Sheppard Student Campus and Town center earns DoD design award

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Adawn Kelsey
  • 82nd Training Wing Public Afairs
SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE,Texas --  The Sheppard Airman in Training Student Campus and Town center earned a Department of Defense design award announced by the Federal Planning Division of the American Planning Association Feb. 11.

Conceived by Brig. Gen. O.G. Mannon, 82nd Training Wing commander, the Student Campus and Town center design was completed by the HDR Colorado Springs firm and then submitted for the award.

This project received the Area Development Plan award that is presented to smaller development areas, small installations or areas of a larger installation.

General Mannon had two primary areas of interest he wanted to stress for the center.

"We had some very talented folks who took a couple of rough ideas from an old commander's head and turned them into a brilliant design," the general said. "I really had two priorities in mind. As a special ops guy, the first was force protection. We need to be able to quickly and efficiently protect our Airman population by limiting vehicle traffic in the areas where they tend to congregate, and this design accomplishes that very well.

"The second priority was to provide a modern, world-class training campus that mirrors the world-class training we provide--that meets the chief of staff's priority to care for Airmen and their families."

Melissa Guillory, Defense Support Services community planner, said the center was not only for Sheppard Airmen to be safe, and to have a place to bring their families, but also to provide a place they may call their own.

"This will promote a sense of place for the Airmen," Mrs. Guillory said. "This will be a place the AiT can bring their families when they come to visit, or just a place they can pick a spot to sit and study at. Or on the other hand, if they are looking to get away from their training and all of their studying it provides a place for them to be social with one another, away from other permanent party areas."

The project resembles a university-type area. This will provide an environment that is more conducive to the Airmen attending Sheppard today and in the future with a safe place to socialize and relax, use Wi-Fi for Internet access in several different placese for studying purposes or personal use and much more when the project is completed. Sheppard produces 55 percent of all graduates of Air Force technical training, providing the first impression of the Air Force to over half of all the Airmen new to the service.

"This is an important project because it sets the tone for the future of Sheppard Air Force Base," General Mannon said. "We have a lot of old buildings here and you can spend so much time thinking about how to keep them up to standards that you forget to look at the future. This design gives us a direction for the future that will help us reach our vision of becoming DoD's Center of Excellence for Technical Training."