USACE program receives prestigious Best in Class award

Published March 10, 2017
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was presented the Government-Wide Category Management Best in Class Solution award in a ceremony at the USACE headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 27.  From left to right: Jacqueline Woodson, USACE acting deputy director of Contracting; Mary Ruwwe, GSA Facilities and Construction Category; Lloyd Caldwell, USACE director of Military Programs; Charles Ford, Huntsville Engineering and Support Center programs director; and Stacey Hirata, USACE chief of Installation Support.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was presented the Government-Wide Category Management Best in Class Solution award in a ceremony at the USACE headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 27. From left to right: Jacqueline Woodson, USACE acting deputy director of Contracting; Mary Ruwwe, GSA Facilities and Construction Category; Lloyd Caldwell, USACE director of Military Programs; Charles Ford, Huntsville Engineering and Support Center programs director; and Stacey Hirata, USACE chief of Installation Support.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was presented the Government-Wide Category Management Best in Class Solution award in a ceremony at the USACE headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 27. 

Mary Ruwwe, Facilities and Construction Category manager for the General Services Administration (GSA), presented the award on behalf of the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration.

            The Best in Class award was given to USACE for its Facilities Reduction Program, an enterprise program led by the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, Alabama.  Lloyd Caldwell, director of Military Programs, Jacqueline Woodson, acting deputy director of Contracting, Stacey Hirata, chief of Installation Support, and Charles Ford, Huntsville Engineering Center, received the award from Ruwwe at the ceremony.

            USACE has been participating with the Department of Defense, other federal agencies and GSA on the GSA Acquisition Gateway – the site where federal government buyers from all agencies act as one acquisition community.

            “This is not an easy award to come by,” Ruwwe said, adding that GSA began looking to USACE and its Facilities Reduction Program upon the recommendation of NASA and the Veterans Administration.

             “For facility reduction, we looked for an agency that had the subject matter experts, years of experience and demonstrated success,” she said.  The Corps of Engineers and the Huntsville Center demonstrated that they could provide “best value for the government and they can’t be beaten.  You know that using them for this program you will be getting your money’s worth,” she added.

            USACE is the first agency outside of the GSA to deliver a usable/active acquisition vehicle to the Category Management Leadership Council for evaluation and designation of Best in Class, and the first such designation for a Department of Defense acquisition solution.

            The Facilities Reduction Program solution streamlines facility removal efforts, reducing fixed installation costs and achieving energy savings.  The program has removed more than 22 million square feet and approximately 5,000 facilities from real property inventories.  With this Best in Class “stamp of approval”, the USACE Facilities Reduction Program solution becomes a recognized practice within the GSA Acquisition Gateway Facilities and Construction Category for the federal government.

            The Facilities Reduction Program is a centrally managed program that simplifies and streamlines facility removal on Department of Defense installations.  It can help USACE districts, installations and others develop lists of removal candidates, prepare statutorily required documentation and perform pre-demolition environmental surveys, in addition to removing excess inventory.

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Contact
Eugene Pawlik
202-761-7690
eugene.a.pawlik@usace.army.mil

Release no. 17-002