Airport Business - 16

MILITARY PROCUREMENT
"The U.S. military, they have a
set of criteria that used to be Army
specifications, Navy specifications, Air
Force specifications. They came together
years ago and unified those, called them
the Unified Facilities Criteria. You need
to have a really good understanding of
that to really make sure that you can
design projects to meet the criteria and
requirements of the military."
As high security as airports are, the
security requirements of the military
dwarf them, adding another layer to
navigate when undertaking projects, said
Jason Fuehne, senior project manager at
Burns & McDonnell.
"It comes down to each
facility, whether it's an
Air Force base or a Naval
Facilities Engineering
Company (NAVFAC)
facility, meeting their
security requirements," said
Fuehne. "Each situation's a
little bit different. It's one
of those deals where you
have to know the facility
that you're working on,
what the requirements are in order to
have a successful project."
Often working closely with the FAA
on municipal airport projects, Fuehne
detailed the difference between working
with that federal agency and the military.
"In terms of funding, civilian versus
the DoD, the primary thing is that the
DoD has a lot less f lexibility, from the
standpoint of funding. It's set very early
on, whereas the FAA can kind of be a
little bit more f lexible in that aspect,"
Fuehne explained. "When we talk about
how to manage projects, the DoD has a
set of rules. No matter what branch of
the military you're working with, each
branch has its own overarching rules. If
you're talking about the civilian aspects
of air, mostly municipal, each airport
authority's going to have a way of
looking at things. It's a little bit different.
It changes your approach, changes how
you manage the project and how you
approach the design, the budgets, etc."
A recent project undertaken by
the firm was at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base (WPAFB) to evaluate and
rehabilitate one runway and three
taxiways, replacing nearly 3.5 million
square feet of paving.

The military lounge the Havasu
Air Center built for service
members visiting the FBO.
HAVASU AIR CENTER

"Wright-Patterson's going through a
number of different programs to update
their facilities, update their pavements.
With regards to the mission, from our
standpoint we were looking at redoing
some other taxiways and redoing one of
their runways to help them get to the
next level. They've got a big runway
project that's coming up, and we're
basically tasked with trying to upgrade
the adjacent pavements to make sure
they're ready when the big project comes.
The airfield has got some pavements out
there that have been there since World
War II started. We're trying to deal with
what they have and then bring it up to
the criteria for today," explained Fuehne.
Projects generally begin with
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
(USACE), which branches like the Air
Force partner with, who manage the
design, supervision and execution of
construction. Burn & McDonnell then
pursues architect-engineer (A-E) design
contracts with the USACE.
"Burns & McDonnell has these
A-E contracts with the major Federal
design/construction agents, whether it
be the Army, or the Air Force, or the
Navy. When they get a project, they

16 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / APRIL 2020

will issue a design task order. They'll
look at their cadre of A-E firms that
they have the ability to choose from.
They'll select which f irm based
on the best technical professional
qualifications, or has the capacity, or
both - a balance of capabilities and
qualifications as well as capacity - to
execute that design. Then we'll put our
proposal together and get our technical
staff onboard and move the project
forward," elaborated Zimmerman.
The WPAFB project required a near
constant line of communication with the
air base and its stakeholders, a norm for
DoD projects.
"The list of stakeholders is extremely
long. When you talk about a civilian
airfield, you're really talking with the
planning and engineering department,
and in some cases maybe the executives
of an airport. But the DoD team, you're
not working only with the USACE,
you're also working with, like the project
that we did at Wright-Patterson, it's the
Corps of Engineers, it's the Air Force. In
some cases, it's local municipalities that
are adjacent to the base when you're
talking about storm water and things
like that," said Fuehne. 
Read more at
www.AviationPros.com/21129072
http://www.AviationPros.com/21129072
Airport Business

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