The general public typically only pays attention to things that directly affect them on a personal level. Zoning, surveying, and engineering work only capture the attention of individuals when it encroaches NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) status.

Such is the case with many of the activities of our government. Depending upon various philosophies, the government is either involved in too much of citizen activities or it needs to do more. As for the United State military, its role used to be very simple – serve, defend, and protect the citizens and the interests of the United States of America.

While that definition has expanded over the years, one component of the American military continues to meet its responsibilities in relative obscurity – the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). This February marks the first anniversary of the United States’ engagement in the war on terror. The USACE is performing an important and impressive role in this effort – as well as maintaining its other domestic and international missions.

Lieutenant General Robert B. Flowers, 50th Chief of Engineers, presented the duties, responsibilities, results, and successes of the USACE to a packed audience at November’s ASCE 2003 Annual Conference in Nashville.

Appropriately, LtG. Flowers started his presentation with the USACE Vision Statement that engulfs the focus of the corps’ existence.

“The world’s premier public engineering organization responding to our Nation’s needs in peace and war. The USACE is a full spectrum engineer force of high quality, dedicated soldiers and civilians that are: trained and ready; a vital part of the Army; dedicated to public service; an Army values-based organization. comprised with Army values.”

Flowers explained that the corps’ operations are targeted to five areas: water resources; environment; infrastructure; disasters; war fighting. The degree of focus in each of these areas is dependent upon a “peace and war” spectrum.

The USACE is dependent upon the cooperation of many private sector partners. In fact, contractors are used for 100-percent of construction work, 73-percent of military design work, and 61-percent of civil works planning and design.

Six missions comprise the direction of support that the USACE provides to over 91 countries.

·         Homeland Security

·         Military Programs

·         Research & Development

·         Real Estate

·         Civil Works

·         Interagency Support

Homeland Security
It should come as no surprise that homeland security now tops the list among the missions being undertaken by the Army Corps.

The USACE is responsible for critical infrastructure protection by providing risk assessment methodology for various facilities like dams. The engineers of the Corps have been critical in the design of anti-terrorism and anti-force protection measures. This has required the evaluation, research, recommendation, and implementation of many issues related to the creation of security barriers, retrofits, structural/window hazards, etc.

The Nation relies on its many USACE centers of expertise. The USACE maintains 13 centers of expertise at various districts throughout the United States that serve to consolidate technical expertise in critical areas and ensure consistency of design. For instance the Protective Design and Transportation Rapid Response Centers are located in Omaha, NE while the Electronic Security Systems and Ordinance & Explosive Centers are located in Alabama.

In addition, the Army Corps has experts in 36 other specialty areas.

In addition, it was one of the founding organizations of The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) which is a large group of non-profit associations and organizations that are come together to provide areas of support and expertise to the United States’ security effort.

Perhaps most impressive is the realization that the USACE is an organization of more than 500 military and over 37,000 civilian members. One of the largest components of the USACE is the Engineer Research and Development Center with over 2,000 employees, including 1,029 scientists and engineers, of which 533 hold master’s degrees and 266 have attained doctorate degrees. The USACE has more than $1.2 billion in research facilities and equipment with an annual program price tag of about $10 billion.

The Corps of Engineers provides engineering services to 60 federal agencies.

 Among the technology that the USACE is utilizing due to its international missions is a concept they call “TeleEngineering.” The organization has been able to set up fixed-site and, more impressively, deployable TeleEngineering Communications Systems that permits an engineer with a problem beyond capability to solve – with in-theater resources – to contact visually and verbally via satellite, or secure/non-secure phone or fax, the TeleEngineering Operations Center (TEOC). The TEOC connects the in-field engineer with research and development staff with connectivity to various knowledge bases, including universities and private sector experts that can work together to provide solutions.

 LtG. Flowers commented that this has been done numerous time during the past year for engineers in Iraq. He illustrated how this was done to solve a complex problem that ultimately restored Iraqi electricity and also to show engineers located in the U.S. to conduct and confirm a bridge analysis in Iraq this past October.

In Iraq, the USACE is tasked to support many efforts including the: supporting of the Coalition Provisional Authority; serving as the lead as the Department of Defense’s (DoD) agent for oil restoration; and supporting power, utilities restoration and assessments.

“Specifically,” explained Flowers, “the USACE is the lead on a task force to restore Iraqi electricity, providing program management for reconstruction, assessing training facilities for the new Iraqi Army, assessing schools, prisons, and other public works facilities, and supporting interim Iraqi ministries.”

“We are also providing support to USAID,” continued Flowers, “by providing technical oversight on reconstruction contracts, developing an infrastructure database, and supporting the restoration of Mesopotamian marshes.”

 On a real practical level, the USACE have supported joint and coalition forces by serving as combat engineers in the war theater. This was especially needed and noticed during the forces initial drive to Baghdad. The engineers of the USACE built temporary bridges and floating bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

“We must remember,” stated Flowers, “that our engineers, like our other armed forces, are also fighting and working in Afghanistan. The USACE is supporting coalition military operations with forward engineer support teams in an effort to provide power.”

The Corps, through its Afghan Area Office, also provided barracks and infrastructure work for the Afghanistan National Army, constructed bridges for the DoD and Department of State (DoS), and assisted on reconstruction efforts.

 One of the items that LtG. Flowers wanted to stress was the unbelievable capability and abilities of the engineers that comprise the USACE. He did this by illustrating what can be accomplished when the knowledge and skill of the Corps of Engineers can be leveraged during a specific and focused short-term task like the establishment of Camp Bondsteel.

Located in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, the location of Camp Bondsteel was identified by July 1999. Less than four months later, through the work of the USACE, the Camp was completed and operational as a self-sufficient community.

Time of Change
In addition the day-to-day tasks, LtG. Flowers is guiding the USACE through an organizational change.

In early October (2003), the Corps of Engineers announced a plan to reorganize the work processes at headquarters and subordinate activities into integrated teams. By May of 2004, the Corps has plans to be organized into: One Corps; Regional Business Centers; Regional Integration Teams; and, Communities of Practice.

The purpose, explains Flowers, is for the Corps to be aligned and “operate as one Corps and eliminate redundancies that slow down our progress.”

At a press conference on the impending changes, Flowers stated that the result of these plans internal processes will be streamlined, collaborative work between Corps’ Districts by linking centers and labs into a more regional approach, and the inclusion of external people, including customers, who have valid interests in the functional areas or projects undertaken by the Corps.

“Organizing into teams provides the opportunity to offer more robust, efficient services and products to the American people and the Armed Forces,” stated Flowers.

In addition to having more external input, Flowers is asking members of the Corps to join the professional organizations in their field of work to increase the participation in their respective “community of practice.”

Lt. Gen. Flowers closed his preamble to the USACE 2012 report with this:

“My intent is for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to improve its service to the Nation and the Armed Forces by focusing on each district’s ability to better serve its customers. We will become a Team of Teams….” SLDT