Tyndall Air Force Base Hurricane Michael Recovery Industry Day #3: Welcome and opening remarks

Brigadier General Patrice Melancon, Executive Director, Tyndall Program Management Office
Tom Neubauer, President, Bay Defense Alliance

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

Transcript

Welcome to Industry Day. This is our third Industry Day, and it’s a collaborative effort where senior military and business leaders come together to discuss innovations, and the future of Tyndall Air Force Base, and its impact to the community. We realize there’s no better way to rebuild Tyndall Air Force Base without a partnership that includes both local community and industry. Today our focus will be on construction methods, materials, and logistics. On behalf of the Air Force, we are pleased that you’ve taken the time away from your busy schedules to assist with a rebuild at one of the Air Force’s most important bases. I’m Don Arias from the 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs office, and I’ll serve as your moderator for this event. We ask that you please silence your cell phones. We’re gonna try and stay on time. We’re gonna start at eight. We’re gonna end at five. Somewhere in the middle we’ll have lunch, and we’ve gonna stay on time ’cause I have to get this suit back to the funeral parlor by the end of the day. So, please take your seats and relax. At this time, I’d like to ask everyone to please stand and join me in honoring our great nation as Brigadier General Patrice Melancon, the executive director of the Tyndall Program Management office leads us in the National Anthem. Oh, say can you see By the dawn’s early light What so proudly we hailed At the twilight’s last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight O’er the ramparts we watched Were so gallantly streaming And the rockets’ red glare The bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night That our flag was still there O say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave O’er the land of the free And the home of the brave (audience applauding)

Please take your seats, and play ball. Thank you General Melancon. At this time, I’d like to welcome our distinguished visitors that have joined us today. Please hold your applause until the end of the introductions, because, as I noted before, you may not like one of them, so we don’t want anybody to feel bad. Of course, we’ve got Brigadier General Alice Trevino. She is the commander of the Air Force Installation Contracting Center. We have Regional Business Director, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mr. Theodore Brown. Executive director of the Tyndall Program Management Office, Brigadier General Patrice Melancon. Panama City Mayor, Greg Brudnicki. Lynn Haven Mayor, Margo Anderson. She may be stuck in traffic, I don’t see Margo. 325th Fighter Wing Commander, Colonel Brian Laidlaw. Director of the Tyndall Program Management Office, Colonel Lori Walden. We also welcome Colonel Travis Lane, who is the incoming director of the Tyndall Program Management Office. From the Bay Defense Alliance, Mr. Tom Neubauer and Mr. Glen McDonald. The Military Affairs Committee Chairman, Mr. Doug Moore. The 325th Command Chief, Katherine Grabham. Also, welcome to all congressional staff members, Bay County officials, Colonels, Chiefs, special guests, and industry members who’ve joined us today. Now you can applaud. (crowd applauding) At this time, I’d like to welcome to the stage again Brigadier General Patrice Melancon, Executive Director of the Tyndall Program Management Office. She’s leading our multi-billion dollar rebuild for the next three years, as Tyndall becomes the base of the 21st Century. Ma’am. (crowd applauding)

