many of South Dakota’s 29 Army Guard facilities are becoming obsolete. Fourteen armories are more than 40 years old, and 10 are more than 50 years old.

Winning the Fred Aron Award hasn’t put the CFMO at ease. The office continues to strive for excellence as new projects arise across the state.

“For us it’s business as usual,” said Cline. “Receiving the award is great but it doesn’t change our workload, we’re still doing things we need to do to support our Soldiers by providing top notch training facilities and buildings.”

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