Panel Construction Logistics (Part 2): Tyndall Air Force Base Hurricane Michael Recovery–Industry Day

Tyndall Air Force Base Hurricane Michael Recovery Industry Day #3: Panel Discussion Construction Logistics (PART 2 of 2)
(AECOM, Bechtel, KBR, Turner)

Industry Day is a collaborative effort where senior military and business leaders come together to discuss innovations and the future of Tyndall Air Force Base and the impact to the community. We realize there is no better way to rebuild Tyndall AFB without a partnership that includes both the local community and Industry. This is our third Industry Day in what we hope will be a series of exchanges to help identify innovative ways to move forward as we rebuild Tyndall together. On behalf of the Air Force we are pleased that you have taken time away from your busy schedules to assist us with the rebuild at one of the Air Force’s most important bases in its inventory.

Industry Day was held at Florida State University – Panama City’s Holley Academic Center, Panama City, Florida

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Transcript

At this time the presentations are concluded. The floor is now open for questions. Again, we have a mic at the center of the room here. And we’ve got a couple of our lieutenants roaming around with the microphones. So again, the rules of engagement are, please state your name and your company followed by your question. One question please. Thank you. Sir.

[Vince] So, my name’s Vince Pecoraro with AFWERX. And I heard a lot of you talk about the man camps. on the different thoughts you had on them. Has anyone thought about cruise ships throughout the coast as another solution as running one and putting it there? Could be a little bit faster option.

Anybody have a comment on that?

Yes. We know that for Katrina.

Use your mic. Underside. The underside.

Can you hear me now? I failed to the mic check. Can you hear me now? (man laughing) (group chatter)

Use this one.

Yeah, use that one. There you go.

All right, maybe it wasn’t me. Okay. Yes. We know that during Katrina, and the cruise lines provided some ships and housings. We had been in discussions with them. They routinely send cruise ships out to have them maintained and refurbished and then put back out into the marketplace again. And some of them are interested, if it would work out, they’re possibly providing that. It does several things. One, it’s got it’s galley. It’s got everything. It’s a great idea. And I think they’re willing to work with us, that could be an option.

Thank you. Good question. Thank you. We have a question here again, in the middle.

[Dale] Yeah. Dale Gose with ABBA Construction. You’re talking about bringing all these workers in this place, people traveling with families. Have you talked to the school boards about the increase in people, bringing kids? Talking about a lot of families.

Anybody want to take that one on? It sounds like more of a Air Force for community question than a contractor question.

[Dale] Well, this is all about the community, right?

Yes sir.

I’ll start. We take that into consideration, absolutely for the duration of the project, what’s available in the community as part of the deal that we offer to supervisor, staff, or to a craft on with their package what the deal is that’s offered to ’em. Yeah. So it’s considered. But that’s a great point. It’d be definitely worthwhile to talk to the community and see what they can absorb and what they can’t, to put our package deals together to craft and staff. Let’s see if it’s working. Whether I’ve got to.

Yeah, you’re on.

I’m on, and you can hear me?

[Audience member] Get closer. (audience laughing)

It’s gonna be an ongoing thing, isn’t it? No, that is a huge point. But then, you gotta look at. So if you’re looking at a temporary workers facility, approximately to where the value curves, kind of the concept in my mind would be the recruiting for that craft labor that’s going to be there is going to be singular. One person, that crafts person. That’s the nature of the beast that you have here on Tyndall. It’s not an unaccompanied tour, so to speak because you can go home for a weekend maybe, if you live nearby. But, why that consideration’s important because there’s a quality-of-life aspect to the folks you’re asking to come here. So, as part of that logistics, total resource integration, one thing that’ll have to be looked at is to start with an analysis of the workforce, is what’s the single married rate with kids that could come. And from then as you engage prospective employees, that hey, I got a family. I’d like to bring them and live close, not necessarily in your facility. Is that with the community, industry and both the government have done their research and being able to provide option to them. Having done the homework first, I think that’s the answer there, at least for me.

Thank you, sir. We have a question over here.

