 Good morning to me and welcome to our latest commander's call your public affairs officer Chad Jones and today we're going to get some garrison updates and recognize some of our great teammates. If you do have questions during today's presentation please email them to chadchad.t.jones.sib at army.mil as we go through today we're going to get an update from our garrison commander that's going to be followed up by an update by our deputy garrison commander then we're going to present some awards and then finally we'll get to your questions and answers so again keep those questions coming and then we'll work on getting them through we're going to be live we have the feed until 1130 so you know until the questions are going we're up until 1130 we'll be here so not going on still cold sir I thought you could control that by now but other than that it is my pleasure to introduce our garrison commander Colonel Nyland. I think we got to talk to the chat but I don't get to be in control of that Chad so hey Chris Nyland you're garrison commander right how many times have I said that lately hey for the new team members most most people know and understand where I'm coming from but for the new team members this is one of the most important events that I do on a regular recurring basis for a couple of reasons one and most importantly is because we get to recognize the performance some of the great teammates and some of the great and some of our great mission partners and that's super important to me personally second is because I get to answer your question because I know a lot of times there's things out there that are bubbling up inside the organization there's things people want to know about we've already got some questions but I like to make sure that we can kind of level the bubbles keep everyone informed and really try to address anything any concerns of the team may have out there in an upfront honest way and finally a third one is is this an opportunity to provide some information some command information some things about what's going on going on around the installation and and what we see coming up in the future and again that that idea is is everyone works better when they're well equipped with information and that's the point of this so first and foremost before we get started on any of that I want you know I I know I tend to sound like a broken record occasionally but I want to thank everyone for the hard-working effort that they've been putting in which as we start to come out of the winter season as the age of COVID enters a a lowl period it is not lost on me at all how much hard-working effort the entire team has been investing into this installation and investing into our customers and to our mission partners to enable them to accomplish some of their critical national security missions since the last time we've been together there's been some things going on over in Europe right you I often talk to the to the leadership external to Fort Meade I try to give them examples of why Fort Meade is important and why what we do here is absolutely critical and I don't know if all of you noticed but the day that will really the weeks even the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine if you noticed the vast majority of the teams that work behind the fence went to 12 12-hour shifts seven days a week okay and they maintain that for about a month and a half and even today they're working some very extended hours because the work that's going on behind the fence over there on the NSA compound is directly contributing to the decision making of our senior leaders in the government so they're directly contributing to the decision-making of the president secretary of defense etc. and they're also in direct contact with forces that want to work against our national interest so whether that's protecting our own networks we're doing or or helping allies partner show up their networks or or taking other actions in support of our national security interest that work is going on the frontline for America's support to the Ukraine and what's going on over in Europe is right here on Fort Meade and the work that we do to support those organizations the work that we do to support those service members enables them to stay focused on that mission and to protect our national interests and so I want to thank each and every one of you each and every member of this team regardless of what you do on a day-to-day basis you are making a difference and you're directly contributing to national security by supporting our customers and supporting our mission partners and I don't think I think it's important that we not lose that we don't lose that that connection to what's going on not only in the world but right here right here and how we impact that here on Fort Meade okay so a couple updates for everyone you know me I've got to start with COVID so I'm going to start with COVID most of you may have already seen but the Department of Defense has issued basically they rescinded all of their previous COVID guidance and published all brand new guidance and so okay so what what does that mean to us the biggest takeaway for for us is that under the new standards for DOD they've changed how we calculate the health protection condition so the HP con level and they've basically tied it directly to the new standards that the Centers for Disease Control use to rate risk in local communities all of you know that we closely track our five surrounding counties I'm going to name them off and I screw it up Howard Anna Rundle Montgomery Prince George and Baltimore County we track them very closely and right now all five of those counties are in low transmission risk that's why we rescinded the mask mandate that's what allowed us to rescind that mask mandate under the new DOD policy they've tied HP con level to the risk level in those five surrounding counties so technically right now we are in a position where I could recommend to the senior commander that we move from HP con Bravo to HP con alpha what does that mean if we were to move to HP con alpha we'd be able to remove many of the occupancy restrictions and we'd be able to reduce a number of our mitigation measure across the installation so there's probably a bunch of you either in the room or online right now they're going well why haven't we done that yet come on what are you waiting for sir well here's what I'm waiting for so while everyone's been celebrating not wearing masks and I know the the recent even the the transportation mask mandate has been knocked down we've continuing to watch the covert numbers in the surrounding area seen as we've seen a pattern over the last six weeks of increasing numbers of new cases in the surrounding area now they haven't yet gotten to the point where they've pushed the threshold for for the CDC level of low to medium but they're headed in that direction right now and unfortunately what we've seen over the past six weeks is the rate of increase is going up so all we saw like it started out with like a 1% increase and we saw a 5% increase last week we saw a 23% increase and so what what we're starting to see is we're starting to see a curve go like this rather than just a slow increase and that is what's caused me to pause seeking permission to move to HP con alpha most of you know I've made the I made made the commitment throughout my entire time here to move slow and deliberately to make sure that we're not jerking our population around with changing with massive changes in mitigation measures and that's my concern is that if we were to go to the senior commander today and go hey we want to move to HP con alpha here in just a couple weeks we'll end up having to go back to Bravo so what I'm looking for is I'm looking for a slowing or a leveling out of the increase in cases before I go back to the commander and and ask him to move to HP con alpha but in the interim what I've asked all the all the directors to do and all the managers to do is for our customer facing portions of the installation is to go back and refresh once again what measures we would take if we moved to HP con alpha and I anticipate making that decision here in the next in the next two weeks okay so dismiss has already got a mark on the wall of when they're gonna put together a decision brief and then we'll look and based on what we're seeing with the data at that time we'll go to the senior commander and make our recommendation of which way we should head so if you if I'm more than welcome or I'm more than willing to answer any questions you may have around that on the other thing that