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| About AFCEE |
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The Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, named the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence until 2007, was approved and created in 1991 as a field operating agency for the Air Force Civil Engineer.
Before AFCEE was established, the Air Force didn't have one centralized office where Air Force commanders could go for assistance with their installation's environmental and construction programs. The organization, formally inaugurated on Nov. 3, 1991 at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, was formed by consolidating a variety of Air Force personnel and assets located throughout the country, including several Air Force Regional Civil Engineer staff functions. It originally consisted of four major elements: the Environmental Services Office, the Construction Management Office, the Design Group and three Regional Compliance Offices (now called the Regional Environmental Offices).
Staff elements included mission support, environmental and contract law, and public affairs. In addition, a division from the Human Systems Contracting Directorate was assigned to AFCEE to provide the center with dedicated environmental contracting support.
The center, which started out with only a handful of people, grew rapidly and within a year had in place a full service array of environmental cleanup contracts. Its initial focus was the 19 installations affected by Rounds I and II of the Base Realignment and Closure process.
AFCEE underwent reorganization in 1994. A major change was the transition of the Pollution Prevention and Environmental Planning Divisions of the Environmental Services Directorate into two separate directorates. The execution directorates thus were: Construction Management, Design Group, Environmental Conservation and Planning, Environmental Restoration and Pollution Prevention.
AFCEE didn't have a building of its own when it began operations. Employees worked in different facilities throughout Brooks. However, in July 1994 ground was broken for the new, nearly 73,000 square-foot headquarters building. A year later, a ribbon-cutting ceremony formally inaugurated the center's new home.
Organizational streamlining took place in April 1997, with Construction Management and the Design Group merging into one organization called the Design and Construction Directorate. In other changes, the Pollution Prevention Directorate was renamed the Environmental Quality Directorate and the former Design Group's Planning Division moved to the Environmental Conservation and Planning Directorate, completing the establishment of a Comprehensive Planning Division.
The most dramatic transformation to date took place at AFCEE on October 2007 when the center officially assumed management of the Air Force's Military Construction, family housing military construction and Environmental Restoration Account programs. As part of that transformation, the center underwent a major reorganization that included changing all directorates into divisions and establishing new organizations to manage AFCEE's enhanced mission. Additionally, the center gained more than 130 new personnel from the various major commands as work that was done there transitioned to AFCEE.
AFCEE's most recent change was a physical move from Brooks City-Base to the Kelly Annex area of Lackland AFB, Texas, in 2010. The move resulted from Brooks' selection for closure by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure legislation.
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