The Fort Rucker Directorate of Public Works and Alabama Power received the Army Community Partnership award at a ceremony held at the Pentagon Dec. 9th.
The Army Community Partnership award is given to installations that find improvements that enhance Army readiness, efficiency, and quality of life improvements.
“These partnerships help us find the right solutions to the right problems, to the benefit of both the local communities and the installation,” said Assistant Secretary of the Army Jordan Gillis.
The award was given to Fort Rucker for a utilities public-private partnership between the Fort Rucker Garrison and the Alabama Power Company. Under the partnership, the power company installed around $194,000 worth of enhanced electrical systems in three substations and installed new Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition operated switches. These new systems allow utility operators to do things like monitor services in a large-scale operation in real-time and remotely issue commands to those systems. This allows the power company and DPW to evaluate power usage, make better decisions about power use and efficiency, and have improved control over power systems when performing maintenance or responding to an accident, incident, or emergency.
“(Alabama Power) is nothing if not strategic partners that enable Fort Rucker to produce Army aviators,” said Garrison Commander Col. Jeffery Paulus. “As the 5th largest employer in Alabama, (they) continue to be an economic engine, and we would not be where we are without this.” You can watch the awards ceremony on DVIDS at: https://www.dvidshub.net/webcast/37177