I will tell you that has occurred recently is that a for most of you it doesn't impact very much of our workforce but there but there was a suspension of the federal workforce vaccination mandate because it was challenged in a court and they put it up they put it in an injunction in the in court that injunction has subsequently been vacated by a court of appeals and so right now the right now OPM and subsequently DoD and subsequently army are working through the processes of what the vacate the vacating of that injunction means and how we're going to continue forward with not only the the vaccine mandate but the potential consequences for those that choose not to take the vaccine that don't have a protected exemption request in place so more to follow on that but that but that has occurred recently and as you know as those things happen at the federal level it takes a little while to trickle down through the through the different processes to tell us how we're moving out on that okay so that's COVID something that I know is near to dear on near and dear to many people's heart that's out there I'm going to go into my DPW block and I got team DPW up there to help me answer any questions but I know near and dear to everyone's heart two weeks ago or one week ago is my goodness or when are we turning on the air conditioning and you know then the temperatures tank this week and now if you had your air conditioning turned on or your heat turned off now everyone's like well why is the heat working okay so the vast majority of the installation has not converted over from heat to AC and as a deliberate decision based off of the standard that we typically use which is 10 consecutive days of temperatures above 50 degrees you were looking out at the weather predictions and we're continuing to see temperatures fluctuate wildly and so we don't intend to turn over the vast majority of the H back systems to heat until we start to cease or to air condition until we start to see consistent temperatures above 50 degrees there have been a handful of critical facilities that were turned over to AC already for example the centers the CDC's were turned over and the barracks were turned over and that's because and the reason why we chose to do that was because by the end of the month I know many of you heard this before but by the end of the month we anticipate seeing the award of our new base ops contract with the award of any new contract there's a lot of turbulence in that period and what we wanted to make sure is that's for the critical facilities like the CDC's the barracks places like that that we had the HVAC turnover complete and it wouldn't be disrupted by the change in the base ops contract the other thing that we're anticipating to see with the base ops contract is we're anticipating a number of our regular teammates that we work with over at Melwood may choose to depart to leave Melwood when the base ops contract turns over that's Melwood internal business and we don't have a lot to do with that but it may mean potential disruption as they bring in new personnel and we start to build relationships with them and as we both and as both sides of that contract kind of work out what this new contract means to for me this is a there's only I think this will be the third installation that's ever gone to this type of contract and we're kind we're a little bit of a pilot testbed so there's going to be some growing pains and I expect that there will be some challenges this summer into the fall as both sides kind of figure out how this new contract is going to work so I do ask for people's patience what I don't want you to do is to put off putting in work orders if you see something wrong in your facilities if you see something wrong in common areas if you see something you know you know the the the the first protection guys are going to hate me if you see something say something if you see something put in the work order okay we all have we all own a piece of this base and we all want to want this base to to represent you know the to be we all want as much pride in to have as much pride in this base as we have in our own work in our own work groups and part of that is the appearance and upkeep upkeep of the installation so please if you see something put in the work order even if we start to see this delay delays or disruption on work order execution we want to make sure those work orders are in so we're putting the demand on the new base ops contract did I miss anything up there on that dpw okay okay and the last thing I'm going to talk about from a dpw perspective just because it impacts so many of us is I have we've earmarked nearly one and a half million dollars for this spring summer and fall that we're putting into infrastructure repair so that means roads striping signs and traffic control and we've already begun doing that work many of you have probably already driven over the work and didn't even notice it because because the problem isn't there anymore but some of the things that we're going to be doing with this money is we're going to repay the strip of maips that basically goes from english street to rose street so right there in front of the commissary that whole area that's pretty rough that didn't get addressed when we did the maips 175 gate we're going to repay that completely in the interim if you've driven that recently you've noticed we went in and we we filled in all the potholes in that area and that's preparatory works for when we come through and we we repave that strip later on this year some other things that we're going to do you're going to see base wide restriping on roads and parking lots so for example when you go to the px now rather than just kind of guessing where the parking space is there'll actually be stripes to kind of guide you into where to park at the px you'll see that the px the shop at a number of different parking spaces and roads around the post dpw owes me a base wide signage upgrade before the end of july so you're going to see improvement you're going to see we're going to pull down some of the old aged signage around here we're going to replace it with new signs again because it's a lot of times the signage on an installation is the first impression that visitors and new people take away from we're going to upgrade to traffic lights so the traffic light at maips and carter and the traffic light and mccarthur ruffner those two right there in the town center that are really hard to see especially in the early morning hours those lights are going to get new led light upgrades to make them visible and make sure that that those are working we're putting in six new flashing crosswalks for pedestrian traffic that needs to cross maips north to south and we're redoing the sidewalk along maips from the dimfos schoolhouse area the exchange right there by dimfos school all the way out to cooper road so that those students that kind of beat that trail almost every day on the weekend and even some days during the week they're going to be able to do so safely on a sidewalk rather than kind of walking through the grass etc and then you're going to see additional handicap spaces we did the analysis of several parking lots around the installation we're going to be installing some additional handicap spaces for those parking lots that that need them that we've identified did i miss anything all the major ones okay so those are all planned upgrades in really in while i'm very proud of the of the money we've been able to dedicate to this effort and the work that dpw is do has already started what i'm actually even more proud of is we've established some systems and processes to say that we will see consistent investment in those areas over time so rather than waiting for things to get really really bad and that's having to throw a lot of money at it the way that we're doing the srm budget now is we've built out a special category for roads striping signage and every every year that category is going to get some funding so we're going to be able to once we get it up to a level that we're proud of we're going to be able to maintain it year over year and super proud of the work that dpw's been doing on that um i saw a question i i i took a peek at some of the questions coming in ahead of time and i saw one of the questions was someone had asked about a a an update on the reese road projects so um i'm going to be honest when we when we originally when we originally closed reese road we had an estimate of when we thought it was going to be reopened um and i deliberately told everyone don't tell anyone that