What have we done for you lately?

  • Published
  • By Maj. Michael Beach
  • 17th Civil Engineer Squadron commander
The 17th Civil Engineer Squadron touches the lives of all members of Team Goodfellow every day.

We are constantly striving to better support the mission and enhance the quality of life for all members of Team Goodfellow. This article focuses on what we have done and are planning to do to improve training facilities, housing and quality of life for all of you.

The biggest construction project on base right now is the new chapel; it is currently scheduled to be ready for use in mid-2009. The new chapel will provide a 400-person sanctuary versus the 190 seats available in the current one; it also provides a new fellowship hall and administrative space for the chaplains.

You may have also noticed that we just finished construction of the new school age facility, and a complete upgrade of the skills development center.

In addition to these ongoing or recently completed construction projects, we also started the design of a new addition to the fitness center. The addition will approximately double the size of the Mathis Fitness Center; this project will go a long way toward alleviating the overcrowding at Mathis, especially on rainy PT mornings when we are all trying to use the facility, simultaneously. As you can see, we have been making significant investments to improve the quality of life here at Goodfellow; all of this attention on quality of life does not mean that we have forgotten about the mission of the 17th Training Wing.

First of all, we are working to construct the first phase of a new Joint Intelligence Technical Training Facility in Fiscal Year 2010. Phase one of the JITTF will be a state-of-the-art facility designed to optimize current techniques used to train our future intelligence Airmen, Marines, Sailors and Soldiers.

This 50,000-square-foot SCIF will consolidate the 316th Training Squadron; provide 26 standardized, flexible classrooms; a large, multi-function training room; and staff administrative spaces.

The JITTF will increase the intelligence campus SCIF footprint by approximately 15 percent. Its proposed location is adjacent to the 315th Training Squadron at the north end of the intelligence campus at the corner of West Canberra Street and Fort Lancaster Avenue.

Our efforts to enhance the intelligence campus extend beyond the JITTF phase one; phase two is under development. We are working with the 17th Training Group to identify the requirement for a follow-on phase of the JITTF to further modernize the intelligence training campus.

The JITTF phase two is projected to replace building 501, which is currently a SCIF that was converted from a 1950s era warehouse. Both phases of the JITTF will be a welcome addition to Goodfellow. The emphasis on training facilities is great, but we can't forget about the most important factor associated with training: the students.

Ultimately, the product of a training wing is qualified warriors to go forward and prosecute the war against the enemies of freedom and liberty around the world. To support the students as they progress through their training here at Goodfellow, we are going to start construction of a new 100-room pipeline student dormitory in FY10.

Pipeline student rooms are at a premium; we currently do not have sufficient rooms to allow us to renovate our older dormitories because we have nowhere to billet students while the rooms are taken out of the inventory for renovation.

This new dormitory will be built to modern standards and will provide the capacity we need to enable us to aggressively renovate our older dormitories.

Everyone in the 17th CES works very hard to ensure our facility, fire protection and emergency management services are top notch.

This article focused on our construction efforts that support the mission; there is not enough space in this article to capture everything we do to ensure Goodfellow is a clean, safe and pleasant place to work.

Please remember: who gets it done? CE!