ARLINGTON, Va. - Installations are among the things that Army National Guard Soldiers take for granted. They are like the uniforms, the morning formations and the noon meals that are part of the drill.
Installations are the brick or cement block armories, the state joint force headquarters, and the training centers of fields and woods where Guard Soldiers report for weekend drills, for annual training and to prepare for deployments. They may be old. They may be new. But they're there. Most Guard Soldiers don't think of them as places that have to be managed.
Col. Michael Bouchard is here to tell them differently, and he and his National Guard Bureau team this year have introduced a competitive awards program to determine just how well the 54 states and territories manage this country's installations that are located at 3,046 places.
Bouchard, an engineer officer from Maine, is the chief of the Army Guard's Installations Division at the Readiness Center here. He oversees a competition called the States Installation Management Excellence Award Program. The winning state receives the Fred Aron Award; named for the division chief for Army Guard installations from 1971-92, Bouchard said. States that finish first within seven different regions also receive awards.
Iowa was this year's big winner. It was declared the state with the best installation management program in the country as well as in Region IV during the annual conference for the Army Guard's Construction and Facility Management Officers that was held in Las Vegas June 3-4. Region IV, consisting of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota as well as Iowa, was declared the best region.
Iowa, with a total score of 902 out of 1,000 points, was the only state to receive a Gold Award. Other regional winners, which received Silver or Bronze awards were: Vermont, Region I; Delaware, Region II; North Carolina, Region III; Nebraska, Region V; Wyoming, Region VI; and Arizona, Region VII. States must score at least 90 percent to earn a gold award; 80-89 percent for silver; and 70-79 percent for bronze.
It was no surprise that Iowa scored so high and won the big prize, said Bouchard who has been chief of the Installations Division since October 2006. "Iowa has the best reputation among the 54 states and territories by far," he said. Iowa was rated excellent in four of eight areas in which all states were judged.
Now Bouchard hopes that the competitive nature of the evaluation process will give other states additional incentive to manage its facilities as well as Iowa.
"We began the awards program this year to recognize states and generate improvement. Our strategy is to get the states to analyze themselves more thoroughly and improve on their weak areas," Bouchard explained.
Every state and territory receives a report card from Bouchard's division based on eight criteria that include the execution of military construction projects, compliance with electronic security systems standards and energy programs, and financial management.
"This is the first year we've used a measuring tool to judge the competition," explained Lt. Col. Daniel Townsend, chief of the Installations Division's Strategic Planning Branch. "It has been very subjective during past years." The installations management competition has been going on since 1992, he added.
It is the report cards, more than the competition, which is most important, Townsend said.
"The competition is a friendly rivalry. It's a positive way for the states and territories to know that the Guard Bureau is paying attention," he said. "More importantly, the report cards show the states what their shortcomings are so they can improve on them. And it allows the Installations Division to focus on the states that may need training or support in certain areas."
State construction and facility management officers are responsible for a lot of property. It includes 121 training sites, including expansive Camp Selby in Mississippi where troops train for deployments, and 32,614 buildings and other structures located on 2.5 million acres throughout this country. There are 12,763 training facilities, 1,007 ground vehicle maintenance facilities and 272 aviation support facilities.
Bouchard and his staff manage the nearly $2 billion that the Guard Bureau sends to the states for construction and for maintaining, restoring and modernizing these facilities. Between $500 million and $600 million is being spent each year through 2010 for changes mandated by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act, Bouchard said.
Col. Scott Ayres cites several reasons for Iowa's success. Among them is the concept that the installations must reflect the fact that the Army Guard cares about the people who are serving and about the ones thinking about signing up. Ayres has been Iowa's construction and facilities management officer since January 2004.
The Iowa Army Guard has 42 armories in addition to Camp Dodge, the state's joint force headquarters near Des Moines, which has six buildings also classified as armories, Ayres said. Most of the armories are about 40 years old.
Since Iowa builds a new armory about every five years, Ayres said, one key to success is that every year it renovates two old armories to be suitable for another 20 years of use.
"We want our armories to be compatible with a community college or local small university. We want as high class facilities as possible so they will appeal to the younger Soldiers," said Ayres who stressed the importance of constructing modern female latrines in armories that were originally built for men only. "Women are not impressed if they have to use what used to be a janitors closet," he said.
So, while Guard Soldiers may take the installations where they serve more or less for granted, people like Colonels Michael Bouchard and Scott Ayres are determined to give them the best installations they can. And if some friendly competition among the states will improve the quality of the facilities and the way they are managed, so much the better.