estimate because we know there's going to be delays um you just i mean for any of you that have spent any time around the garrison you know milcon projects that are always delays with milcon projects and so i think from the beginning i i told everyone a plan for the summer of 23 for reese to be reopened and i think we're on track for the summer of 23 right now right yeah there have been some delays out at reese primarily we're evolving around meeting some of the requirements of the maryland department of environment which is okay the maryland department of environment as as challenging as they are to work with occasionally they're doing great work um in keeping the state of maryland uh green and clean and keeping the chesapeake bay clean and so uh we've been working through some issues with them or the our contractors been working through some issues with them but we are still on track for summer of 23 it's going to be a long and extended project but um um but everything's moving forward without any big issues right now um okay so happy to answer any questions on any of that stuff if you've got them coming up i'm gonna i've got a couple more subjects i want to touch on real briefly and then i'm going to turn it over to mr foley so um one of them is budget so for those folks that pay attention to the budget stuff hey congress passed our budget a couple months ago what are our numbers right um well we've just started getting some of the preliminary numbers from in common id s and we're working through them right now so i don't have a so what for you right now on what the budget's going to look like but what i am going to tell you is what i consistently tell you if you need something in your workplaces if you need something to get your job done um put in the request up through the system and we are we are spending money every month on stuff that people need to get their work done there is no spending freeze there is no i i don't want i don't want any of the sections or directorates or teams out there to be making to to be making um uh self limiting cuts hey we're not gonna we know that there's no money so we're not we need this but we're not going to put it in that's not true there is money if you need something if you need something to get your job done put in the request um all those go up uh through rm to mr foley and he's making decisions on a regular basis and spending money okay um i think we've spent i saw the number earlier today um i don't remember it off the top of my head but we've spent we've spent a good amount of money already this year and we are continuing to spend for those things that we need to spend i mean chief alvarez you've got what four police officers in the police academy right now okay that's money that we're spending right now because uh the police the police department needs those needs us to spend those money so they can get their job done so we will continue to spend money i don't need i don't want any of you worrying about that let us worry about that what i do and what i do not anticipate changing for the remainder this year is is um is how we manage money okay i think from what i'm seeing right now for the remainder of this year we're going to continue to have to centrally manage money at the headquarters um rather than distributing out budgets like we have done previously um i don't think i think we've managed to prove that we can do that successfully over the last couple years i'm interested in your feedback if there is concerns about how we've been doing that um and then the last thing i want to talk about right now is um is what we've been calling the pcs stance effort okay um you've heard me talk about it before um we did not have a great pcs season last year there were a lot of uh delays in soldiers receiving orders in transportation appointments um across the board there were a number of delays um last year was the busiest pcs season in in memory here for me um this year we it is um it is highly likely it is going to be 10 percent busier this year than it was last year okay so most of you know that we've made some deliberate efforts very early on to make sure that we approach this pcs season well prepared and uh between our teammates at dhr lrc uh housing and our kimbro teammates and our acs teammates working efmp i think we've done a good job of making sure that we are ready for the season that we've got some systems and processes in place in order to help inform chains of command in order for them to help us help their soldiers and we've done we've made some um a multitude of different uh process improvements and resource allocations to make sure that we're ready to handle an increased demand on those services that being said um this pcs season is going to be challenged by a number of factors not only the volume but also um there's some challenges in the uh in the transportation side of the house kind of outside the military's control based on economy hiring and uh being able to hire truck drivers etc etc um so we're we're i'm i i'm not in a position where i can promise every soldier an absolute smooth sale through the pcs season um but i am in the position where i can promise them that we're doing everything possible that we can control to make sure their their um their transition is smooth um so what does that mean for us so right now we're i'd say west correct me if i'm wrong i'd say right now we're in the beginning of the pcs season we're in the early early months is that right probably at the middle but there's two timelines that we're looking at those report dates okay okay so late beginning let's let's split the difference okay we're in the late beginnings of the pcs season um and right now what we've seen is we've seen that we can we're managing the flow pretty well right now through the four major processes um i will tell you from my perspective our ability to take care of soldiers and families that are pcs in the summer is our number one priority going into this season okay um and so what does that mean to everyone not involved in that effort that means that if we see challenges in that effort and we need to apply more resources to those areas that we will potentially be coming to other folks saying hey we need to temporarily reprioritize resources whether those are man hours whether those are are dollars whatever to support the pcs transition what it also means is as we all go about our daily businesses and we tend to um interact or crossover directorate lines or we have things that we need from other people is dhr lrc acs they're prioritizing pcs season so that means that some actions that you need need have them may be slowed or delayed because their priority is firmly fixed on taking care of those soldiers and families um alternatively um if you have things going on in your areas that will potentially impact that the their ability to do that we may have to delay those things in your areas in order to allow them to stay focused on the pcs season okay and so again really interesting any questions anyone may have on that um but i wanted just i wanted to make sure everyone understands where our priority is and that's taking care of those soldiers and families who are in transition over this over the season okay so with that want to turn it over to uh mr fully real quick i know he's got a few things he wants or he's got to cover and uh sir i was just going to mention we got a lot of information that just came from you mr foes by way to get some so i just wanted to remind everybody watching that if you have questions we're still taking them it's chad.t.jones.siv at army.mil send those in so we can get those up we're about halfway through the program now so just wanted to get that reminder out there and with that mr foley okay thanks sir thanks chad appreciate it very much and good morning to all on uh and our great team me so appreciate everyone that's here today and everyone that's viewing out there via uh via teams and media so just want to first footstomp um the the bosses the colonels uh point on on spending money we are absolutely spending money we will continue to spend money needed to function and to operate uh and i do review the monthly purchase requests that come up from y'all but i am doing a good deep dive review on them all and asking questions if i have questions on the justification for the purchase requirements so i i know and we are all collectively uh um working to ensure that we are using every dollar spending every dollar and gaining the maximum efficiency and effectiveness out of every dollar spent so i'm asking all of you you know the concepts