After Fort McCoy phone switch, team recovers old devices for disposition

From mid-January to mid-February 2025, Garrison Information Management Officer Bob Pennebecker and Information Technology Specialist Shawn Quinn took on the task to receive old phones for disposition after Fort McCoy switched to a new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system.

Both Pennebecker and Quinn are with the Fort McCoy Garrison Information Management Office. They signed out warehouse building 1675 in January and went to work accounting for all the old desk phones that were replaced with new VoIP phones.

“We collected more than 1,500 phones,” Pennebecker said.

Once collected, the old phones were placed into storage bins where they will then be recycled through government recycling, Pennebecker said.

The phone collection was the tail end of the Fort McCoy Voice Modernization Project that took years to complete. The project was led by the Fort McCoy Network Enterprise Center (NEC).

During 2024, NEC personnel worked throughout the year and in all areas of Fort McCoy to set up the VoIP phones in offices, work areas, and buildings.

The change to the new phone system also changed the phone numbers at Fort McCoy. All phone numbers that previously began with 608-388 are now with a different area code and prefix — 502-898.

To see a complete updated list of the Fort McCoy phone numbers, visit the Fort McCoy website at https://home.army.mil/mccoy/contact/phonebook.

The updated phone book will also be available at the Fort McCoy DVIDS page in the 2025-26 Fort McCoy Guide by April 30, 2025.

Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”