Photo By Nondice Thurman | Empty shelving units line half of the new U.S. Army Reserve Strategic Development Site...... read more read more
ROBSTOWN, Texas — An empty warehouse may not seem like something to cause a bit of excitement, but one in Robstown, Texas, is doing just that. On Sept. 28, more than 150 people attended the ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the official opening of an Army Reserve humidity controlled warehouse.
"This facility is a 120,000 square foot facility to improve the shelf life of the equipment," said Thomas Champion, strategic deployment site manager. "We have fuel bladders and liners. They're made out of rubber so we take the humidity out of the air and then the product will last longer for the military for rapid deployment."
Champion explained the facility could help extend the life of supplies held in the warehouse by as much as 10 to 12 years. By adding years to the life of the equipment, the Army Reserve will not have to replace some equipment as frequently and will always know it is ready for training or deployment situations.
The facility is one of three used by the Army Reserve. However, one of those, the Atchison Storage Facility in Kansas, is slated to close due to the cost to maintain the facility located underground. The other facility is in Gulf Port, Miss. The Texas facility will aide approximately 200 units in the southwest and south central U.S.
The facility began storing equipment a few weeks before the grand opening. Jacob Suarez and Erik Nielsen have spent everyday except one since the facility opened off-loading equipment and placing it into the warehouse.
"You're receiving all the pieces and you're thinking this isn't even going to put a dent in this big of a facility," said Nielsen. "You just start seeing it fill up. You start running out of space when it looked like a never-ending building at first. Suddenly it gets smaller and smaller as it fills up."
There are approximately 1,000 sets of equipment currently in the facility, not even filling one quarter of the available space. A majority of the equipment currently in the facility belongs to quartermaster units. There are plans to add more buildings and capabilities to the current facility. There are intentions to eventually store supplies for medical units and vehicles.
"For us to maintain more of the power generation equipment, the trailers and rolling stock vehicles ... we probably need to get the maintenance facility to actually service the equipment," said Champion. "Even though it's sitting here and it's low maintenance, it still needs to have service. If there's something that's dry rotting and there's a leak created, then you need to have the capabilities to fix that [and to] clean up oil spills."
All of the employees currently at the facility are military technicians. In order to have their civilian job, they must maintain membership in an Army Reserve unit. Each of the employees brings experience from various units and better understands the importance of properly caring for the equipment than someone outside the military.
"Being in the Army we'll take more pride in that equipment and maintaining it," said Champion.
Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve, and the Honorable Solomon Ortiz, U.S. representative Texas District 27 and House Armed Services Committee Readiness Subcommittee chairman, were among those taking part in the ceremony. Ortiz grew up in the area and was proud of the role the community has had.
"We're so proud to have this Army Reserve humidity controlled center," said Ortiz. "I am so happy by what the city of Robstown has done by donating these 50 acres of land and I hope that this will be one of many buildings that we will have on this site."
Stultz explained the facility has helped to bring some Soldiers back to the area. He explained Champion grew up in the area and hired other military technicians who were from the area. By bringing them back, not only is it helping Soldiers to be closer to home it is giving a boost to the local community. He added this type of project is what happens "when America gets behind its military at the community level."
"Title Ten of the U.S. Constitution requires me to provide trained and ready forces whenever the nation calls," said Stultz. "To have trained and ready forces, one; I've got to have Soldiers, two; I've got to have the equipment and I've got to know the equipment is ready when I need it and three; I've got to have the community. I've got all three right here."
The long-term goal is to have possibly close to one million square feet of storage space for Army Reserve equipment, furthering the life of even more supplies and helping more Soldiers return to the area with jobs as military technicians.
To show each other's gratitude for the work on the project, Ortiz presented Stultz with a U.S. flag flown over the nation's capital for the new facility and Stultz presented Ortiz with a crystal paperweight he explained was to "rest on your desk to remind you that I'm coming back over because we've got more work to do here."
| Date Taken: | 09.28.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 09.29.2009 16:08 |
| Story ID: | 39448 |
| Location: | ROBSTOWN, US |
| Web Views: | 660 |
| Downloads: | 413 |
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