Enaineer Memoirs
came back with a fairly comfortable feeling that the division would get the job done. I am sure
history will give it good grades.
Q ..
What other initiatives did the Chief ask you to work on?
A
Soon after I became deputy, General Gribble asked me to set up a command management
program similar to the one I had installed in Civil Works. So the process was started, and that
was fortunate because when I moved up to Chief, the year of preparation made it much easier
pursue my goals for the
General Gribble also established a philosophy of "customer satisfaction" and often brought
up the subject to his principals when we would go to the various directorates for the weekly
brief updates. Today we hear customer satisfaction all the time in the public arena. General
Gribble was a forerunner of that particular concept and all the implications that go with it.
General Gribble from 1973 to 1976 was a splendid Chief of Engineers. Some people felt his
experience in the Corps was limited, but he had been district engineer in Alaska and division
engineer in the North Central Division. Also, he was very intelligent, exceptionally good with
people, andunderstood the Army and the Corps I felt it was the Army's shortsightedness that
they didn't give him command of the Army Materiel Command and a fourth star.
While I was director of Civil Works, he set up the Research and Development Directorate and
put all the laboratories under the chief of Research and Development. I had to give up the
Waterways Experiment Station and some others. I certainly didn't want to give up anything,
especially the labs, but I must say the move was correct and has worked out fine.
Based on General Cooper's advice and help in 1974, General Gribble pushed hard to establish
the Assistant Chief of Engineers' [ACE] position with an office in the Pentagon. Next,
military housing and all related staff functions were consolidated under the new ACE. Bill
Gribble was on target and put in place the capability for the Corps of Engineers to become the
engineer for the Army in every way. OCE could handle the entire real property function from
the cradle to grave. This became an objective which impacted on my decisions later as Chief
of Engineers.
Having the ACE's shop allowed the Chief of Engineers to do the staff work for the Chief of
Staff more responsively and more efficiently. General Cooper was the first Assistant Chief
of Engineers. The whole idea made eminent sense, and the Army staff understood his plan.
Q ..
There had been a Directorate of Facilities Engineering for a while.
A
General Gribble's idea also. The importance of facility maintenance to the Army warranted
a separate staff element to manage this program. The Facilities Engineering Directorate
was
removed the function from the Construction Directorate. Brigadier General Walt
the first and only director of Facilities Engineering. He started the "first annual facilities
engineers conference" in Chicago. When I asked him about the title, he said, "We had to have
the first annual so we can have the second annual."
Walter was a dynamic, enthusiastic, and effective director.
As deputy I began to realize there were many operational matters in OCE which should be
done in the field. The headquarters people needed to spend their time making policy, getting
decisions so the field could perform operations. So you'll find later that one of my first
objectives was to get the Corps out of the operations business.
As we will cover later I expect, out of that came the Facilities Engineering Support Activity
and the Water Resources Support Center, all at Belvoir.
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