Amy Foxworth with Iron Dog. Our company worked five years in Williston, North Dakota for the oil companies, directly for the oil companies. And we’ve seen man camps firsthand. And they’re a great concept. Have you guys put any consideration to your local economy? Obviously the draw is, you offer increased pay. So now, you have an influx of 12 to 1500 people in the area, you are now making more money. We already have a stress situation within the Bay County areas, as far as local restaurants being understaffed. Walmart being understaffed. Now all of a sudden you have this influx of people. So your local economy, even though we obviously all have to have this year, because we welcome it, we need Tyndall to be rebuilt. Therefore it’s gonna take this number people to rebuild it. With this increase of people though, you’re going to have a stressed economy, a negative impact on our economy here in the Bay County area. With those increased wages, now all of a sudden you’re also going to start seeing these people who eventually want to bring their families here. So, what ends up happening is, your local rents go up, and you start shoving out the people who have lived here for a long time, or the single mom with two kids can no longer afford their rent because the landlord now knows that those guys out at Tyndall are making a bunch of money, and we can increase the rent. We’ve seen it firsthand. And I just want to know that when we bring the man camps in, and this number of people in, are we being cognizant of the negative impacts as well as the positive impact on our local community?

The man camps would hopefully keep them out of the community, taking away the housing from the community that’s already here.

[Amy] When you’re here for a long time, they bring their families though.

Yeah.

[Amy] That’s how you keep down on turnover. (Amy laughs) That’s the reason they leave, is because their families are somewhere else.

Yeah. That’s the evaluation that we have to take as the prime contractor. What the package. And I mentioned it already before. What’s the package to the craft and supervisors staff to how many trips home do they get, so they don’t have to bring their families? Because it is a stressed economy. It’s a stressed environment, absolutely. It’s a very great point. We need to take on and take into consideration. We’ve put together our packaging. The camps, like I mentioned before, the camps keep the craft and supervisor staff out of the community, the immediate community and then being able to provide them with, what was brought up before as a full-service camp, keeps them from clogging up the restaurants that are already stressed. I mean, I’ve been hit several times, and absolutely each restaurant, each facility is absolutely stretched on the people that are already there. And then too, to a benefit of the community, could be as part of that full-service camp, is to have some of the local community or restaurants cater to will provide the service on regular basis to the camp itself. So that’s something that I’ve seen before in the past, that’s worked out very well with the community. So, put some of the money back into the community.

If I can add to that also. If the community and those that there’s gonna be people here for 18, 24, 36 months and there is gonna be additional demands on their services, that also in a positive way allows them to make investments. They’ll have noted, okay, I have a. Because when you have a storm like this and not just here, but in other areas, people leave. And some people may never come back. And so you have this shortage of resources, like you said, at different restaurant. But they know there’s going to be rebuild going on, there’s gonna be more people here. They’re gonna be spending money. They’re willing to make investments to maybe reestablish their business again, even growing their business. And then that feat, what our history has shown, that feeds on itself. Then people say, this isn’t a dying area. It’s a growing area. And people start to move back into it too. But your point’s well taken. It needs to be planned. It needs to be coordinated. It needs to not just be, we’re gonna come in and trump everything. But I think there’s ways of working that, and to benefit everybody.

Thank you. Sir, do you have a question?

[Vince] So, Vince Pecoraro again, with AFWERX. The Air Force has been experimenting with algorithms and artificial intelligence to help optimize the solutions. If any of you guys have seen the documentary, AlphaGo. The algorithm beats the best Go masters, ’cause it learns how to do it better and better and finds the optimal way to win the Go game. Do you guys have software that you use, or algorithms that you use in your companies that kinda get after that, to be able to optimize the building process? Everything from logistics flow, to when things are structured? If you don’t, would you be open to the Air Force offering that kind of tool you guys to utilize?