of of making sure that if the purchase request is coming up it is 100 valid you know you need it you've done everything you can to maximize utility of the resources that you had they are completely used up and spent and now we need more and we will continue to uh of course support and spend the money that's needed so thanks to everyone for being fiscally responsible and using every dollar as effectively as we possibly can um the first task that the commander gave me when i reported in i'm almost the very first thing was he showed me the the leadership board i'm at the on the second floor there the garrison headquarter's building and you come up the stairs and he showed me all the vacancies and he said task number one deputy garrison commander is fill this board with pictures and so that has been my number one priority here for these first four or five months that i've been on the ground um we've made great progress collectively we continue to make great progress and in uh filling the board with new names and faces and i want to thank everyone that's helped me in this effort to get new key leaders uh on board and and we are continuing to do so so just a highlight of a few of the key leaders that have joined us key transitions that have taken place over the over the past few months first we brought on board now about month and a half two months ago miss ivy merrick as our new director of equal employment opportunity uh in the office so uh ivy i want to welcome you and thank you for joining us she comes to us from uh army test and evaluation command at abby improving ground very very uh highly recommended and a great uh long many years of experience in multiple army units in equal upper employment opportunity uh so ivy's making a great impact already and we're thankful for her being on the team uh right behind uh getting miss merrick on board was filling the resource management officer position after mr sundry man retired and uh daniel minor fortunately for all of us applied for the position and and was selected so congratulations and public recognition to daniel minor for now assuming uh the director role of our resource management office after working in our resource management office for a long long long time so yeah probably the easiest uh interview that uh that i had to go through and we'll have to go through in my tenure was was getting miss daniel uh hired into the director position so great news there uh next in line and and our most recent addition up in uh and the command group uh is miss megan rice megan is here with us um this afternoon in the middle row there she's taking over as the management support officer uh position in the front office uh working with miss lorraine um and i want to thank publicly miss lorraine kelly for covering down in our front office as a one woman show for uh um at least six months or so i guess since uh west came in and stole paul hathaway from from the boss and brought him to dhr and so megan is taking over what is arguably the second most powerful position on the garrison staff as the keeper of the commander's schedule and calendar but she also comes to us highly qualified from the army cp 29 fellowship program uh coming to us from for gordon most recently which was working as part of the fellowship program and so megan is joining us and she's going to be not just working the the boss's schedule but also helping us improve processes streamlining the garrison battle rhythm helping me reestablish a hiring board process and awards board processes for the for the installation as a whole so megan's going to be very busy here as she finishes getting on board here in the next few weeks taking over the role so thanks for joining us megan and um so next coming on board here in the in next monday reporting for duty is mr david engel who is taking over as the garrison safety officer from mr kirke factor kirke is on his retirement leave right now so i also want to publicly thank mr genel fergusson genel i hope you're out there listening in uh because genel has been doing humans work also here over the past two or three months because both aron and tony are other long standing gs 12 employees in the safety office decided that they were going to retire at the same time as kirke so i uh i applaud them for uh for their long years of service but genel's had to cover down she's done again just an awesome job covering for them we've got all three of those gso positions filled mr engel reports on monday and then we have both of those gs 12 positions also uh filled and we have uh entry and duty dates for both of those employees will be joining us here by the end of may um so big transition in the garrison safety office with mr genel holding down the port there right behind mr engel coming on board is our new uh information management officer working uh on the garrison command group with mr mic steel uh mr corrie cooly will be reporting on eight may to join mic so um no one's happier than mic steel to have a to have a a uh second person to help him out in all of the hard work that mic is doing uh as the imo to try to work our automation needs as best as we possibly can so it was a that was one of the key uh efforts that we needed to to work on to improve it services and in the installation was num number one get a second person to help with the effort to help mic in that effort and so we've accomplished that mr cool will be on board here soon um and then last but not least i want to recognize uh that the colonel and i have selected mr chris steel to serve as the um director of operations for the installation which is the new name that ids is given to the to the director of plans training mobilization security so uh chris is still going through the uh um uh our c pack is still working to extend chris his final job offer so we're in between tentative and final with mr deal but we're confident he's going to make it across the finish line here in the next uh the next few weeks and we'll get chris permanently into the director of operations position uh still working on three other key in uh key positions to fill the uh the garrison xo position also up in the command group um working to get that position here announced uh in the next few days uh and then also working on uh the pio director position to get that position announced to want to thank mr uh uh uh saw javed for covering down also as our acting director in pio for the past few months and um he's going to have to hold the fort down for a little while longer because we've permanently stolen mr thiel from pio to uh the director of operations um and of course the director of public works position so we're still working on that director position and um want to publicly thank lieutenant colonel solizano up in the back row up there for covering down on the dpw position for the past several months for i was doing a great job covering down so we are continuing to work hiring actions very hard it is a huge team effort to do so um collectively we have achieved an on-board strength now of of just over 90 percent which i understand the first time we've uh we've been able to achieve that in colonel nylons tenure here um and it's been quite a while so there is a big collective effort across the entire board um with all supervisors hiring managers um and in particular miss amber patronio who is our civilian personnel no question that amber gets a round of applause from us all because she helps us all in our hiring actions not just me not just the colonel um and amber does an absolute bang-up job as our civilian personnel uh liaison between all of us and cpac um translating all of the challenges with cpac rules and regulations when hiring so that those of us that are lay people in that can understand and and uh and use the system to its greatest effect so thanks amber for all of your hard work and everything you do um okay it support uh still continues to be a priority effort for uh for myself and for us all um and so just understand that we are continuing to work uh the challenges and the issues involved uh as i said first piece was to get get mike steel cloned so he has a second person to to help out all of the officers and directorates that uh that are do not have organic imos um so doing that the per life cycle purchase of a 100 new laptops the money has been paid for the laptops have been paid for money's been paid ids is centralizing the procurement action so that they've got the money they're they're moving out on the procurement action and so we're hopeful that uh computers will be will be on hand here by mid late summer um we're not doing the hiring