CLEVELAND, Ohio - Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, Mr. Jordan Gillis, helped close out the Department of Defense participation at this year's Department of Energy, Energy Exchange at the Huntington Convention Center. The purpose of the symposium was to bring together leaders from all military services to share their perspectives on the importance of energy resiliency among the industry and across the enterprise.
Alongside Gillis was: the Honorable Lucian Niemeyer, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment; the Honorable John W. Henderson, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Energy; and James Balocki, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Installations and Facilities.
One of the largest Department of Energy training, tradeshow and peer events, the 2018 Energy Exchange brings leaders from federal, private, education and state and local governments to share energy solutions and ideas.
During the conference's closing session, Mr. Gillis discussed devising and implementing installation energy plans for resilience. He emphasized discussions from the Army Energy Managers Training Workshop, which took place prior to the start of Energy Exchange on Monday, August 20. The workshop highlighted the importance of planning for energy and water resilience and provided the opportunity to bring together facility energy managers and leaders across all 156 Army installations, including those supporting the 1,000-community based Army National Guard and Army Reserve Centers.
Mr. Gillis reiterated a key message emphasized throughout the Energy Exchange, the need to increase resilience and secure reliable access to energy and water to all service installations. He said, addressing this need will enhance the lethality of the warfighter and support operational forces on all fronts in the event of a grid outage or disruption.
Mr. Gillis mentioned the impacts of recent extreme weather are shifting the Army away from a purely cost-savings mandate to focus on providing mission assurance and resilience by adapting three priorities. He said, "Our strategic pivot in installation management is from conservation and efficiency to security and resilience and is refocusing our planning and assessment approaches. We are doing this is a manner aligned with Secretary Esper's priorities Readiness, Modernization and Reform." Each priority contributes to mission criticality ensuring energy and water planning focuses on resilience, mission objectives and mission requirements. Mr. Gillis said each priority is an attempt to incorporate resilient and efficient practices to support the mission across the Army enterprise.
"The Army's approach to installation energy and water plans is a key step in our strategic approach to resilience," said Mr. Gillis.
At Energy Exchange, participating in the collaboration of industry, government and private sectors helps the military services accomplish energy and water resiliency objectives. Through a coordinated effort of policy making, planning, execution and ongoing management, Army installations will continue to become more robust and resilient, he said
Related Links:
Assistant Secretary of the Army (Installations, Energy and Envrionment)
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Installations and Facilities
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations and Environment
Federal Energy Management Program, Department of Energy
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Energy
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