Good morning. I want to thank all of you again, echo Don’s words this morning. Thank you so much for being willing to come out again. This is our third Industry Day. We’ve had really great feedback from folks about our past two, and I hope that this one will also be very useful for all of you who have come to participate. As you know, we’re talking about construction logistics. Let’s think about this. You know, three billion dollars of military construction. Thankfully, we’re not gonna try to do all of it at one time. At one time we thought that was gonna be what was gonna happen, but we are gonna be able to phase it some, but it’s still gonna be a lot of construction. And we know that our partners in the community are also going through a lot of construction, so there’s gonna be a lot going on, and, you know, we really need, we need everybody who’s here today to really open up your minds and really approach this a little bit differently. We have folks that have graciously agreed to come and speak to us. I’m gonna say right now, we are not advocating that what’s presented is going to be the solution for the Tyndall rebuild, but they are ideas that have been successful in other instances, so we’ve asked those folks to come and present their experience to us, and I would ask you think about what they’re presenting, and really, kind of, look with a critical eye to “is this, is this applicable here?” “How can we make this work?” “What can we do to tweak it to make it work for us?” Because, really, we’ve got a huge task in front of us. You know, how do you find the craft labor? How do you find the materials? How do you get the people here? How do you house ’em and feed ’em? So we’re gonna be talking about all these things, and please know that, yes, we have asked folks here today but again, this is not the solution, we have no pre-decided that in any way, shape, form or fashion. These are ideas that we hope will spark some thought, and spark some dialogue, and spark some potential teaming. With the amount of construction, we’re gonna really need to have all hands on deck. We’re gonna have to have, you know, big business, small business, craft labor. We’re gonna have to have so many different kinds of support that’s gotta come together, and so we hope that this is an opportunity to be able to make some connections and really look at potential teaming opportunities in the future. Again, we just really appreciate all of you being here today and, like I said, please really have an open mind and do some critical thinking for us to help us really figure out what makes sense as we go forward. We’ll have several periods of Q&A during each of the sessions, and then we’ll have a session at the end where you can sort of holistically ask some questions about what you’ve heard today. Again, we really encourage dialogue, and thanks so much again for being here. (crowd applauding)

Thank you General Melancon. At this time, I’d like to invite Mr. Tom Neubauer, President of the Bay Defense Alliance, to the podium. Mr. Neubauer is a longtime member of the Bay Defense Alliance, and was the recipient of the 2018 Community Leadership Award from the Association of Defense Communities. This national-level award recognized that, under Tom’s leadership, the Bay Defense Alliance has become one of the best examples in the country of how to bring community leaders, military families, and installation commanders together around the shared mission of supporting military readiness. We welcome him to the podium. Tom. (crowd applauding)

Well good morning. I can’t think of a better way to start a day than the national anthem, looking out at this beautiful water on the campus of Florida State University. General Melancon, another talent yet undiscovered. Thank you so much for that national anthem. So, good morning. On behalf of this great American defense community, I’d just like to say welcome. Thank you for your commitment to the rebuild of Tyndall Air Force Base. Our community is really very humbled by the unwavering support of the Air Force, not only to rebuild Tyndall, but to build it as a base of the future. One that we can be proud of for many, many years to come. We don’t know what that means. We’ve heard the term a number of times. We don’t know if that means the next platforms will be TransAtmospheric Vehicles or starships, but we do know Tyndall will be ready. Now, the Air Force continues to deliver on that commitment by sending us just amazing leading military engineers, community planners, subject matter experts, many of you here in this room today. And what we’re gonna hear from many of them today is a focus on construction execution strategies and logistics. And I know you’re excited to hear about what they’ve got to tell us. For the next 11 months, we’ve been hearing this term, “base of the future”, and the stakeholders, many of ’em attended a seminar, out in, called Athworks, out in Nevada recently. And the whole focus was on innovation, collaboration, sustainability of this base, and resiliency, and that’s what we’re trying to pull from this group. There’s just so much talent in this room the ideas are what we’re looking for. Now, next week, the NEPA process will launch, I think the two Environmental Impact Studies for the F-35 and the beddown of the base Y of the MQ9 program. That’s our future. That’s the community’s future. That’s a lot of people moving here, and we’re gonna make sure that we could support those military members and their families in the years to come. So, while your role is to focus on building the base of the future, our defense community must assure that Tyndall is adjoined by the community of the future. Military members and their families need access to quality housing, schools, medical care. We’re gonna make sure there’s spousal employment opportunities as they get here, and quality of life benefits that make we want Tyndall to be the base that everybody selects first when they’re choosing an assignment in the Air Force. We think we can do that together with your help. So, I’d like to just say again, on behalf of the community, thank you very much for what you will accomplish. Thank you very much for what you will do for national defense, but also what you will do for Bay County, Florida. And where you’ll be taking us into the future, this community is depending on you, so thank you very much for being here. (crowd applauding)

Thank you Tom. And now, I’d like to direct your attention to the video screens. We’re gonna play a quick video, and then we’ll get on with our program.