JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas – It’s Mission Monday. Meet Garey Payne, an acquisition program manager with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center’s Natural Disaster Recovery Division at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.
He and his team have various responsibilities in the division, including the testing, evaluating and implementing of innovative solutions for the rebuild of Tyndall and other installations following natural disasters. This includes the governance of $5 billion for the Florida base following Hurricane Michael in October 2018 and Offutt AFB, Nebraska, following massive flooding in March 2019.
Their primary responsibility is exploring and executing viable coastal resilience strategies to protect the more than 40 miles of Tyndall coastline from the effects of climate change and sea level rise.
We asked Payne, an Air Force retiree who has been at Tyndall for about five years, to tell us more about himself and the work he does for the Department of the Air Force.
Briefly tell us why you joined civil service?
To continue my service to the nation, the Air Force specifically, after I retired from AFIMSC as a senior master sergeant in 2019.
Why do you serve and what keeps you serving?
Because of the intrinsic rewards that accompany being part of such a high-functioning team, all doing great things in furtherance of the mission to rebuild Tyndall AFB as a model installation for decades to come.
What do you love about your job?
Interactions with people whose skillsets are different than mine because they give me the ability to expand my own knowledge base in the process. It’s also the opportunity to receive and process perspectives, based on differing experiences, and offers insight and understanding of the thought processes of others, which helps us all survive this shared experience we call life!
When it comes to your job, what keeps you motivated?
The overall ability to make an impact at the personal, professional and mission levels, all coming together to reach successful outcomes.
Why are you and your team important to the Air Force and Space Force enterprise and your customers?
My team and I are just a small piece of a much bigger machine that is executing the Tyndall rebuild, but every member of the machine, whether military, civilian or contractor, hold important pieces of information that are critical to the overall program’s success. Additionally, we are ‘writing the book’ on how to execute a rebuild of this magnitude. While we hope no one will need the book in the future, the next rebuild will hopefully be more efficient by applying our lessons learned.
Describe a project or event you and your team worked on recently that gave you a great sense of accomplishment:
Specifically, we have been working on building a coastal resilience strategy for the installation that will shore up (pun intended) the Tyndall AFB coastline and protect the installation’s mission through the year 2100. Our efforts, recently recognized as one of only two Department of Defense finalists for a Presidential Federal Sustainability Award, are exportable to other coastal installations or municipalities that face the challenges of sea level rise driven, in part, by the effects of climate change.
How does what you do support AFIMSC’s strategic priorities?
The facilities being constructed as part of the rebuild will provide Tyndall warfighters a place that they are proud to call home, and the innovations being integrated in the design increase warfighter lethality and readiness. Additionally, the coastal resilience efforts will help ensure the safety and security of Airmen and their families in the event of future hurricanes and sea level rise, allowing everyone to focus more on mission execution and less on the minutia of day-to-day operations, which in turn supports operational excellence.
Is there anything else you’d like to add which might help people understand the importance of what you do for the Department of the Air Force?
My largest accomplishment so far was the recent 2023 Presidential Sustainability Award. This selection highlighted the coastal resilience work our team is doing to ensure the sustainability of Tyndall AFB for decades to come. The Coastal Resilience Implementation Plan that we developed also serves as a playbook for other coastal installations to follow in preparing their local response to sea level rise driven by climate change.