LEADERSHIP CORNER
Army commander planning for large initiatives
Interviewed by David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Age: 47
Title: Commander, U.S. Army Garrison, Hawai'i; responsible for management of the 22 Army installations in the state, including Schofield Barracks, Fort Shafter, the Makua Military Reservation and the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.
High school: Brighton, Salt Lake City
College: Utah State University, bachelor's degree in finance. Brigham Young University, master of business administration.
Breakthrough job: Anderson joined the Army right out of college in 1979 and got his first assignment as a garrison commander in 1996 in Alaska.
Little-known fact: Anderson has a fist-sized chunk of American Airlines Flight 77 on his office bookshelf. He was in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, and kept a piece of the plane after he helped with the rescue operation. "I keep it here in my office to remind me and others of how important what we are doing is ... in the war on global terrorism. It makes this war very real and reminds us that it can be anywhere. It's not in a far away country."
Major challenge: Four large initiatives for the Army in Hawai'i are coming at the same time — sending 7,000 soldiers to Afghanistan next year in the 25th Infantry's largest deployment since a 1965 mission to Vietnam; preparing to transform an existing brigade into a quick-response Stryker brigade that can send thousands of troops to hot spots within 96 hours (initial cost before training begins: $690 million); renovating aging barracks at Schofield, Shafter and Wheeler by 2008 (cost: $645 million); and building or renovating 7,700 homes for soldiers on O'ahu in partnership with private companies (initial cost: $1.7 billion). "Any one of these by itself would be a big challenge. When you lay them all on top of each other, it's almost like the movie 'The Perfect Storm.' We've got all these things coming within only about an 18-month period."
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Q. How much impact does the Army have on Hawai'i's economy?
A. Over the course of any given year, it's about $2 billion impact, and that doesn't include our transformation, the residential community (new home construction) and the barracks upgrade. If you add all these up, that's $300 million a year on top of this. Almost $2.5 billion a year. That's civilian payroll, military payroll, Army retiree payment, contracted goods and services and construction and impact aid to the state, education and military assistance to safety and traffic.
Q. Last month the Army selected Napa, Calif.-based Actus Lend Lease to build, renovate and maintain 7,700 homes on O'ahu for 50 years for about $6.9 billion. What impact will that have?
A. It's the largest construction project in the history of the state. H-3 (Freeway) was about $1.3 billion. This one, the initial phase, the first seven or eight years, will be $1.7 billion. In terms of economic stimulus, it will have a huge impact. The revenues are about $10 million a month.
This isn't a boom or bust kind of a project like we've seen before. Once we build over the first seven or 10 years, then there will be maintenance of those and periodic minor and major renovations up until the 35- to 40-year mark, when we start the whole process over again.
For the soldiers, it will be like night and day. We'll go from small, cramped, dark, unattractive quarters to modern, larger, Hawaiian-type design. Our soldiers defend the American dream, and now they have an opportunity to live that dream.
Q. What will happen to the surrounding community when you ship 3,500 soldiers to Afghanistan in February and another 3,500 in August for six-month tours?
A. There will be that many paychecks not being spent in that time and that much barracks space being left empty. On the other hand, there will be that many families left behind. We are roughly 50 percent married and 50 percent single.
Q. The decision to base a Stryker brigade in Hawai'i is being reviewed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office. Are you moving forward on the basis that it is coming?
A. Secretary Rumsfeld, to my knowledge, has not made a final decision. We will not field anything until he has made that final decision. We have done preliminary planning ... and have started the environmental impact statement ... and we've also begun some of the design work for some of the initial projects.
We've been told to plan for it ... in anticipation that the secretary will give his final OK.
Q. How important is the Stryker brigade to the future of the Army?
A. The original term, coined by General (Eric) Shinseki, was "transformation of the Army," and this was a component of that. It's important to the Army that we continue down this path to transform ourselves from the old way of doing business to what the demands and the environment of the 21st century are going to be.
Q. In July, a "controlled burn" at the Makua Military Reservation got out of control and burned 2,500 acres. Since then there has been no live-fire training in Makua. Do you expect to resume training there?
A. Once we finish our internal investigation ... we will complete our consultation with the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service over the impact and what we need to do to ensure this kind of thing doesn't happen in the future. We're confident that we will be back to training in the very near future as we prepare our forces to deploy to Afghanistan.
Q. Before the first deployment in February?
A. Yes.
Q. Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund has challenged continuing live-fire training at Makua because it could harm endangered species. How do you respond to that?
A. We have had 22 live-fire exercises in the recent past that have had no fires. This fire was separate from training. We are very, very confident that training at Makua can be done without any damage. We intend to continue to train there.
Q. Why don't you use an alternative to Makua?
A With 10,000 soldiers having to go through rifle marksmanship and repetitive training ... we have to have ranges at Schofield Barracks, the Big Island and Makua.
Q. Given the small size of this state, do you tend to get more scrutiny of your activity in Hawai'i than you might in other states?
A. I'm not sure scrutiny is the right word. There is awareness of us, and part of it is the size and part of it is the environment. There is the threatened and endangered species business. There are more here in Hawai'i than probably all of the Mainland put together. There are more challenges. It's size; it's restrictions; it's a lot of things. It just means it is something we have to deal with.
We recognize that there are all those things. We are all in this together.
Correction: Col. David Anderson is commander of the U.S. Army Garrison, Hawai'i. A previous version of this profile incorrectly said he worked for another organization.