I’ll jump in. I’m sure others will have it. So, yes. One of the process. And we submitted this when we were doing our white papers on here. There’s tool in the trade that can be used. It’s called 3D, 4D, 5D modeling. And what we do there, is as you’re laying out your plan for both doing design and construction, you model in the normal 3D, so you can see it. But then you start to overlay your schedule with that, and then ultimately as you get in your estimates, you overlay your calls with that. The benefit is, you build the city virtually and then you have it reviewed by stakeholders. You have it reviewed by the Air Force, the mission people. And they say, that’s not gonna work. We need to go do this or do that. You don’t want that to happen, obviously when you’re constructing your designs too far down the road. So there are tools that allow us to go ahead and do that. Also, we talked about logistics. There’s a lot of tools now for tracking components and material and everything to optimize it. We don’t need things to be here on site 18 months ahead of time. Or run around, and it sounds funny. Where is that stuff? And you realize it’s over here in the field. So there is some tools in electronics that allow us to know where we are and everything else. The final thing that a lot of the larger companies are using is drones. You can have drones. Drones will help you in where you are performance wise. You can actually go over it. It measures. And what it takes from a drone picture standpoint, compares it to that modeling that we just talked about. And if I’m saying I’m 85%, it said no no no no. You’re 50%. And they’re able to compare that and look at it, as well as they contract materials and things. So yeah, there’s a lot of software electronic things that are being implemented today.

So yeah. The answer would be yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Outside of agriculture being the slowest in advancement and technology, the only one that’s ahead of it is construction. And so, any innovation and involvement. In order for us to solve all the solutions that we talked about, solutions to challenges that we’ve all talked about here, innovation and technology advancements are gonna be a critical part of that. So yeah. The answer would be yes. And I’d love to hear more.

Yeah. At least my position, I work with about five right now across different parts of the company, or I have visibility. I don’t remember all their names. But from the warehouse management to the in-transit visibility, including the RFID technology, it’s embedded, literally in the logistics down to the end user with a tablet that can see his work schedule for the day. And by the same time, see what parts he need. I think one of the interesting ones, just as a side that I’m working with right now, it’s a technology tool that had. And many of us in this room have probably experienced it. Some already are, as with permanent change of station. You know how on an Uber, you dial up an Uber and you can see it coming? Kind of the same concept for a PCS move. That at least, was in front of me about a couple days ago. So the answer, logistically, technologically, yeah.

We have one over here.

Hi, I’m Tom Brown. I’m with the Air Force.

[Man] The boss.

So, given some of the variables in the equation, when Congress awards us money for a project, it’s for that project. It’s not for all the projects together. It’s for that project. Second variable in the equation. We’re not allowed to spend O and M money on a MILCON project. It’s MILCON only, and it’s that project’s money only. So given those two kind of pincers, a lot of what we discussed this morning is, you know the Air Force oughta set up a construction camp, and everybody’ll lay down there, and that’ll cut the cost down for all the construction contractors who bid and win the contracts. We should have a effective and efficient feeding operation. We should have an effective and efficient way to get materials to the job sites, so the job can progress to meet the mission needs. So all those are imperatives, really. But given those first two pincer points, pincer points. We can only spend money by project on that project. What are your thoughts on how this might transpire? Would a construction camp and or logistics hub entity be paid for directly from the Air Force to support this effort challenge, because of the way that finance works on the projects? Or, would the market allow any one of your companies to speculatively find land you’re the base, lease or buy that land and say, look, I know there’s gonna be two $3 billion worth of work here. I believe I can make some money by setting up this construction camp, and inducing the contractors to bid at the cost that I’m gonna allow them to sort of, bed down at it. It’s kind of a broad question. But, how do you envision this going? Logistics hub contract, directly awarded by the contractor of the corp or paid for by the prime to win those zone contracts and ebbing and flowing as needed by the demands of the project load?

I’ll jump in there first on that. And I keep going back. Two part answer. And maybe I’ll get what you’re talking about. I keep going back to the schedule. If you’ve got a platform that’s gonna be in place in 2035. 2023, not 35. Yeah, he caught me. But you reverse that back, everything that needs to be done before hand, my thought in an appropriation sense, I don’t have visibility of how the appropriation in the contracts are going on this. But, the logistics part for the duration of the project would be almost a separate line item cost by whatever firm. Knowing that your preparations are going to fall incrementally, that would be one of the first incremental falls that personally, I would want in place. Because then, you have logistics infrastructure funded and in place for the duration of the project. Your cost escalation, I’m not gonna say it’s zero. But it’s much degraded if you do that upfront, for the logistics part only. I guess now, I have to go to the larger KBR perspective. Call it by the drink. Worker facilities, the leasing of land that is occupied. Because of funding, sometimes it’s not occupied. That would be an investment on our part that would probably have to be looked at, with the final return on that investment, in terms of how much volume in that logistics part there would be. So, I would look at it two ways. But the person would be my gut reaction as a logistician not a constructor, that I’d want to have in place right up front. ‘Cause then the rest of that schedule, no nicks, it kinda clicks. The second option could cause nicks. Lease is ending, FIAT, something with the land isn’t quite right for human habitation. Those kind of things. My take.

