Huntsville Center's Electronic Security System team helping Fort McCoy upgrade security measures

Huntsville Center
Published Nov. 25, 2013
Fort McCoy, Wis., is an Installation Management Command installation, funded through the U.S. Army Reserve Command, which supports training and mobilization of Reserve and active component military personnel from all branches of America's Armed Forces.

For the past three years, Fort McCoy's Directorate of Emergency Services has been working with the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville's Electronic Security Systems Program to upgrade its police station, access control points, ammunition supply point, the airfield and other facilities on the installation.

Huntsville Center's ESS is the mandatory center of expertise for procurement and installation of Electronic Security Systems.

What started as a small project a few years ago quickly turned to more projects as the Fort McCoy DES, Director Mark Fritsche, gained confidence that the Huntsville Center's ESS team could deliver for them.

"It started with a problem that needed a solution," said Col. Steven Nott, Fort McCoy's garrison commander. "The Ammunition Supply Point was not in compliance with security requirements. The question was how do we fix the problem immediately within the available resources?

"Andre Penon and Ed Pate, physical security specialists in our DES, have the subject matter expertise to do the initial analysis and create the vision," Nott said. "From there, we reached out to the Corps of Engineers in Huntsville because we needed to get this done correctly and in a timely manner.

"I think too frequently we power up rather than power down, and not look at the ground effect you are trying to receive," Nott said. "If Andre and Ed tell me it is going well, I then I have a high degree of confidence that we are receiving a great product. They have the highest praise for the Huntsville Center and InDyne, the contractor doing the FY12 task order work. They said this is the best partnership they have seen."

The success of the partnership is due to the willingness of the Huntsville Center and InDyne to listen to the customer, Nott said. Huntsville Center was able to do a rapid turnaround on the contract and Mike Troglin, the site superintendent for InDyne, has executed the onsite work in a safe, efficient and professional manner.

"It had to be done right, fast and within resources," Nott said. "It is also energy efficient. We will see a long-term cost savings from the energy efficiencies built into the projects. It is also an ongoing project. Phase I was the largest phase. The Huntsville Center's contractor installed several dozen light poles, over a dozen cameras and upgraded some of the access gates. Phase 2 will add more cameras, upgrade the rest of the gates and enhance mobile security measures with providing three radar trailers with solar panels for traffic control."

"We have had our third procure and install project with Fort McCoy in the past three years, and now we have added a maintenance and services contract," said Mindy Shelton, project manager with Huntsville Center's ESS Program. "Altogether it's more than $8 million worth of work."

"We have completed lots of access control work and replacing vehicle gates," said Daryl Britton, the Huntsville Center technical engineer on the projects. "The installation had rolling, splitting vehicle gates. We replaced those with tilt away gates. In the Ammunition Supply Point, there were old wooden light poles that were rotten and about to fall down. We replaced those with aluminum poles with energy efficient LED lights. We have done lots of closed circuit television work and installed intercom stations at the new motorized gates."

"It was a wonderful collaboration," Nott said. "It just shows you can have a great partnership with the customer, the Corps and the contractor. It is crucial that the subject matter expert have a voice and they are listened to, and that doesn't always happen. Andre and Ed are listened to by the Corps and the contractor."

The FY12 task order, valued at more than $4 million, was awarded to InDyne and consists of 47 individual ESS projects. It is scheduled to be completed in January 2014. The FY13 task order, valued at $3.8 million, was awarded to Johnson Controls and consists of 44 individual ESS projects. Johnson Controls has already begun the initial site survey, and the entire task order should be complete in early FY15.

The maintenance and services contract is an FY13 award, currently valued at almost $400,000. This value will increase in the option years as the FY12 and FY13 task orders are completed and the equipment can be added to this task order for upkeep.

Because the ESS team has been so successful, requests for assistance are branching out into other Huntsville Center programs as well, like Facilities Repair and Renewal. Any time a need comes up, if it's a service Huntsville Center can provide, we refer them to the appropriate program manager, Shelton said.