Maj. Gen. William T. Lord greets Staff Sgt. Christopher Newbill, Senior Airman Sean Manning, and Airmen 1st Class Taji Eggleston and Brenden Maloy May 1 at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. The Airmen helped install the Air Force's newest Area Processing Center there. The APC consolidates e-mail, file sharing and many other data and information services for more than 160,000 Air Force workers. General Lord is the Air Force Cyber Command provisional commander.
A new Area Processing Center that enables the Air Force to consolidate e-mail, Web, file-sharing and other information services for more than 160,000 active-duty Air Force, contractors, civilians and Air National Guardsmen into one location opened May 1 at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.
This is a regional data center that will house core Air Force enterprise services and is where data processing and information is stored. It is one of several centers that is being stood up under the Air Force's consolidation efforts.
Col. Kim Johnson, the 844th Communications Group commander, welcomed Maj. Gen. William T. Lord, commander of the Air Force Cyber Command provisional, who conducted the official ribbon cutting.
“It's apparent from this amazing facility that a total team effort was used in making this APC a reality,“ he said. “The Air Force District of Washington led the way for this first-of-its-kind facility, and we recognize that it is an essential piece in the Air Force transformation of its network and the (Air Force Network Operations) construct.“
The Andrews APC is the result of a shared effort between the Air Force District of Washington, Air Combat Command, AFCYBER (P), HQ Air Force, Air Force Communications Agency and countless others. In addition, numerous contractors, vendors and civilians worked side by side with Air Force personnel to overcome challenges with facility upgrades, power, cooling and network infrastructure phases of the project.
The Andrews APC will have a small footprint of personnel on site to provide day-to-day touch maintenance, but most activities will be remotely managed by Enterprise Service Units located at other locations. This allows the Air Force to provide standardized services to a large contingent of users while at the same time realizing manpower savings through consolidation.
“There are times when you are a part of history; this is one of those times. The work being done here will shape the Air Force of the future,“ said General Lord, as he discussed the facility with the Airmen responsible for putting the pieces together.
The main team at the center of the build included 1st Lt. Nathaniel Edwards, Shawn Walton, Master Sgts. Keith Dickman and Ronald Southern, Staff Sgt. Christopher Newbill, Senior Airman Sean Manning,and Airmen First Class Brenden Maloy, Sean Dougherty, David Floyd and Taji Eggleston.
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