Think we have a question over here on the left.

Can we come back?

Certainly.

One quick one here.

I mean, I think the one we didn’t talk about is the speculative development. I mean, I don’t wanna speak for everybody that’s up here. But, speculative development probably would not be something that we would want to do or want to be involved in. And do completely understand that you have a color of money issue, and what that money can be used for. The projects and opportunities that need to happen, due to some of the disasters that have happened and the rebuilding that’s gotta happen, I think we are asking or considering, asking you to consider whether there is a way of getting around some of the color of money issues and look at the solution as the best for Tyndall, versus it being a government color of money issue. So, I’m not really necessarily answering your question. Only about the speculative development. Some of us organizations have the ability to do O and M and handle it. Have a boss contract. Boss contract might be the best environment and way for contractor to bring in and establish and maintain and operate a man camp. And that being an overall good to Tyndall on the construction, whoever the contractor is, versus it being, hey, contractor A does the man camp. Contractor B does his own man camp, and all the way down. So. I’m sorry. I probably didn’t answer your question. But it’s just the perspective that we’ve got.

[Tom] It just seems like this is the irresistible force and the immovable object.

Yes.

Right.

So, everybody came here today kind of eager to hear the solution or to be a part of the solution. And we all want to be that. To go back to the point of the reverse engineer you way back from F-35 delivery to today, we’re already on that schedule. So Tab, ya know, is here kinda nodded his head. The MILCON money is already in our hands. We’ve got award as fast as we possibly can to meet those timelines. That doesn’t include construction camp, or doesn’t include current decentralized logistics hub. So to some extent, if the ship hasn’t already sailed, it’s tethered to the dock and ready to move out. Right. So we want to be. We want to take this under consideration. So maybe a BAS contract make some sense. I guess the next, the third factor, variable in the equation is risk and liability. So if the Air Force says, you gotta use our contractor for your supplies, we just call the risk associated with materials delivered to the job sites for the next 100 years. I don’t really think we’re gonna be ready to do that. Or if we say, you can feed your workforce, and there’s a passive bad food, and we get 800 people which ptomaine poisoning, we just bought a medical liability and the labor delay REA pending at the end of the project. So we’re not gonna do that either. So given those, how can we with all those variables, taken under consideration, what’s the elusive solution?

Sorry, I’m not trying to monopolize here. But I would just say, that all of us for the very reasons that you just brought up, for risks and eliminating some of that risk and taking on some of that risk, would be reasons that we would not want to do that as well. This is why brought up the concept of maybe there’s a P3 type of, or an O and M or a development opportunity that is available within the community to do this, versus it being something that the contractors or the government would take the risk on.

Yeah, and I would add too, the people who are authorizing your funding or try to make your life really hard. ‘Cause even though you talked about the 12 zones, which is clear to understand, but what you also have in your slides is projects within those zones. And most likely, the color of money is not gonna let you blend that between those projects. So even though company A is doing zone one, it’s gonna be segregated. You mentioned earlier, and I would encourage is that 13th zone. Is it possible that you could have the 13th zone it allows you to bucketize particular tasks or scopes in there. I talked to some people about, for an example, a batch plant. We were building a large facility. Instead of everybody going out and competing to buy concrete material, which are gonna pay a high price, especially with supplier knows he’s got 12 people coming to him and competing, versus having, we’re gonna have one batch plant, but everyone gonna buy from it, and we’ve already negotiated a standard rate for that material. So you go there you buy it, you’re gonna get that rate because it’s negotiated. You’ll get private companies, ’cause I know we’ve done it. You’ll get private companies willing to do that, as long as you guarantee them that they’re gonna get X amount of concrete a year. So there’s things like that, I think, if we can show a cost model, any of us can do. Show a cost model to say, this is a smart way of doing business, versus having four people go out and try to negotiate their own cost for concrete. You can do that with a man camps and deal with some other things as well. That 13th zone, I’m excited for you with that one.