action ourselves i mean the procurement action ourselves so we have a little bit less control but um but there's benefit in centralizing all the purchases at the higher level for all of the cost savings uh that can be reaped and such so um ids is moving out on that procurement new laptops will be here soon um so directors office uh office managers and directors please make sure that mr. steel has your prioritized list of within your organizations the highest priority of computers that you're going to need life-cycled positionally within your organizations so as we make the top level prioritization decisions we get your input we know what you need and what's highest priority for each of you um mike's been working very hard on re-announcing the copier contract uh for for the installation so that will be re-announced here soon by cycling our copy machines um and also ensuring that we are getting uh tools out in the most efficient and effective manner that we possibly can so that we all have the automation needed make sure your directorates have have installation have imos appointed um on orders as additional duties so make sure that you you know who your imo is for your local office or division or shop um they are your first point of contact for submission of work orders working with the neck um mike steel and mr. coolie will be kind of that next level of support but you have to rely first on your organic imos in your in your organization so make sure you know who they are work with them um and then raise up the chain if you have you have work order prioritization requirements that you don't feel are being are being worked on by the neck or you need emphasis on those the neck trust me is responsive to any uh any requests for prioritization that have made it up to my level when i reach out to the neck director and the neck leadership they respond quickly and they have been prioritizing so keep the information flow going do not accept do not accept it's been a month do not accept it's been longer than then you think it needs to um don't just sit back and try to find a work around yourself raise the issue up the chain so we can address it and we can work with neck leadership to prioritize our requirements so appreciate your effort in that and then last but not least and most importantly make sure you know what you need to be doing to properly care for your automation equipment that's assigned to you personally know how to properly care for your computer your workstation just like a soldier knows how to properly care for their assigned weapon how to keep a clean and functional at all times and most importantly when it's when it comes to our computers it's making sure that they're staying connected to the network every couple days so that they are receiving the patch pushes from the neck it's primarily when computers have been disconnected from the network for a longer period of time if they miss key patches then they then become subject to quarantine once they get back on so if you know collectively that you have a co-worker or an employee uh that's going to be uh that's going to be out of the net for an extended period of time for whatever reason make sure you have someone assigned to make sure that that laptop is being connected to the network anybody can stick a cat card in get it connected get it logged in and get it connected and so that it's pulling those patches so that when that person comes back from extended absence for whatever reason they don't come back to a quarantined workstation so helping ourselves is always going to be the the number one first line of effort to make sure that our computers and automation equipment get up and then it's just extending and making sure that leadership myself and Colonel I don't know are aware of your needs and we will do our absolute best to meet them last but not least and I'll turn it over here uh to the next event on the agenda is a reminder to all on evaluations dp map evaluations for civilian personnel so your fiscal year 23 appraisals um excuse me performance plans this is going to get me to get that terminology straight someday your 23 performance plans are due by 30 april for all so um supervisors make sure you are working to get performance elements uh in place in dp map with all of your employees uh make sure those elements are smart um with the emphasis on measurable so that those elements can be used to truly uh quantify performance at the end of the rating period uh so working on 23 performance plans first and then 22 appraisals the suspense for uh completion of all 22 appraisals is 1 june so we actually have to knock out the 23 plans first and then turn our attention to 22 appraisals and get them knocked out directors please put emphasis uh down at all levels within your organizations to make sure we get that accomplished and I'll be digging in on my first deep dive directorate by directorate status during command and staff next Tuesday morning or my staff call next Tuesday morning not the commander's command okay um that's my updates for now and I'll turn it back over to Chad here as our mc and we'll drive on with the agenda and we get to the fun part we do park go cobboys mr foley so whoa enjoy that so yes now we do get to to get to the uh of course seriously that goes deep sir seriously it's been a while right okay right um there are any other cowboy fans out there I just want to know who you are not that appraisals really okay uh the only one that matters all right so yes we are getting to the awards presentation I saw sorry major go first sorry major we're gonna go with the soldiers first and then we'll go to the length of service after so if pbc jakem jackson specialist seth branecki staff sergeant james travis specialist larry frances and specialist lial turner can please come up to the stage these five outstanding soldiers are getting recognized you know the the great thing about a live event is that we don't always get every what's your first name specialist poltie chance poltie all right these six outstanding service members are all receiving a certificate of appreciation for commitment for commitment to mission accomplishment and selfless service in support of the sixth annual four meet illuminating the darkness walk for suicide awareness and prevention on 24 september 2021 these soldiers efforts personally contributed to the successful completion of an installation wide celebration of life event their immediate engagement by providing support with the movement of heavy equipment was impeccable their stewardship and personal personifies the true spirit of a dedicated leader and their untiring effort reflects great credit upon themselves the 302nd signal battalion for george j mead and the united states army signed colonel christopher m nyland colonel infantry commanding hey uh real quick before i let these guys go um one thanks for listening to us um pontificate about the garrison and stuff there's i i always think it's funny usually uh usually anytime the army recognizes soldiers we always punish them for a little bit ahead of time and they either they have to show up for the rehearsal for the rehearsal for the award ceremony or something else we just never make it so it's like really smooth and easy to be recognized it's not about redstone travis yeah hey um i just want to talk about these guys real quick please stand at these guys um i just want to talk about these guys real quick because um this was this recognition was a long time coming this we were recognizing them for something that happened back in september if you remember the illuminating the darkness walk um it was a really awesome event um i i i'm trying to think i i mean i was out there for probably about four hours that night it was about right um but it was really awesome event that really um they really shed some positive light connects service members um from across all the services and uh and in these guys um volunteering their time to be out there for that event is really the kind of um the kind of behavior the kind of actions that's necessary to make those events really memorable and useful so uh gentleman like i said before one really thank you for for volunteering your time really thank you sir travis for your leadership um you know you know it does it's not lost on me that you've got a the couple couple of these gentlemen that we're specialists are now corporal that's usually indicative of their own nco leadership to see them continue to uh to succeed and perform like that and so these kind of volunteers are what what what i think makes the army great so really appreciate