WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. (February 12, 2025) – On Feb. 6, White Sands Missile Range’s Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization, and Security (DPTMS) in partnership with New Mexico Game and Fish held a four-day Recreational off-highway vehicle safety course on the trails behind the golf course on post. The purpose of this course was to teach WSMR employees how to operate Utility Transport Vehicles (UTVs) and to become instructors on the course to train other employees as well.

This training is available to directorates that have UTVs and need to dispatch them with properly trained drivers to access sites on the range that are hard to get to with standard government vehicles. In the future, these vehicles will facilitate faster retrieval of missiles, equipment and personnel at test sites with more ease and safety.

“Many of our current vehicles cannot access test sites. Not only can our employees gain quicker access to these sites with UTVs, but they create less impact on both the vehicle and environment because of their lighter weight,” said WSMR Logistics Master Driver Hector Chavez.

“I contacted Hector to ensure we had the instructors needed to get WSMR employees licensed on the UTVs so that people know how to legally operate these vehicles both on and off the installation’s roads. These vehicles are essential for our workforce because you can get to remote places on the range faster than you can with a standard vehicle. A huge reason why we have these is for our Bataan Memorial Death March so that we can get to people in need quickly if they get injured in between checkpoints,” said DPTMS Operations Specialist Justin Butt.

“This training is available for both the public and other government agencies in the state. We are the only training organization here in New Mexico that offers it free of charge. We have four district offices, and our headquarters are in Santa Fe, but we dispatch all over the state to train people. Anyone in the state that operates an off-highway vehicle on public land is required to register that vehicle. The money collected for these registrations along with grant money goes into our Trail Safety Fund and covers the cost of our operating budget, which is why we can train anyone for free. We heavily focus on public training, particularly with children who will be operating these vehicles to make sure that everyone who operates one is safe,” said New Mexico Game and Fish Off-Highway Vehicle Education Coordinator Christopher Johnson.

WSMR DPTMS has plans to make a safety council that will write the usage policy on these UTVs so that others can get trained and gain access. This is in direct support to our safety and readiness initiatives that support our employees on post that carry out our crucial testing missions every day.

For more information on this free public training program for off-highway vehicles visit: https://wildlife.dgf.nm.gov/