Yeah, the greater good is always the greater benefit to the overall project. The camp would come out of—

[Man] We live in a capitalistic society, right. It is capitalism.

Well it is. But you don’t have to have it work against you too. You can go back and guarantee of supplies and guarantee of purchase, and that works very well, and it still fits in the capitalism.

All right. We have a question over here. Sir, thanks for waiting.

John Karakorn, with Energy and Environment. We’re a local small business. Worked on Tyndall for many years and currently have projects at Tyndall Air Force Base. I think this question’s probably both for the panel and Tyndall leadership. This was respect to the contractors gate and current traffic flow, and particularly with ramped up traffic flow projected to accomplish all this work in the upcoming years. We’re already overflowing into Highway 98 at times for deliveries. And contractors such as ourselves, we’re trying to work as efficiently as possible to present best value. But we’re under a firm fixed price, unit rates. Is this, number one, a top priority now in the short term, that we can overcome? And what are the plans for the future, with regard to maybe, having gates on both sides of the base and additional manpower to kinda get the traffic flowing as quickly as possible? Because right now, we’re already at a field capacity, and it’s only gonna get worse with time. Thank you.

Sir, and your question was what? (group laughs) I’m sorry, I lost it. Did anybody get that?

[John] What can we do to resolve the current contractor gate lines that are extending out into Highway 98. Some of the inspection times are taking over two hours, with us contractors waiting in line to get onto the base. And is it a top priority that we can resolve the short term?

Anybody want to take that one? Ma’am? Sure.

You guys got it?

Here you go.

All right. So I hope I’m not gonna talk out of turn. But, that is a very good question. And part of why we’re here today is to spark some dialogue about what are some alternatives that we can think about. Certainly we’re going have to have more entrances. But yeah, that’s what we’re here. And certainly the last thing we want is to have 52 trucks strung out along Highway 98. We have already been talking with the security forces folks on base about some alternate ways with equipment, that we can try to speed that up. But we’re looking for you guys to help us with ideas about new technology that maybe is out there that we haven’t yet seen. And we realize we’re gonna have to, I mean, there’s gonna be manpower piece to this. So we’re trying to sort that out. But were looking for ideas from you guys on what we could do for that.

Question over here.

All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Don. Wayland Patterson. I also work with the Air Force. But I’m a resident here in Panama City I live over in The Cove. In the conditions of the local area probably haven’t been explained totally correct, yet. The logistics of those still trying to rebuild our homes here in town, we’re on waiting lists, waiting for craft skills to be available to do work. Unfortunately in this area, the service industry and the craft skills, those types of individuals are living in the older homes in older structures and renting. And a lot of that was destroyed. And so, they either have to seek other things that they could potentially afford to live in. And a lot of ’em just left this area. So, you have a huge logistical challenge on having. As a matter of fact, in the service industry, a lot of places were available to open. They just couldn’t get workers to work the facilities, which then caused them, of course, and supply and demand. They started raising their wages. And all they were doing was just robbing people from each other, as the wages were going up. So, supply and demand in this area, and the supply of local housing. It’s wasn’t the DuPont Bridge that was backed up. It became the Hathaway Bridge baced up for hours trying to get across it. As the caravan came from the Western area, trying to get across the Hathaway Bridge, not necessarily to make it to Panama City, but also to try to make it down to Mexico Beach in Port St. Joe, which means you had to go through Tyndall Air Force Base to get to those locations. I didn’t have a question. I just wanted to state the conditions here.

[Man] Thank you. Anybody have a comment on that? We have a question over here.

