ANDREWS AFB, Md. –
The Air Force and Navy entered the initial operational capability phase Saturday, transferring mission support activities from Naval Air Facility Washington to the 316th Wing.
The gradual transfer will be complete on Oct. 1.
Andrews is one of 12 locations worldwide where DOD sites are forming joint bases.
The Joint Basing initiative is driven by the Base Realignment and Closure Round in 2005 and is designed to combine current infrastructure into one maximizing war fighting capability and efficiency, while saving taxpayer dollars.
During the next eight months, installation support for the Air Force and NAFW will be combined, while mission operations continue independently without impact.
Most changes will be invisible as Andrews already provides a significant amount of installation support to the Navy.
One obvious change is the closing of NAF Operations in April when they merge with Andrews. In addition, the Navy will now look to the Air Force to provide support in areas such as transportation, building sustainment, contracting, Morale, Welfare and Readiness, lodging, environmental, installation safety, law enforcement, and unaccompanied housing.
Extensive planning and analysis started over two years ago. Air Force and Navy leaders and functional working groups met regularly to develop a Memoran-dum of Agreement to facilitate the support function transfer.
"The teamwork bet-ween the Navy and Air Force has been outstanding, which greatly helped meet the DOD's short suspense for a finished MOA," said Glenn Garrison, Andrews, Joint Base lead.
The MOA requires the Air Force to deliver support to a new DOD base operating support standards that are applied to all Joint Bases. The standards, know as Common Output Level Stan-dards, will drive the installation support funding and manpower requirements. In addition, Navy civilian positions associated with installation support will transfer to the AF or in the case of dorm management the Navy will embed military members.
The 316th Wing also earns 79 new civilian positions that will be added throughout the wing.
Joint Base Andrews-Naval Air Facility will be formally stood up Oct. 1 and the 316th Wing commander will become the Joint Base commander. A ceremony to commemorate the Full Operational Cap-ability of the new joint base will take place in the fall.