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Total Force effort brings needed improvements in two-week’s time

  • Published
  • By Kenji Thuloweit
  • 412th Test Wing Public Affairs

More than 80 Airmen from across the nation joined the 412th Civil Engineer Squadron to complete three large construction projects at Edwards.

The projects allowed the Airmen, mostly from Air Force Reserve Command and Air National Guard, to get hands-on training during their annual two-week-long drill while the 412th CES provided expertise and equipment.

The results are newly paved parking lots for Club Muroc, an underground drainage system by base housing, new gaskets installed in hangars and renovations to Bldg. 4906.

Senior Master Sgt. Rebeca Forgey, 446th Civil Engineer Squadron, Washington, was the project manager. She met Murray Westley, 412th CEG director, while she was attending an Airman Leadership School graduation here for one of her troops. After a short talk, her squadron got ready to take on the mission.

“Our squadron came for a site visit to make sure we knew what’s going on, meet the people, make sure we hit the ground with good morale,” said Forgey. “There were other teams within AFRC that were picked to come out here and work different times of the year to do these jobs, but it was kind of spread out and we found out [412th Civil Engineer Squadron] really wanted Club Muroc’s parking lot done and the only way to do that was to combine all the teams together, so we put out an AFRC-wide call.”

Forgey called AFRC headquarters and said the Edwards project was a much larger scope than her squadron could provide and asked for volunteers, who stepped up right away.

She added that 81 civil engineer Airmen is a lot to have at one time, but because Edwards is large and the projects were spread out, they managed to get a lot done in a small amount of time.

In addition to repaving the parking lots at Club Muroc, the CE Airmen also relocated an electrical line underground beneath the main parking lot.

The underground drainage system project took place near Kincheloe Ave. by base housing.

“The (previous) open drainage had lots of issues with it filling up with debris and causing backfill and flooding so we cleared it out and put in 27-inch piping and then covered it so it will be underground. It should help with the debris build-up in there,” Forgey said.

Another team worked on renovating 412th Civil Engineer Group’s Bldg. 4906 where they did reframing of office spaces and walls, electrical work and all the plumbing was completely renovated, according to Forgey.

In total, eight Air Force civil engineer squadrons banded together with Edwards CE personnel to complete the projects in two weeks.

The units involved were:

446th Civil Engineer Squadron, Washington Air National Guard

482nd Civil Engineer Squadron, Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida

439th Civil Engineer Squadron, Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts

820th Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers (RED HORSE), Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada (active duty)

512th Civil Engineer Squadron, Dover Air Force Base, Delaware

203rd Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers (RED HORSE), Virginia

434th Civil Engineer Squadron, Grissom Air Reserve Base, Indiana

201st Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers (RED HORSE), Pennsylvania