February 4, 2004 – The local commanders of Fort Dix Military Reservation, Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst and McGuire Air Force Base signed a Joint Installation Partnership agreement today to mark their cooperation in the efficient and effective operation of their facilities.

Colonel David Lowry (Fort Dix), Captain Mark Bathrick (NAES Lakehurst) and Colonel Jimmie C. Jackson Jr. (McGuire Air Force Base) signed a memorandum of understanding stating that “the result of this natural “Joint Installation Partnership” is that the collective capability of these three bases to support core and tenant missions is greater than the sum of the individual parts”. While each base maintains its autonomy and focus on their core mission accomplishment, the potential exists to achieve operating efficiencies across the three bases through possible consolidation of contracts for common installation services.

The installations host a variety of Department of Defense, Federal and State tenant organizations linked together primarily due to the military or homeland security roles they fulfill. The Joint Installation Partnership affords each tenant the opportunity to avail themselves of the facilities and services on all three bases. As an example, a tenant aboard NAES Lakehurst, where military vehicle maneuver ranges do not exist, can access the adjacent ranges at Fort Dix to perform their mission.

According to Captain Bathrick, “this agreement provides the philosophical foundation on which to build additional Inter-Service Support Agreements (ISSA’s) among the three bases. It capitalizes on the unique geographic orientation of the three Department of Defense installations, along with our complimentary capabilities. Nowhere else in the continental United States can you find Army, Air Force and Navy installations co-located on a single, contiguous expanse of DoD property, as exists with Dix-Lakehurst-McGuire. By entering into this working agreement, we are taking proactive steps toward increasing our mission effectiveness and efficiency consistent with the Secretary of Defense’s vision for future joint-service initiatives.”

The idea of a joint partnership among the three bases dates back to 1994, when an Army General first broached the idea that the three installations provided a unique opportunity to maximize the resources available through a concerted regionalization effort. Since then, numerous working level agreements and partnerships have been forged across the three bases that have served to increase the mission accomplishment of the bases and their tenant organizations while reducing the operating costs of both. The memorandum of understanding merely provides the framework for what has been going on since then and provides all three bases with a common philosophy and set of guiding principles by which to conduct future joint installation initiatives.

The three bases comprise over 42,000 acres of Department of Defense (DoD) controlled land. Coupled with more than 58,000 acres of state forest & wildlife management areas and federally managed land surrounding the bases, these installations benefit from a lack of encroachment that hinders many other DoD installations around the country from effectively and efficiently performing their missions. Also, being located in the Northeast corridor of the United States with easy access to all modes of transportation and metropolitan areas such as New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. makes these New Jersey based installations key players both in national defense and homeland security initiatives.

Further, the joint agreement among the bases is in keeping with the Defense Department’s obligation to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars – by trying to maximize mission accomplishment while minimizing costs.

Caption: Col. David Lowry, Commanding Officer of Ft. Dix, Capt. Mark Bathrick, Commanding Officer of Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, and Col. Jimmie Jackson, Jr., Commanding Officer of McGuire Air Force Base sign Dix-Lakehurst-McGuire New Jersey Joint Installation Partnership Memorandum of Understanding as Hansford T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Installations and Environment looks on.