JOINT BASE LEWIS MCCHORD, Wash. - The Western Air Defense Sector celebrated the opening of its new Agile Operations Center on Jan. 26 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, the adjutant general for Washington; Liz Larter, deputy chief of staff and district director for Rep. Marilyn Strickland, and WADS leadership cut the ribbon on the $11.8 million project, which created a virtualized solution for the operations floor as well as a complete system and facility remodel.
“The new WADS Agile Operations Center is the largest technology and infrastructure leap since post 9/11 upgrades within the air defense sector enterprise and represents a successful partnership of planning and funding between the mission owners within NORAD, the National Guard Reserve Equipment Appropriation funding by Congress, and the members of the Washington Air National Guard,” said Col. Antony Braun, 225th Air Defense Group commander.
He said the Agile Operations Center enables a flexible and adaptable system interface and new rack-mounted, virtual, and cloud-ready system components. During the three-year project, 10 state-of-the-art server racks were installed with 2 million feet of new fiber cabling. New furniture with an ergonomic layout enables air defense operators to use just one keyboard and mouse to control any monitor in the operations center.
Before the center was completed, the comprehensive system fielded a dedicated, state-of-the-art training space known as the Mission Training Center in August. The MTC allows for the separation of live operations from training.
WADS is one of two Air National Guard air defense sectors in the continental United States, under the command of NORAD. NORAD ensures U.S. and Canadian aerospace control through a network of alert fighters, tankers, airborne early warning aircraft, rotary wing air interceptors, and ground-based air defense assets cued by interagency and defense radars.