GSA REAL ESTATE CONSOLIDATION ESTIMATED TO SAVE $70 MILLION

FROM:  GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION 

GSA to Shrink Real Estate Footprint and Cut Costs with $70 Million Consolidation Project

How we’ll do it

When it comes to government efficiency and sustainability, GSA is leading the way by reducing the federal government’s carbon and real estate footprints. In addition to its innovative Total Workplace program and ongoing property disposal efforts, GSA has identified 19 projects across the country where the agency will work with other federal agencies to consolidate their offices into a federally owned space. This consolidation effort will not only reduce costs by eliminating multiple leases, but also scale back the federal government’s energy and water consumption. GSA is also revolutionizing workplace efficiency by creating open work spaces which eliminate the traditional four-walled office and provide staff the flexibility to work wherever their team is located. This encourages creative collaboration and increased productivity with less square footage.

Why we do it

GSA is the country’s largest landlord, providing workspace for more than a million federal workers who work in both federally-owned and leased space, that makes up more than 9,000 properties or 377.9 million square feet of workspace. As dedicated stewards of the public trust and the environment, GSA is committed to assisting federal agencies in reducing their carbon footprint and employing cost-effective green building strategies.

This investment will save federal agencies $17 million in annual rent payments and reduce the federal footprint by 507,000 rentable square feet, plus reduce the government’s leasing costs by more than $38 million.
GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini said:

“As public servants we have a responsibility to serve the American people as effectively and efficiently as possible. By consolidating these locations we are not just eliminating redundant rents and space, but also encouraging collaboration among  government workers by creating open workspace. We’re ushering in a new day for office space throughout the federal government.”

Consolidation project list

Project Name Amount Allocated (in $)
Jacob K. Javits Federal Building & 201 Varick Street – NYC 5,000,000
George H. Fallon Federal Building – Baltimore, MD 621,000
Norfolk Federal Building - Norfolk, VA 1,811,000
Peachtree Summit – Atlanta, GA 509,000
Schiller Park – Vernon Hills, IL 520,000
Austin Federal Courthouse – Austin, TX 14,416,000
Wallace F. Bennett Federal Office Building – Salt Lake City, UT 4,400,000
Evo A. DeConcini Courthouse – Tucson, AZ 3,804,000
300 North Los Angeles - Los Angeles, CA 5,000,000
Guarantee Savings Building – Fresno, CA 155,000
Chet Holifield Federal Building – Laguna Niguel, CA 674,000
Ronald Dellums – Oakland, CA 1,470,000
Edward J. Schwartz FB & CH – San Diego, CA (2 projects) 5,020,000
U.S. Trustees     2,733,000
Federal Protective Service     2,287,000
911 Federal Building – Portland, OR 2,148,000
Bank of America Fifth Ave & Jackson FB – Seattle, WA 1,143,000
Hubert H. Humphrey Building – Washington, DC 6,740,000
Mary E. Switzer Building, 330 C Street SW – Washington, DC 10,384,000
7980 Science Applications Court – Vienna, VA 3,569,000
Total $67,384,000

AFRICA COMMAND REPOSITIONS FORCES

U.S. soldiers and East Africa Response Force soldiers depart a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft in Juba, Sudan, Dec. 18, 2013. The U.S. State Department requested the assistance of U.S. military forces in evacuating personnel from the embassy in Juba to Nairobi, Kenya, amid political and ethnic violence in South Sudan. DOD photo by Tech. Sgt. Micah Theurich, U.S. Air Force  

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT  
Africa Command Repositions Forces to Increase Flexibility
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23, 2013 – The commander of U.S. Africa Command is repositioning forces in East Africa in an effort to attain maximum flexibility to respond to State Department requests, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters here today.

Warren also told reporters that three of the four U.S. personnel who were wounded Dec. 21 when they attempted to evacuate Americans from the town of Bor, South Sudan, will be evacuated to Landstuhl Army Hospital in Germany. The fourth will be evacuated when his condition stabilizes.

The four injured U.S. service members are currently in a hospital in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. They were hit by small-arms fire when their Osprey aircraft attempted to land in Bor.

Based on the current situation in South Sudan, Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the commander of Africom, moved elements from the Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response from Moron, Spain, to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.

“By positioning these forces forward, we are able to more quickly respond to crisis in the region, if required,” a defense official said. The Djiboutian government fully agrees with the movement.

The moves are precautionary, and there is risk associated with this or any other military operation, the colonel said.

“As everyone would expect, the combatant commander is repositioning forces in the region in an effort to give himself the maximum flexibility to respond to any follow-on request from the Department of State,” Warren said.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has been following the situation very closely, and is in nearly continuous communication with the combatant commander, the official said.

There has been no discussion about the U.S. military helping reposition United Nations forces, Warren said.

Defense Department and other government contracted aircraft have evacuated more than 300 personnel out of South Sudan’s capital of Juba including about 100 yesterday.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE HAGEL'S STATEMENT ON BUDGET AGREEMENT

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 
Statement by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Budget Agreement

Last night, I spoke with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray to thank them for their work to achieve a bipartisan budget agreement. The deal they reached reduces the impact of sequestration cuts and provides the Department of Defense with greater budget certainty, which is important for us to be able to plan effectively. While this agreement doesn't solve every budget problem facing DoD, it will help address our military readiness challenge by restoring funding for training and procurement - especially in fiscal year 2014.