it gentlemen and thanks for putting up with us all right thanks well thank you yeah all right well we just got to recognize some younger servicemen now we get to recognize some older garrison folks but we'll start with the youngest people first so first up deputy chief jeremiah ervin is being recognized for 25 years of length of service service beginning in march 26 1997 when to go deputy chief go ahead and talk hello that's what i have to talk hello stay back apparently we're good to go joe all right so now we are in line for our question and answer segments sir oh perfect come on up gentlemen all right standing up on a stage all by my own with to get peppered by the tough questions everyone gets to join me sorry major i didn't plan this so don't uh you saw my so we're gonna have a sergeant major answer all the questions so we got through the heating in ac and we got through the status of reese road so i'll just start from the top uh sir you were mr foley you were talking about personnel changes today and that there's a lot of new leadership coming in and out throughout the garrison so what is leadership doing to ensure that our continuation of the mission and to make sure that we can still effectively communicate throughout the directorates yeah so so um thanks for that question couple a couple of points there communicating change down and in um this is obviously one mechanism one means uh to do that but um it's been raised to me a couple of times that we need to also find other means and mechanisms to make sure that we're you know we're not waiting for the next uh commander's town hall to put the information out on change so look at another communication mechanisms making sure that announcements are being put out you know through other means you know email chains communication through through staff calls and getting our battle with them uh adjusted all those efforts um we are looking at to make sure that we're communicating new leaders are announced as they take position not two months after you know the next commander's town hall so um got that we're also working on overhauling uh the new employee orientation program so that not just you know so leaders and all new employees are getting the full overview process back online west is doing a great job working on that we're going to be uh reestablishing new employee orientation briefings and um looking at late may for the for the first reiteration of the new neo uh process so working towards late may here for that but yeah out and clear we need to continue to improve all mechanisms of communicating change in leadership um down and in to the organization and we will yeah let me just add on to that just a little bit all good stuff and all things that are heading in the right direction right now um I will tell you a couple things I've been doing this for a few years now um you know just leading organizations for a few years now and I will tell you one consistent theme I've seen in every single organization that I've been a part of whether leading or a member of is uh everyone is our says communications is challenged and I don't say that because I'm looking for the easy out I say that because to illustrate the fact um that communicate that communicating well is um has to be a deliberate effort it is it is a challenge if you don't it's a challenge if you're not trying to make it happen every day and realistically I think I think back to some of the very first leadership lessons you learned as a young soldier the first time they put you in front of in charge of a team and you got three other people uh that are depending on you one of the very first things they teach you is as soon as the squad leader tells you anything you turn around and you tell your team that right I mean that's the number one rule so really the communication starts with every single supervisor out there every single supervisor fighting to get information to their team asking themselves who else needs to know about this and then every step above the every next step on the leadership uh rank it's those people doing the same thing for their direct reports um and uh I mean I will tell you that it's a consistent theme amongst the command group leadership as we split off into five different directions every day and we have our own separate sets of meetings we have regular forms where we come to come together and we level bubbles we're constantly um tying each other into emails or or back briefing each other on what goes on in meetings and stuff because having information is not power sharing that information is where real power comes from and what what makes that organization work well and it arms everyone with the information that they need in order to be successful in their job so um great question and uh and and I just I really gotta commend you know who else needs to know and supervisors fighting to get information down to their down to the people that they supervise those are the keys to that success there thank you sir and uh you know good news is I received about nine messages about the sound being out so people are watching perfect cool see something say something there it is okay this one is uh a two-parter uh came from basically a couple separate locations but first will there be a red white and blue celebration this year and do we have any word about national night out and that coming back to the fourth okay so let me let me hit the first one first I'm excited to tell everyone we are absolutely planning a 100 full execution of red white and blue days on the first of july which is the friday that four-day weekend um joe pottles and the dfmwr team tell me that we've already put out the contracts for the fireworks for bands for stage sound and light so everything is is moving in that direction I'm getting the first back brief on their concept plan tomorrow um and so yes right now we are planning moving full speed ahead on that the only caveat I'll put it out there and I still you know we may be done with COVID but COVID's not done with us is all of it is conditions dependent um but if the conditions are similar to what they are right now or better there's no issues we're going to go full speed ahead with uh red white and blue days now joe if we talked about national night out we haven't talked about it yet oh I'm sorry ds and they all left because we got done awarding them and so they all took off I see how it is okay Dave matzi you out there um we need to have a discussion about national night out all right so more to follow on that um we obviously we haven't done it since I've been here because of COVID but um thanks for bringing that one up and we'll take a look at it okay thank you sir uh next question do we still have to use the recovery review board for events so for now yes okay that that will be one of the things that we look at um if we make the decision to transition to hp con alpha that it'll likely be one of the systems we may be able to suspend at that time but right now you know I've said it to the residents multiple times but I want to make sure I say to the workforce is you know mass we're not the last mitigation measure to go away you know we still need to be thinking about you know there's still a number of mitigation measures in place everything from um from physical distancing hygiene um all those other mitigation measures capacity limits um etc and the recovery review board process is absolutely essential for us to ensure that those that those elements that are holding holding events uh in the garrison facilities or the garrison or utilizing garrison assets have a plan to ensure that mitigation measures are in place and that's really the purpose behind the recovery review board is making sure that we've got the right mitigations in place based on the conditions and yep right now we're in a low part where it's not very hard to meet that bar um but but it's it's a rheostat that has to be able to we have to be able to change based on conditions so um we're still we're still executing the recovery review board okay and I saved the the easiest one for the last from cys uh sirs why doesn't our technology work sir major he's a signal guy right okay hey so I'm sorry I don't mean to I don't I do not mean to make light of the frustrations that are in the workforce trust me I hear you loud and clear um and and um Mr. Foley talked about it a little bit ahead of time um I will tell you the questions I ask your leadership now about their technology challenges aren't what are the workarounds you've got in place or how are you making work because I know you are making it work I know your