Submitted By NAVAIR Public Affairs Office

“We’re all trying to do what’s right for the Navy, what’s right for the mission – to support the Warfighter and comply with BRAC law and the intent of the recommendations,” said Linda Nelson, a member of NAVAIR’s national BRAC operations support team.

NAVAIR’s national Base Realignment and Closure support team monitors NAVAIR’s implementation of specific recommendations in the BRAC law

“NAVAIR pulled senior-level people to work on this, and I know some who are eligible to retire but they’re waiting to see this through before they do because they’re committed to the people and the mission,” Nelson said.

When BRAC became law in November 2005, the Department of Navy established integrated program teams (IPTs) to manage implementation composed of members in the affected commands. In this first year, the multi-command teams wrote broad business plans and worked through a thorough process for Office of Secretary of Defense approval. OSD approval on each business plan clears the way for specific implementation plans.

The implementation plans contain details about billet and equipment moves and any construction required for implementation. Then those plans, too, must be approved by OSD before implementation can begin.

“The difficult part is that NAVAIR must translate percentages of work years into actual positions,” explained John Wendolowski, a senior executive at Lakehurst. Wendolowski leads the NAVAIR national BRAC operations support team which reports to Rear Adm. Enewold as the NAVAIR BRAC 2005 Executive.

“Numbers of impacted people will vary from estimates cited in BRAC scenarios because of attrition rates, process improvements and workload shifts on Navy and Marine Corps programs between 2003 and 2011,” he said.

NAVAIR co-leads four teams – establishing a Rotary Center of Excellence at Patuxent River; moving personnel into military workspaces from leased spaces in Lexington Park, Md.; the Fleet Readiness Centers; and the Naval Integrated Center for Weapons and Armaments Research, Development, Acquisition, Test and Evaluation. NAVAIR has participants representing Naval Aviation enterprise interests on the other teams of interest.

Of the nine BRAC recommendations directly impacting NAVAIR personnel all but one now has an approved business plan. The multi-command business plan for a Naval Integrated Center for Weapons and Armaments RDAT&E awaits OSD approval.

“OSD approval is also required on the detailed implementation plans, which can take six to nine months to develop because of their complexity,” Wendolowski said.

“Employees should be very careful about rumors,” Wendolowski added. “We aren’t at liberty to release information about the plans until release is approved by OSD, and the wait has been frustrating to us all. I would encourage anyone interested in validating BRAC rumors to look to official sources for correct information.”

That official source is the BRAC Communicator on the MyNAVAIR Community of Interest (https://mynavair.navair.navy.mil).

With approved business and implementation plans, three of the NAVAIR-related teams have begun implementation work.

The first was the Regional Fleet Readiness Centers (FRC), which merge Depots and Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Departments. Navy has aligned the BRAC created FRCs under a new Fleet Readiness Center Command under Rear Adm. Michael Hardee under the Commander Naval Air Forces (CNAF). COMFRC and FRC Southwest held a dual stand-up ceremony at Naval Base Coronado, Calif., Oct. 10.

FRC Mid-Atlantic followed with a stand up ceremony at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., Oct. 16. The other four FRCs – West, Northwest, East and Southeast – stand up in the coming months.

Two other teams joined forces to implement the BRAC law efficiently – by sharing new facilities at NAS Patuxent River. The BRAC law requires realigning personnel from leased spaces in Lexington Park, Md., to military facilities. The law also requires realigning work and associated personnel from Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and Lakehurst, N.J. to create a Rotary Wing Center of Excellence at Patuxent River. The new facility will provide work space for personnel transferring under the two recommendations.

Wendolowski and Nelson encouraged patience as NAVAIR implements BRAC law. “A lot of hard work and hard decisions are still ahead of us,” he said, “It will take time, years, to implement BRAC-05. It’ll be important to keep our focus on those Sailors and Marines on the front lines. They’re what it’s all about.”

Implementation on all BRAC-05 recommendations must be complete by 2011.

For more information about BRAC or to submit a question, visit the BRAC Communicator Community of Interest on MyNAVAIR, https://mynavair.navair.navy.mil.

-USN-