Tyndall Air Force Base makes strides in the rebuilding project

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - Bulldozers, construction, and a whole lot of improvements, are all things you can see as Tyndall Air Force Base strives to be the base of the future.

Tuesday, Tyndall officials met to discuss details of those future plans.

“We can see the construction, especially zone one which is our F35 campus,” Judy Biddle, National Disaster Recovery Execution Branch Chief, said. “It will allow us to go in increments of six months and look at the construction, the logistics, any security concerns and then mitigate those risks as we go forward. "

This special meeting is called the Rehearsal of Concept, or ROC drill for short.

The drill allowed officials to look at a timeline of events at various stages.

“We’ve got a lot of people here in the room which is good,” Col. Rob Bartlow, Chief of the Natural Disaster Recovery Division with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, said. “We’re stepping our way through construction by timeline, by phase. So that people understand what’s going to be happening and when over the next several months and years.”

With this project being so massive, outlining the timeline of the rebuild is key

“You can’t overstate the importance of planning, Col. Bartlow said. “There’s a lot of integration. There’s the missions going on here, going to be a lot of contractors doing the construction. A lot of people occupying a very small space doing a lot of very important work.”

The nearly $5 billion rebuilding project isn’t just for Tyndall, it’s being used as a pioneer for all military branches.

“We’re kind of a trailblazer to make sure that we’re finding what’s working well for us here, what processes work well,” First Lt. Nicholas Cap, Innovation Element Chief at the Natural Disaster Recovery Division, said. “And that can be a greater lesson and greater appeal to the rest of the military, not just the Air Force as a whole.”

Building the base of the future, one step at a time.