DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. - Construction Representative Michele Mickle, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District's Tucson Resident Office, briefed District Commander Col. Kirk Gibbs, as he toured the future home of the Air Force Reserve's 306th Rescue Squadron Guardian Angel facility March 8.
"The facility will feature a parachute drying tower and areas for cleaning and packing parachutes," said Mickle. "It is also a squadron operations building with warehouse and maintenance areas for vehicles."
Guardian Angel is a human based weapon system comprised of Combat Rescue Officers, Pararescuemen, Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape Specialists, and uniquely trained support personnel.
"For us, the benefit of the horseshoe design, is that all departments have bay doors that open to the courtyard," said Chief Master Sgt. Chris Tellsworth, 306 RQS chief enlisted manager. "This direct line of communication arrangement will allow the Operations and Logistics sections to meet in a central location."
The project's design was done by Louisville District's in-house designers using best practice guidance from the squadron.
"This layout comes into play during the load-out phase for training, contingency and pre-deployment/deployment operations, whether it be directly into a container or vehicle," added Tellsworth. "The obvious benefit is a decrease of wasted time during the transitions which directly correlates to increased time training for our wartime mission."
Louisville received its nationwide Army Reserve mission in 1994 and the Air Force Reserve mission in 1999. The reserve program makes up more than 30 percent of the district's military workload.
"My teammates, Al Vogel, Allan De Leon and I are honored to bring state-of-the-art facilities online," said Mickle. "Anything we can do, to improve their safety in the field."