leadership's helping you make it work but that's not satisfactory to me and I know that's not satisfactory to you so the questions I'm asking them is what are you doing about it how many computers do you have how many active tickets do you have at um at the l-neck what's the age of those active tickets that's my expectation of your leadership on how closely they're tracking the technology issues that are occurring in the installation I will tell you my assessment and I'm no signal expert um and not to put you on a spot sorry I'm no signal expert but I think we are seeing a number of factors all come together that are causing a number of our automation issues first and foremost was um there were a number of decisions made over the past few years to take risk in life cycle updates to the computers when when the budget when the budget started really crunching us um we looked out and said where do we have to spend money and everyone's computers were working then and we said we don't have to spend money there so we're going to spend it someplace else um unfortunately what occurred in the intervening years is those computers continue to age the programs and the stuff that we use continue to be continued to be getting better and start to use more resources from our computers and now we've got older computers that are trying to run updated software that just break those computers and so that's what that's the importance of the life cycle buy that mr poley was talking about earlier and again just like we've done with roads and everything else we have programmed in life cycle buys from here all the way out through the fight app and that is something that we're going to be continuing to do regardless of the financial situation that's number one number two we've got great teammates over in the el neck unfortunately they find themselves in a situation where they had a contract uh expire um without the contract being renewed so that has placed them in a situation where they've got a significant manpower issue in the el neck in order to address our concerns the third complicating factor is we're getting ready to go through a hugely important cybersecurity inspection and like most of you know when when we go through a cyber school when you go through any sort of inspection what do you do you go back and you clean up and you make sure everything's straight well they're going back through the network and they're making sure everything's straight in the network and that clamp down on security is causing ripple effects as computers are getting kicked off the network more often we're getting more pushes to our computers which are straining already strained computers with more systems and processes that have to run on those computers and in the fourth and this is really outside of even the el next control is that you're seeing more patches and pushes coming down from above um from the highest echelons coming all the way down from dis up and occasionally we've seen where those systems and processes have conflicts that really break our computers um the perfect one was about four or five months ago when computers were just locking up because the the the the the system that they pushed down was trying to run two processes at the same time and those two processes had conflicts and so it took a while for the elnec to fix that so the last thing I want to say about this and and and I understand this is this is this is little solace um but in today's day and age especially as we see what's going on over in the ukraine especially as we see um third party cyber actors on both sides of the fight over there what it's important for each and every one of us to understand is every single one of our computers is literally the front line of cyber security um if one of our computers doesn't have the right patches and still has vulnerabilities if our printers still have firmware vulnerabilities those are all potential weaknesses and ways that people who want to work against our national interests can not only get into your computer or your printer but can get access to the entire do d network um so while it's little solace when you're trying to get the work done understand the all the security measures are done with good intent to protect not only you and your work this post in our work but the entire do d network and everything that the do d is doing um on a day-to-day basis um so not in a nutshell in a very long way a long winded way that's why I think we're having the technology issues we're having right now so that spinning wheel of death is really a spinning wheel of freedom the spinning wheel of freedom nice dad I love that the only other comment I'll make to add to that is the the the only other aspect that I can think of that the commander did not address was the other you know it was a a change that took place across the entire do d at light speed when we went to a the telework environment and then be the the immediate reaction to have to have to field a capability to support that which has resulted in the transition to to microsoft 365 and the microsoft 365 environment and you know what we are calling army 365 that transition took place at absolute light speed from from you know a normal fielding process that takes place you know across the entire do d and all services and and duty components were directed to assume you know to start using duty to survive within like a six month period of time from like start to finish and and the impacts of that the adjustments to that uh have a profound impact all the way down in particular the army as a as the largest service having the largest footprint of the of the doden the defense information infrastructure uh is just is huge and so all of the army chain from army simer command to netcom to seven signal command to the uh to 241 signal brigade to our local neck all of that in that chain is is reacting to that on a daily basis and trying to uh to adjust while at the same time defending the doden from 24 seven constant cyber attack and every time your computer has to reboot it's part of that defense and it's it's an impact of cyber warfare which is constant and which is the primary fundamental element of what this installation is is functioning as an operational platform of 21st century warfare yes yeah and hey so we i think we did have we did a fairly decent job of answering the question you asked which is why i think the question you really wanted to ask is when's it going to get better and i will tell you right now i don't know i think we are on the right track to seeing improvements between the computer by um elnex getting ready to execute their contracts so they should see more people on board um elnex just went recently went through a staff assistance visit um and they did pretty darn well um so they're so they have been making a bunch of great strides in the local area security um and then just like mr fully identified i think the the higher echelons are figuring out what works and what doesn't work in the 365 environments etc so i don't know when your you personally are going to see relief but i do think that um collectively organizationally we are moving in the right direction um and it will get better in time um i know that's probably not satisfactory but that's what i have right now oh thank you sir i did just get one question in you covered it a little bit earlier but maybe they missed but it's when are we going to fully open back up for employees to come back to work so many departments are far failing to take care of service members and their families the world has opened back up so why haven't we um so let me take the last part of that question first and then i'll take the rest of the question so um if you remember during the height of covid i talked about priorities and i've talked about how the local government and the federal government the department of defense all have our number one priority is to take care of our workforce take care of our customers take care of our people um but after that number one priority what you see quickly from local state government and uh and the do d is a deviation in our number two priorities number two priority generally for the local the state government is the economy making sure that everyone can earn a living um and that that we can all get the goods and services that are necessary for us to to have functioning lives that's their number two priority our number two priority in the military is to protect the mission to protect those critical national security missions that occur here on post every day so what that causes is that causes um as as things