Since you took command the budget landscape has changed significantly, not least because of sequestration. Given the composition of the USACE workforce – primarily civilian employees – how is sequestration affecting the agency’s staff differently than other Defense Department (DoD) agencies staffed primarily by military personnel? The Naval Facilities Engineering Command is a great comparison because it will undergo across-the-board cuts. How might domestic programs be affected? What are the effects on MILCON (military construction)? And how might further extension of sequestration affect USACE?

There’s no question that sequestration has had a significant impact on the Corps of Engineers as it has across the federal government. Within the Corps, our military mission and civil works missions are two primary areas of focus. The furloughs have been very difficult for our workforce. Their effects on our military mission employees apply to about 9,000 of our 36,500 civilian employees who were furloughed along with the rest of the Army and DoD.

Our civil works mission is funded via a different pot of money that comes directly from Congress into the OMB, then into the Corps. So those employees were not furloughed. Some are the people running our dams and locks, keeping navigation open. They’re working with the Department of Energy on facilities providing energy through power plants and doing a host of other work at locations across the nation.

That doesn’t mean civil works was not affected. They had to cut about $255 million from the civil works program. That’s a lot of money. Our military programs were reduced by about $163 million. So not only did we have people affected by sequestration, we had projects affected.

It’s also hard to separate our civil works and military missions teammates. We don’t want to treat them separately. If you take a look at my outer office here, there is one of our executive assistants who’s paid by civil works and another executive assistant paid on the military missions side. The military missions person right outside my door was furloughed, the civil works person was not, but we all work as a team. Our people work together very closely and things like that have happened throughout the organization. That sort of tension has made things even more difficult for the organization. You have the “haves” and “have-nots.”

Unless something changes, sequestration is a 10-year deal, and we’ll need to figure out what this means to the Corps. We’re looking long term to evaluate how sequestration affects our broader mission and our ability to execute it. We’re looking at what changes we’ll have to make to our mission and our structure.

But I’m a “glass half-full” person and I think there’s some goodness that’s going to come from this. We’re going to look further at our organization. I believe we’re already right-sized, but in a time like this we’re going to have to really return to our core competencies. We’ll have to consider what the organization’s core mission is. Other organizations will have to do that as well.

Frankly, over the last decade and the period of our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have, like many other organizations, had to grow. As we draw down from the conflicts, we’ll downsize further and organizations will probably have to drop efforts that are not among their core competencies. We’ll have to eliminate redundant operations.

I’ve conversed with Secretary Hammock [Katherine Hammock, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment] and we’re already moving out on one area where she has some environmental work that overlaps with some of the work we do. It was her thought that perhaps that work could happen all within the Corps. I think we can do that across the interagency. There’s only so much each organization can do on its own and I think the real efficiencies are going to be found between organizations. If we can figure out where to cooperate for the federal government and where we have redundancies, we can arrive at the right solution.

I see that happening in the Army and have had the same conversations with other departments across the federal government on streamlining.

 

Sustainability along with energy security has become fundamental to how USACE does business in recent years. Have there been any particularly notable achievements in this area over the last year? How much has sustainability become a part of USACE culture?

I didn’t really know how deeply the Corps was involved in this area before I assumed command. I knew that they were working it, but it’s been a complete success so far in terms of how the Corps has taken up this issue.

Unless something changes, sequestration is a 10-year deal, and we’ll need to figure out what this means to the Corps. We’re looking long term to evaluate how sequestration affects our broader mission and our ability to execute it. We’re looking at what changes we’ll have to make to our mission and our structure.

Yesterday, I met with the Environmental Advisory Board, a group of great Americans from all walks of life who are experts in the environment. They evaluate our work and advise us. One of the first things I did as chief of engineers, based on their encouragement, was to reinvigorate the Environmental Operating Principles. These principles guide our culture and how we see environmental work hand in hand with the infrastructure that we create, manage, and maintain.

It’s been exciting to look at the LEED^® Silver, Gold, and Platinum work that’s been going on at our installations and the partnership we have with Ms. Hammock and her team. The recently released multiple award task order contract of $7 billion down in Huntsville, Ala., in order to evaluate geothermal, solar, and other renewable energies is an exciting initiative for us.

For the Corps, the key is to make the environmental culture stick. I think we’re gaining a lot of traction. My commanders report on it and are proud of it. It has to be part of our culture. We’ll reap benefits long term and we’re already seeing behaviors change on installations because of the focus on sustainability. That’s true in the work we do overseas as well.

We have seen significant savings with the micro-grid initiative. The savings that accrue without having a generator for every tent, the fuel that goes with that, and the soldiers that have to be on the road, facing IEDs [improvised explosive devices] while transporting energy supplies – recognition of the benefits of the micro-grid by our young soldiers is terrific. They see that if they put away their generator and don’t use fuel to heat and light their tent and instead trust in a micro-grid that will support an entire forward-operating base and reduce their casualties – that’s a good thing.

That understanding will pay dividends as our soldiers come home and go to our installations here. We’re working on building metering systems so we can measure when organizations are successful in energy security and sustainability.

 

Last year you spoke about the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to our national security and in USACE workforce development. What kind of progress has USACE made with STEM initiatives over the last year?

Any organization is only as good as the people that are part of it. It’s the team not any one individual that makes it great. One area we’re working hard on in terms of our leadership is on science, technology, engineering and math. What can we do to set an example and help in this very important area?

We look ahead to the year 2020 and the fact that we’re going to require a million more STEM graduates in order to meet the needs of the country. It’s incumbent upon all of us with a background in this area to reach out to our universities, schools, and communities to encourage youngsters to pursue areas of study in STEM if they have a proclivity for that.

 

Finally, USACE has reached out to the wounded warrior community through programs like Operation Warfighter. How does the outreach benefit USACE long term? Does it further reinforce the relationship between USACE’s civilian workforce and the military customers it serves? How important is it for USACE to be an example to the private sector and the wider American community when it comes to interacting with wounded warriors?

We’re working very hard on the transition of our soldiers. As much as America stands behind its soldiers we are still having a tough time employing them, particularly our wounded warriors. Some soldiers will find it very difficult when they come home and leave the Army to find employment. The Corps is working hard to bring wounded warrior interns into our organizations.

We have a lot of contractors and businesses we work with that aid us with the veterans. If we cannot hire soldiers, then we work with these businesses to make sure our returning warriors gain the skills and certifications they need to transition to civilian life and start the kind of careers they richly deserve. This is another challenge for the nation but the Corps is trying to do its part.

I don’t underestimate that challenge, having come from deputy chief of the staff of the Army, G-1. In 2001, when these conflicts began, we were paying about $90 million of unemployment compensation and when I left the G-1 we were paying about half-a-billion dollars in compensation. We need to do something about this. Our soldiers, their spouses, and families deserve better. Each organization that has an ability to help transition Soldiers has an obligation to do the best they can to assist in the effort.

This article first appeared in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Building Strong®, Serving the Nation and the Armed Forces 2013-2014 Edition.