Neil Wilson with Gator Engineering. The gear, aforementioned. One of the things that came to my mind is on the construction side, is the disposal. I don’t know what the local communities and the area’s capacity to handle the amount of the debris that’s coming out of here, that’s gon’ be going to the facilities. Specifically the hazardous-waste area. Your asbestos, mold and your lead-based paint. The locations that we’re trying to find right now are not nearby. You have your reuse of the facility here with the landfill on the base. Has that been halted? Is it gonna be reuse temporarily to handle this haz waste? And that is a concern. Not only do you have construction coming in, but you have debris going out at the same time. And have there been any consideration about working with local communities and landfills to handle the capacity?

I’ll give a shot at that if you’d like. At least for me, yesterday a little bit, because that came to mind. It’s the reverse logistics. One thing was getting things in, all the resources. At the end of the day, through the construction period, or at the end of the construction period, the reverse logistics of everything that’s done in the construction phases, it’s inevitable. It’s gonna have to happen. And again, that’s when you get back to the local community engagement, or the capabilities for hazardous-waste material removal or other available locally, that’s preferred. Because again, value occurs approximate to what you’re doing. And then there may be some instances, that in the logistics integration planning that has to be taken into consideration to move it elsewhere. The question is, has it been considered on my part? Not fully. But it did come to mind, especially as I was looking at 98 through Tyndall.

Do we have any other thoughts on that on the panel? We have a question over here.

Hi. Mary Catherine Cook with Cross Environmental Services. I just have a comment on Neil’s comment about landfills. We’re currently doing quite a bit of work at Tyndall, taking that hazardous material out, and just C&D. And we’re finding that we can actually take this material out of the state, considerable distances for less money than we can using the local landfill. So I think if we could focus and get some community involvement and see if there any other options available than what we currently have, it will be helpful to all of us, especially going into 2021, 2021 when it really ramps up. ‘Cause we’re just on the front edge of it now. Thanks.

[Man] Thank you. One over here. (woman speaking faintly)

Gordon Simmons with RS&H. Good conversation about the challenges and everything going on here. We started off today talking about the fact that Tyndall was coming up to full mission capability. Perhaps less efficiently than possible. Perhaps in less stellar facilities as possible. And we talked about the fact that we got to the F-35s coming in at a certain date and we have to have certain functions available for it by that date. Has one of the options been looked at, to instead of cramming all this program into FY20 and FY21, taking a look at how can we expand that program further, while still keeping mission capabilities here? Perhaps improving some of the temporary quarters that people are in. Something like what was done in the Barack days back in ’08, ’09 timeframe to have some better temporary quarters in here while we wait for the materials, the laborers and everything else to cycle through and have more time to do this. So has that been an option look at or is it just right up against the wall? Political pressures aside, the engineering solution of expanding this further down the line, is that a possibility?

And I guess I would ask the panel members, what are your thoughts on that common? I’m not gonna try to answer from the government side. But what do you guys think about, what we just said about spreading out the. What are the pros and cons of spreading out the construction period?

I’ll jump in first. It seems good if you can spread it out because it’s ease of construction, ease of work. But there’s a cost of money with that too. If you spread out too far, you get an escalation cost. And when you look at why some projects cost more than others, a lot of times you’ll get down to it’s schedule. ‘Cause the schedule doesn’t allow you to stretch out too much. Having said that, to your point I think that instead of having an artificial. But this case is not artificial, but having a line drawn in the sand and then forcing it, that can then become very costly. So, I think there ought to be opportunities to look at, what are the priorities? How do they have to be done and then you can do a cost analysis on that schedule. Is it more costly to accelerate it or is it more costly to extend it? But at the bottom line, you’re always gonna have to meet the mission. So that has to be first. Meet the mission, and then what’s the best way to optimize your schedule when you meet the mission. So.