The Department of Defense has been warning about the impact of sequestration's steep, deep, and abrupt cuts for months, and I'm pleased that Congress has been willing to work in a bipartisan manner to limit its worst impacts. I urge Congress to promptly act on a balanced agreement.

Tough decisions will still be necessary going forward in order to achieve the right balance in military capacity, capabilities, and readiness. The Department of Defense will need more flexibility, and we will continue to look to Congress as a vital partner in our efforts to realign priorities and address needed reforms in areas like military compensation in order to maximize our military's fighting strength.

DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY DIRECTOR HIGHLIGHTS FUTURE TRENDS

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 
Intelligence Agency Director Discusses Roadmap for Future
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2013 - In a global environment where crises such as the one occurring in Syria become sudden priorities and where fiscal, cyber and geopolitical disasters simmer on the world's back burners, intelligence is a critical guarantor of U.S. national security, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency said here last week.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn spoke to those attending a panel on intelligence community challenges and priorities at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Summit. INSA is a nonprofit public-private organization whose members include current and former high-ranking intelligence, military and government agency leaders, analysts and experts.

"In light of future trends ... and in light of the absolutely critical role of intelligence for our national security, we must do the following," Flynn said. "We must adjust our operating model to refocus on our mission and our unique strengths. We must continually emphasize burden sharing, partnerships and integration. And we must instill flexibility and agility to respond to crises. That is our new normal."

Flynn said these undertakings must be woven into the fabric and culture of DIA and everything it does.

"At DIA," he said, "we have already laid the groundwork for that future."

The agency recently reorganized into a centers-based model that networks and integrates talent from across the agency -- analysts, collectors, collections managers, technicians, technical experts, targeteers -- and brings them together as one team to solve critical problems, Flynn said, describing the model as a "critical personal lesson that I learned from the past decade of war."

At the core of the centers are the following three qualities, the general explained.

-- A fusion of analysis and collection, which, based on experience from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is the most successful model for intelligence production and support;

-- Flexibility, so team members no longer have to contend with organizational boundaries; and

-- Integration, as each center has interagency embeds from across the intelligence community and tight relationships with combatant commands and service intelligence centers.

"That's not the model that we had coming into the last decade of war," he said.

Today, Flynn said, DIA's Middle East-Africa Regional Center, in close coordination with U.S. Central Command, the Joint Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the White House, is handling the DIA assessments of the Syria crisis.

"And I have the utmost faith that they have the right talent, the right tools and the right resources to get the job done," he said.

The agency also has pushed more of its intelligence professionals -- collectors and analysts -- into the field to "thicken the edges," the general said, ensuring that they and the agency have an appreciation and working understanding of developments across the globe.

"My constant drumbeat is to make the edge the center," Flynn said. "The unique perspective of these officers in the field often made the crucial difference in our support to policymakers during the [al-Qaida] threats in Yemen, operations in Mali, instability in Egypt and certainly growing unrest in Syria."

Recently, he added, feedback from an intelligence officer in a particular country went directly to the secretary of defense in advance of his talks to allies about instability in the Middle East.

As the United States finds itself with new national security crossroads to navigate, the general observed, DIA is focused on being in the right place at the right time.

Flynn said DIA's role in the U.S. government's response to the crisis in Syria has been intense and continuous from the beginning.

"In our agency we have over 6,000 civilians who have served in a combat environment in the last decade," he said. "That's pretty extraordinary. Those that served in Iraq and focused on ... al-Qaida, ... but certainly on the Middle East militaries and the kinds of capabilities they have. They're worth their weight in gold right now."

The Defense Intelligence Agency is deeply involved as a member of the community, the general added. DIA, he said, is part of "an integrated team supporting Central Command, European Command, Africa Command, certainly Cyber Command. And we also support the military planning that's going on at every level up to and including the Joint Staff."

DIA also is involved on the policy side, he said.

"We have provided what I would call the nation's experts on chemical warfare to the State Department. They are today helping Secretary [John F.] Kerry negotiate that issue. They were called on a dime, and the individual I'm thinking about in this case absolutely jumped right into it," Flynn said.

The crisis in Syria shows how rapidly a challenge from the list of global threats can bubble up to the surface and completely change the nation's course and commitment of resources, the general said.

Another such issue on the horizon, he noted, could be the tactical use of cyberattacks for strategic purposes.

"We are all aware of the cyber threat," Flynn said.

Summit attendees spent a significant part of the afternoon talking about a range of cybersecurity topics, he said, from rogue hackers to insider threats to state-sponsored actors.

In May, the general added, appropriately at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in no uncertain terms that the destructive potential of cyberattacks has become the national security challenge of the age.

"While we grow ever more worried about threats to infrastructure in our increasingly wired society, DIA is increasingly focused on threats that can degrade our military capabilities," Flynn said.

Militarized cyber weapons are a new world for DIA, he added, one in which the agency needs to understand the doctrine and intent of cyber foes to best manage the risk such enemies pose to the nation.

"DIA has been the all-source leader on enemy doctrine and discipline, order-of-battle research and offensive capabilities for more than 50 years," Flynn said.

The agency is working hard with its intelligence community partners, he added, "to understand the security challenges that we face in our era."