get better it causes us to move at a different speed than some of the local government does local government reopen fairly rapidly and you're seeing that you're seeing more more things reopen and even across the uh entire country the do d is generally moving at a slower pace uh because we don't have those pressures the economy and we still have to protect those national security measures uh those national security missions that being said um they just did recently publish new guidance um tying hp con levels to um to the local transmission levels right now our local transmission level is low however over the past six weeks those numbers have been increasing um you know it's the it's the what is it the ba2 i've lost track the ba2 variant that i think is coming through right now and we're seeing the impact the bad news the ba2 variant extremely transmissible the good news the ba2 variant is they're seeing fewer hospitalizations than ever before so over the next two weeks we're going to we've we've watched six weeks of increasing transmission in the surrounding community we're going to continue to watch it for another two weeks if we see that leveling off or tapering off or the rate of increased reducing we will likely um make the recommendation to the boss the senior commander that we moved to hp con alpha and when we moved to hp con alpha is when you're going to see um is when you'll see us be able to get back to full capacity or slightly less than full capacity in the workplace now that being said the first part of your question really queued in on me because you said that that service members are not getting services okay from the beginning i've told all the management directors that i set service levels and you man to what you're required to in order to meet those service requirements so if you as a as a member of a workforce down in a team don't think that you're able to deliver the service that's required of you that your boss required of you from your current situation you need to have a conversation with that manager you need to have a conversation with that supervisor uh because i want uh because we should be at a point where we are we are meeting the service level requirements that we need we're delivering the services to our service members that we need to deliver for a long period of time okay um and uh and if we're not doing that we need to know um and your leadership needs to know if you're not if you're unable to do that and we can look at adjustments and modifications on work schedules on work conditions on etc uh if we're not meeting that okay i think i hit every aspect of that question yeah absolutely did sir um that is the last question that i have from the audience um next on the schedule i had sir major uh sir major with some words if you're all right with that outstanding so here's some closing comments here back in every got it all right so first off team i just want to thank everybody for your dedication and commitment right so we just talked about a lot of different things that we've been you know i'm saying caring for the installation over over this this COVID period we talked about um staff sections being undermanned we got new hires on board and so forth the one thing i've noticed in this light and it's what month and a half since i've been here garrison is we're in one of the most thankless jobs on the installation right we're in that customer service job where all of our tenants all of our family members that reside on this installation has a high expectation of us right and they do have a i guess perception that we are immune to the thing to the community they there's a perception that we are immune to having hiring um challenges we are immune to having us any of our teammates catch COVID and so forth and we're not right we have the same challenges that every other organization on the installation have when we start talking about computers and so forth so i just want to thank you guys for being committed you know i'm saying to the team to to making sure that we are taking care of the service members uh and the tenants organizations on the installation that's that we can and then we continue to do that right with all of our challenges and and i know some of the teammates that we have in different sections are going through extraordinary things because of extreme you know i'm saying manning issues where you may have only one person in the shop that particular week you know and we understand that the one thing i ask of all of our teammates is if you have different ideas first off don't assume that your direct supervisor sees and knows everything within your section that that's going on um and so when you see something or you know you need that additional help say something bring it up you know i'm saying right in the ice comment right and it's not just for the other members on the installation it's for all of us right so if you if you may have said that or mentioned something to a individual and it seems like it may not be going anywhere guess what the commander and i see all ice comments i know i do i i comment on certain things but either way i just say we're here to help you guys right we're here to help the team our most important thing and when it comes to garrison are you our teammates if you're not taking care of how we're expecting you to take care of the force um and so again i'm here to help um and i just end with thank you for all you've done and all you will continue to do that so hey thanks for major and extremely well said i mean i haven't i probably haven't said this enough lately but um the only reason income works is because of the people i mean the simple fact of the matter is the only way income works is because of each and every one of you your dedication to taking care of soldiers your dedication to mission accomplishment your dedication to doing right uh by every member of this community and uh and and absolutely um our everyone up here's job real role is to equip you and empower you and to uh and to make sure that you have everything that you need in order to be able everything that we can afford to give you to make sure that you're capable of of executing the missions we ask of you um and you are at the point where you have more knowledge of how of your job and your job accomplishment than anyone else so i see the pao guys getting a little bit nervous because i think we're running up against time here so uh did you have anything that you want to finish out with no thank you all okay so the very last thing i'll tell you is um on monday if you are an aft or a naff employee you're going to be receiving a link for our command climate survey so if you remember the last one we did was about a year ago and so this is your opportunity to provide feedback um to the garrison leadership on how things are going in your directorates and uh and i would just ask um we we spent a lot of time thinking about this one because we we we are we're aware about a year ago we put you through a lot of surveys in a short period of time and there was a lot of survey fatigue so it's been about a year since we've done a survey of the of the workforce um i just just ask each to want every one of you to participate let your voice be heard write in comments you know uh answer those questions truthfully um you know you can tell us about the state of the garrison team better than anyone else and we want to hear it from you so please fill out the survey please encourage your workmates and your teammates to fill out the survey um and if you're a supervisor manager leader out there please encourage your team uh to fill out the survey so with that um kirks retirement yes next tuesday right next tuesday 10 30 at club me okay so we'll be saying goodbye to kirk vetcher next tuesday 10 30 at club mead everyone's invited i would really love to see us show off kirk in a in a manner commiserate with his service to this to this installation um he's been a he's been a styler member of this team for a very long time and uh and i'm looking forward to sending him off in style so um thank you very much um and the last thing that i will leave us with and close us with today is uh is is generally how i've started thank you thank you for everything you do thank you for bringing great teammates oh well we'll be back in june for the next commander's call other than that we will be sending the link we apologize for the sound issues but we'll be sending a link out to your directors to so that you can rewatch if necessary and please keep your questions coming we're we're answering questions all the time good night afternoon