Sorry. That drives everything. Is what’s the mission or what’s the end date? From our standpoint, our recommendation would be the two-year period is probably too tight. Too much needs to happen in too sort of a period of time. If there is the opportunity to set up and reprioritize or prioritize them and stagger the work so that you’ve got, so that you have craft running through the construction as it goes, versus having just throwing people at a project to get it done as quickly as possible. That’s inefficient. That creates additional cost. If we can extend that, that’s absolutely analysis, cost of money evaluation. But if you’re throwing too many people into an area to construct something, that’s gonna have some cost impact as well, just to attract. We talked about attracting craft here. And just inefficiency of having people working on top of each other is gonna be a problem. And that has additional cost with it as well. So the recommendation that I, that we would see is that there is a way of prioritizing and extending that completion period, would be recommended from our view. Probably the only thing I’d add, it’d be again with readiness. First could you have a protracted schedule. But then the other part that comes into the mix, is the appropriation cycles. Things happen and it changes, and then all of a sudden, you got this creep happening. So that’s another factor. Before I just jump out there and say, well, let’s extend. Well, the appropriation cycle would need. It would need to be informed by the probation cycle or else it’s just gonna keep going.

All right. Another question over here.

[Lazadis] Lieutenant Colonel Lazadis. I have to say, I work for the Air Force. You can tell. My question is, you do your analysis of what the local community and population, what we can handle down here or how we’re gonna solve man camp problem, has your analysis focused on Panama City Beach, Panama City area? Have you also included potentially, things like Mexico Beach and pointe St. Joe, or teaming up with, I don’t know, real estate development to do a joint venture down there to solve a temporary workforce problem where, I don’t know, a company could take that over? A real estate company could take that over at the end and use that to turn a profit so it’s beneficial for them. Looking basically to the southeast of the base, of the land available out there.

I’ll take a stab at it. So, at least from our perspective, no, we haven’t done that kind of detailed analysis yet. I mean, we don’t know the full execution plan, the schedules that are coming up, ’cause it will change over time depending on what the community is. But one of the things that we were trying to communicate in an earlier slide, was setting up transportation hubs. And the purpose of that is, if you go out 30 miles, 60 miles, probably not that far. But, 30 miles or out, you try to go to communities that are better able to absorb the workforce. And things that are there, let them be there and then transport ’em in by the bussing and all. Now, don’t get me wrong, bussing’s not the greatest solution either, but it is a solution. It does release some of the local pressure that’s on there. It relieves some of the trafficking that comes in, and let’s you go to the communities. But we would have to do. At least I’ll just speak for Brechdel. We haven’t done that type of detailed analysis yet on what community is best to absorb that type of work.

Okay. We have another question over here.

Yes. My name’s Shayla Canty Smith, and I also work for the Air Force. So, Colonel Brown asked a question. I’m gonna try to ask a little bit differently, to see if you guys maybe thought about, when it comes to the construction camps. So we know that some of the contractors have inheritability to create their own man camps, i.e. KBR. Have you all thought about teaming together so that maybe you go to KBR if you guys figure out what the relationship looks like, to put something together so that the liability is not really on us, but then that option is still available? And then, I’ma ask the second question Just to maybe give the crowd a opportunity to maybe jump in here. But some of the things that we look to try to do is incentivize as well. So, we heard a couple of ideas about what you guys don’t like to see in the solicitations in regards to maybe putting it out of constraints of the qualifications. But what are some other things that the government should potentially consider of what you would and would not like to see in the solicitations? And oh, by the way, what are some other ideas in terms of incentives that we can add to the solicitations?

I’ll go first on your first one, which I. Let me rephrase it just a little bit and make sure I understand it. And that’s taking a look at existing infrastructure on Tyndall to house a temporary workforce?

