Civil engineer group earns Air Force honors

  • Published
  • By Luke Waack
  • JBER PAO
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The 673d Civil Engineering Group -- made up of the 673d Civil Engineering Squadron and the 773d Civil Engineering Squadron -- has been recognized as the runner up in the Air Force Civil Engineer Large Unit of the Year competition.

According to the 673d Air Base Wing Web page, more than 900 military and civilian members maintain an $11.4B infrastructure and provide property maintenance and construction, support utilities, fire and disaster protection, explosive ordnance disposal, housing services, planning.

The 673d CEG also provides environmental management for over 84,000 acres of property while supporting a total Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson population of 35,000, to include over 15,000 joint warriors.

"I'm extremely proud of the accomplishments of the 673d CEG, our individual and team award winners," said Col. Russell Hula, 673d CEG commander, "and for the accomplishments of the previous three CES in winning the 2010 PACAF Curtin Award (Best CE Unit), and just recently being announced as the Air Force Curtin Award-Runner up."

The group met and overcame many challenges in 2010, Hula said.

"This has been a tremendously challenging year, from joint base integration, a massive construction program, to recovery actions for the tragic C-17 crash, all simultaneously while our civil engineers are one of the top 6 stressed career fields in the Air Force due to our deployed ops (operations) tempo," Hula said. "Winning this award under these types of challenges makes it very rewarding to all of our members."

The environmental team played a big part in earning recognition for the unit, the group commander said.

"Our environmental team pretty much swept all of their award categories, which was not surprising, (our team) has consistently had one of the best environmental and wildlife conservation programs in the Air Force," Hula said.

The 673d CES and its team members took seven awards at the PACAF level.
"We strive to be number one," said Lt. Col. John Norton, 673d Civil Engineering Squadron commander, "but we're also honored to be named number two in the Air Force."

The 673d CES contributed to the 673d CEG winning the PACAF Large Unit of the Year (Curtin Award), and took many awards in Pacific Air Forces competition.

In competition with nine other bases, the 673d CES won the PACAF Design Award for the Professional Military Education Center building; 1st Lt. Dan Blomberg won the Lupia Award for Civil Engineer Officer of the Year and Jon Scudder won Cultural Resources Manager of the Year.

The unit also took PACAF honors for the Cultural Resources Program of the Year; Natural Resources Program of the Year; Environmental Sustainability Program of the Year and the Environmental Sustainability Team Award.

These awards are a testament to the unit's success in taking care of the community, Norton said.

"Civil engineers take pride in our support to the mission, an essential part of which is maintaining and constantly improving quality of life for the entire DoD community here on JBER," Norton said.

"We work daily on behalf of all JBER units to provide world class infrastructure and facilities, environmental stewardship, housing, fire protection, explosive ordnance disposal support to the Arctic Warriors of America's premier Joint Base."

It wasn't just the 673d CES that did the work to win, Norton said.

"There was a team effort involved in this recognition that included not just civil engineers, but our many mission partners across JBER," Norton said.