________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
a few different views on that, but it evolved back to a more direct link. We had no middle
person, no middle line in there, but yes, we now had a headquarters back with some
executing responsibilities, at least within the organization box. Now, the Real Estate Agency,
Europe, that was part of ISAE did not move back into Campbell Barracks. It's just that it
reported to the Chief of the Real Estate Division instead of the commander, ISAE.
We also still had to procure energy, and we still had to have people who were interested in
engineering and housing management. So, some of those kinds of things moved back, but
mostly spaces were saved that were distributed to the field.
Q:
Well, in more general terms, when you got there in the '78'79 time period, EUD as an
organization was just about four or five years old. What was your perspective on how EUD
was doing at that time, in general terms, with its mission?
A:
I thought EUD was struggling. It had some good people. It also had a lot of people taking
shots at it. Just as we felt that everybody blamed us at USAREUR because those high-
visibility national programs weren't getting executed as quickly as everyone thought they
should be, EUD was at the focus of all of the shots on the long-range security program that
you mentioned before. They were understaffed to address things. We had many new rules,
like you had to have 35 percent design by 1 January before a project could make the year's
MCA program. They worked hard, applied themselves to the program, and worked the
issues. I know they had a big program to recruit back in the States to get people to come over.
They were sending out teams from EUD to go back and visit our divisions and districts.
These efforts were starting to show promise; people were arriving. I remember Joe Higgs
arrived that year to take over the Engineering Division. I thought that was really a break
because he brought concepts of how to run things and project management into the
Engineering Division.
I give that example because I was made aware of the new rule that you had to have
35 percent by 1 January or it didn't make the program. As the Chief of Construction,
Headquarters, USAREUR, I called my supporting USACE engineer at EUD and said, "Send
me a team to tell me where you are with all our projects because I want to be assured that you
are going to make 35 percent. I don't want to lose a single project in our program because
they're not at 35 percent by 1 January."
A couple of young folks came down from EUD and we compared lists and we went down 30
projects. I think they were going to make 35 percent on just one or two of them. This was
going to be a terrible blow to the program if we couldn't get some relief. So, I started
marching down the projects one at a time, saying, "Why can't we do this? You're just going
to site adapt, you've got plans, why don't you get it out on the street and do this and that and
everything else and by this time you'll be at 35 percent. You've really got to get moving. I
mean, you can't wait two more months to do that. On this one you can check it off, you're
going to be at 35 percent."
I was really concerned that the understanding of necessity and how to "get it done" wasn't
there. I put a phone call in to Drake Wilson and he understood. Joe Higgs came in at that
243
Previous Page
