NAVFAC Midwest Finishes Decade-Long Boot Camp Modernization

By Bill Couch, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Midwest Public Affairs

GREAT LAKES, Ill. (NNS) -- The Navy officially accepted its completely overhauled boot camp during a ceremony in Great Lakes, Ill., July 14, after more than a decade of constant demolition and construction zones.

Leaders from Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), Recruit Training Command (RTC), Naval Station Great Lakes, Navy Region Midwest and Naval Service Training Command, along with more than 200 attendees, including representatives of more than a dozen design and construction companies who had been involved in the 12-year, $770-million program, celebrated the milestone.

"Today is a special day for many of us who have supported and participated in this significant undertaking and a chance to say thank you for all you've accomplished as a team," said guest speaker Rear Adm. Kevin Slates, commander of NAVFAC Atlantic. "It's also a milestone event where we transition from a recruit training vision that was created nearly two decades ago to actual facilities that proudly serve as the training platform for the best recruits our country has to offer."

Following the Navy's consolidation in the mid-1990s of its basic training facilities into RTC Great Lakes, the Navy began a complete rebuilding of boot camp infrastructure to better meet the training requirements of 21st-century Sailors.

Beginning in 1998, the Navy built 13 new barracks - each with dining and computer classroom areas - three new drill halls and other new training facilities, steadily replacing 1950s-era buildings with state-of-the-art facilities for training, feeding and housing new recruits during their eight-week indoctrination into Navy life.

Each new barracks can accommodate 12 recruit divisions of up to 88 recruits each. These 172,000-square-foot buildings support a much more efficient training day for recruits by reducing their transit time between classes, meals and other activities.

"This phenomenal recapitalization has allowed us to dramatically change the way that we train men and women to become Sailors," said Capt. John Peterson, commanding officer of RTC. "The recapitalization has allowed us not only to be more efficient, but also to do much more in the time we have the recruits under our charge."

"To the Naval Facilities Engineering Command team, well done, shipmates," added Peterson. "Contractor or government, small or large, senior or junior, we, today's custodians of the recruit training mission, owe you a great debt. Thank you each for your superb teamwork - your execution of a vision that is RTC today."

NAVFAC Midwest Commanding Officer Capt. Jake Washington, in turn, praised the men and women of RTC, saying, "This magnificent training complex we have today could not have come together so successfully if not for the patience and flexibility of RTC, working around the barriers and the cones, putting up with the noise, dust and the many other challenges we asked your team to endure so that this day might come."

Washington, who also helped start the recapitalization program in 1998 when he was then a lieutenant commander on the staff of Engineering Field Activity Midwest, also noted his personal connection to the construction program.

"One of the reasons I wanted to return to Great Lakes was to see finished what was started back then," said Washington. "Between then and now stretches a chain of engineer custody I am honored to be a part of."

Washington also noted how then-Naval Training Center Great Lakes evolved over the intervening years, with the creation of Naval Service Training Command to oversee virtually all of the Navy's accessions training, the stand-up of Navy Region Midwest as Navy Installations Command's land owner in the Midwest and now-Naval Station Great Lakes providing support services for Great Lakes' tenant commands, including RTC.

"Organizationally, a lot has changed, NAVFAC notwithstanding," said Washington. "But there has been one constant, and it is the reason why we have done what we have done - and why we come to work every day at Great Lakes - to make civilians into U.s. Sailors.

They deserve our collective best, and in this effort, we can all be justifiably proud that we have given it to them," continued Washington.