[Shayla] No, you guys get together and. I will say, because you know KBR has expertise in putting man camps or construction camps together. So if you guys know that that’s something that’s in their portfolio to do, come together and maybe have that discussion with each other to put something together so that that construction camp is put together. But we don’t own any of it, not the government. But you guys kind of panel that is well, just as another option to consider. So you’re not doing all on your own. We’re not doing it all on our own. But you’re coming together and collaborating to do it. What’s on my mind? And again, I’m not the constructor in the room, is that the logistics integration, and just as you said, is coordinated and fused together with the constructors so that like the constructors are able to focus on the product and that logistics is integrated for them. So, no I don’t think we have, at least with these guys sitting at the table, we haven’t done that. But that’s one thing. And looking at this, in a very raw sense, kind over the last two days, that’s what immediately came to mind, is singular logistics integration. And there are some risks involved. But then that’s what you have risk tables and you mitigate them between. So in my view, there would absolutely need to be very good collaboration within industry and support of tenant, the viewpoint. And then I think your second one, one of the things that would be really good, and it’s tough to do. Department of Defense wide, I divided my head as operations, and you have acquisitions. And sometimes they meet, sometimes they don’t meet. This is an instance where the requirements is generated in the operational sense, just really have to be translated into that acquisition or into that RFP or into that solicitation so it’s very clearly understood by industry. Because we can be having this discussion here, but pretty soon as you get to those awards and you start getting torwards those contracts, it becomes tough to communicate, because of the, I guess, contractual kinda no man’s land, in between a contractor and a solicitor. I would posit to you, this is one instance, and there are many, that should be as less as possible. And it’s really important that the requirements drivers are with the acquisition officer, and that be very, very clear what the expectations are, because it’s gonna. Eventually it kinda throws you off schedule. And we’ve all experienced it, whether in the government or out here as part of industry. But the RFP says, that’s not really what was intended. And then you’ve got a schedule hitch.

I don’t believe the issue color of money and also the FARS allow for the collaboration that you’re bringing up. If that can change, yep, by all means. I think industry would come up with ways to be as. I mean, somebody shouted out earlier, capitalistic society. I mean, we were all gonna come up with ways in order to be most cost-effective to the government. But I don’t believe the FARS and where the money can go towards, allows us to do that.

I’d like to address part B of your question there. What can the government do to help? So we already talked about that there’s gonna be a shortage of resources, of crafting things. I think a lot of us, we were thinking about construction, we’re thinking just about the craft. But there’s a large amount of non-manual people that have to come along with that. Other professionals, be it project controls, field engineers, and so on and so on, I would strongly recommend that if the government could look at not being too prescriptive as far as the qualifications of the individuals being used. Because we’re already competing to try to get individuals here. As mentioned earlier, there are some very good skills that we have as companies and we’re willing to back behind, because we think their performance is good. And I would try to figure out a way to put the language such that, hold the company accountable for performance and put some measures in there, but not be so prescriptive as far as, if you’re going to have an inspector, he’s gonna have this type of qualifications, this type of things. Let the company take that risk because we know our people, and they’re some really good people that we can put on jobs ’cause they just can’t meet that qualification requirements. So you ought to think about, are we really getting what we expect to be getting when we do that kind of language? So.

And just real quick, I’d like to add. What ACOM said earlier about doing the best value RFP. Definitely agree with best value. At Turner Construction, I’m sure all these people up here would agree that best value’s the way to go, rather than lowest price, technically acceptable.

You know, we’re not in the LPTA land here at all. Sir. Do you have a question?

[Man] Yeah, quick question. And it’s probably ignorance on our part, more than anything else. Are all of you already under contract to help? Okay. So this is a panel discussion. So, has anyone ever heard of vested sourcing and vested contracting? Vested, V-E-S-T-E-D.

V as in Victor?

[Man] V as in Victor, echo, sierra, tango, echo, delta. Yes. Okay. The Department of Energy has a track record of success using vested sourcing, based out of University of Tennessee in Knoxville that will permit the type of discussion that was recommended earlier on a collaborative sourcing and contracting model, that’s already been validated and approved within the DoD, and within the department of energy. Separate discussion, but I think it’s a great question. You got a lot of great companies, a lot of great minds. What’s keeping you from coming together in a work session to come up in solution, to the problems that are being presented? Because integrated logistics, man camps, all the things that you’re talking about, politically and otherwise, they can be solved. But there has to be the ability to come together and do that.

Where do we sign up with that? How do we sign that?

[Man] See me afterwards. (man laughing)

I think probably, there’s another 10 to 15 contractors in the room that would have a problem with that. They would want to be a part of it as well. But yeah, none of us are in the contract. We just bringing up, try to bring some ideas and solutions to the table. Great point though. It’d be beautiful if we all could do it.

[Man] We can.

We have time for one more question. Do we have any more questions? Or do we want to go to lunch? (group clamoring) Yeah. All right. (chuckles) Okay. Then at this time, thanks for your excellent questions.

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