Letter from the editor: Reflections of JBM-HH in the New Year

Photo By Rachel Larue | Pictured is Jim Goodwin, Pentagram editor. (Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall PAO photo by Rachel Larue)  

JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, VA, UNITED STATES

01.07.2016

Story by James Goodwin 

Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall

JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, Va. - Editor’s note: I sat down with JBM-HH Commander Col. Mike Henderson to capture his thoughts about 2015, to include the joint base’s most significant accomplishments as well as what challenges await us in 2016. Here’s what he had to say.

With unbelievably warm weather to start the winter season and end 2015, the time to reflect and remember the headlines of yesteryear is upon us again. Not surprisingly, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and its surrounding community of partners had a year chock full of extraordinary people and events. The staff at the Pentagram was regularly on hand to capture these moments, all of which made 2015 memorable.

Accordingly, the first issue of the Pentagram each year is dedicated to reviewing the top news and other stories of interest from around the joint base, including our neighbors in Arlington County and southwest D.C., as well as our partners, such as the Military District of Washington, Arlington National Cemetery and National Defense University.

As is the norm at JBM-HH, 2015 saw a number of formal ceremonies, including several key service and Department of Defense-level retirements and leadership changes. Just several hundred yards from the Pentagram’s staff office is Summerall Field, where multiple ceremonies in 2015 saw the retirements of former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, former Secretary of Defense John McHugh and the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now-retired Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.

Likewise, JBM-HH was the site of where new leaders assumed posts vacated by predecessors, including Gen. Mark Milley, current Army chief of staff, and Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the current joint chiefs’ chairman. On a blustery February morning just outside JBM-HH’s Wright Gate, Sgt. Maj. Ronald Green, former senior enlisted advisor for Headquarters and Service Battalion on Henderson Hall, took the Corps’ top enlisted post during a ceremony at the Marine Corps War Memorial. Also, 2015 brought leadership changes at two local JBM-HH battalions: Headquarters and Service Battalion on Henderson Hall and Headquarters Command Battalion on Fort Myer.

Just last month, JBM-HH provided logistical, security and planning support during Wreaths Across America, an annual event that involves the placement of wreaths at thousands of tombstones of service members at Arlington National Cemetery.

“We do these ceremonies every year, but the density of high-visibility ceremonies in one calendar year—and they all went off without a hitch—that shows the professionalism and competence of our [Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security and] our [Directorate of Emergency Services],” said Col. Mike Henderson, JBM-HH commander.

He added that last year’s success in supporting so many special events also highlights the joint base’s ability to partner with the Military District of Washington and Arlington National Cemetery.
“The ability for those events to be synchronized is a great testament to the joint base team, but also MDW as well,” he said. “We do a lot of the behind the scenes work to make those events happen.”

To that end, I asked Col. Mike Henderson, JBM-HH commander, to reflect on the joint base’s top achievements for 2015, achievements made possible by the some 600 Soldiers, Marines, federal employees and various other staff who work tirelessly daily on JBM-HH.

While the Pentagram simply could not publish all of those achievements, I asked the colonel to highlight several noteworthy accomplishments, in no particular order, that attest to the work force’s dedication, drive and professionalism:

1. Completing electricity privatization at Henderson Hall. “Because of that, the grid is stable; we haven’t had any significant power outages with the emergency power back up generation we get through Virginia Dominion,” said Henderson. “It’s basically provided us with energy stability.” In turn, Henderson says the joint base is “headed toward” meeting Army leaders’ intent of reducing energy usage through energy conservation initiatives.

2. Creating a “viable” workforce development strategy. “That’s going to help with training and education opportunities for the employees, which will make them more effective in the operations of the joint base,” said Henderson. Part of that strategy included hiring a new lead workforce development specialist to help lead education and training programs available for JBM-HH employees, according to Henderson.

3. Earning national accreditation at the Cody Child Development Center. In April, the JBM-HH’s Cody Child Development Center earned accreditation with the National Association for the Education of Young Children—an achievement that required rigorous documentation and self-study of the center’s staff, according to then-center Director Sunny Smith in an April 10 Pentagram article. The standards set by the association include excellence in facilities, the relationships between teachers, students and families and the progress children make. “That’s huge in our ability to deliver child care and retain the confidence of our customers,” said Henderson. “It’s a high-stress, tough job, but they delivered.”

The start of 2016 signifies more than the beginning of sub-freezing temperatures at JBM-HH. Challenges, and work, lie ahead, remain, according to Henderson. The New Year is when final touches will be added to the to-be-published strategic plan for JBM-HH. That document spells out long-term goals, objectives, lines of effort and tactics to guide the joint base to success over the next decade—a particularly important planning guidance tool that is meant to help the base evolve and adapt as budgets, technologies and customer needs change.

Moreover, Henderson said that planning will help the base leverage new technologies to operate more efficiently, such as automating some services and support.

“This is our opportunity to truly modernize the joint base,” said Henderson. “We need to get into the 21st century when it comes to information technology.”

I encourage you to please enjoy this year-in-review edition of the Pentagram. The staff worked hard to make it special, and went the extra mile to capture feedback on what readers thought about our efforts in 2015, as well as what they want to see more of this year (see page 1 for readers’ responses).

As always, I encourage you to tell us what you think about the Pentagram: Are we publishing what you like to read? What news or information are we not publishing that you would like to see in print in 2016? Is there something we can do better? And of course we relish learning about what we are doing right, too. So, if there is a particular type of story or portion of the newspaper that you enjoy and would simply like to see more of, let us know. Feel free to reach me at: [e-mail].

Finally, we host an annual readership survey to allow formal feedback and inform us of readers’ thoughts about the Pentagram newspaper. Additional details will be published about the survey in several issue of the Pentagram in late spring/early summer. Once the survey is available online, I encourage all of you to take a few moments to take the web-based survey, which takes less than five minutes to complete, and let us know how we are doing to meet your information needs.

• Date Taken: 01.07.2016
• Date Posted: 01.07.2016 17:31
• Story ID: 185794
• Location: JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, VA, US
• Hometown: VIRGINIA BEACH, VA, US