AIR FORCE FITNESS/HEALTH & WELLNESS:
Sky's The Limit — Fairchild AFB Opens New Fitness Center
Fairchild AFB, Wash., opened its $18.8 million, 79,000-square-foot, new fitness center on March 9, providing airmen and their families with the premier fitness, health and wellness facilities they deserve. Co-located with the fitness center are the Health and Wellness Center (HAWC) — a vitally important tool in the Air Force Fitness arsenal — and a pool that is used for recreation, water aerobics and Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training.
According to Fitness Director John Gahagan, although there was a plan to replace the old fitness center, the real impetus came in 2009 when a roof in the 1940s warehouse that the fitness center was housed in collapsed under the weight of excessive snow (more than 100 inches).
“Despite the fact that we were able to make numerous repairs to the roof, there was still a question of how much of a snow load it could handle, so leadership at the time decided to put an emergency replacement plan in place,” notes Gahagan. “The new building gave us the same footprint and square footage that we had before, but as a design-build project we had a clean slate to create a building that would best suit our needs.” ...
OUTDOOR SURFACING:
Field of Dreams —
Camp Lejeune Makes Switch to Synthetic Turf
As is the case at many large military installations, the outdoor playing fields at MCB Camp Lejeune, N.C., get incredible usage. From recreational play and sports leagues to training and installation events, the outdoor grass fields take a lot of abuse. Over time, Camp Lejeune saw degradation in the quality and safety of its outdoor playing surfaces and began to look into a long-term solution.
“As a very large military installation, we have 45,000 active-duty members here and serve a total population — including family members, civilians, contractors, etc. — of approximately 180,000 people,” says Chris Alger, Sports Branch head, Semper Fit Division. “Our fields get a lot of use and it was difficult to maintain them to the best standards, especially when there was no down time to let them recuperate.”
The playing fields, which include a football/soccer stadium, a multipurpose field and a softball stadium, are located next to the field house — a highly utilized facility because it is the largest gathering place on the installation.
“The fields are used by everyone — Marines, spouses and youth — and for a variety of purposes, including recreational and organized sports, physical training, unit functions — whatever the need may be,” notes Alger. “So the biggest concern for us was safety. Our fields had been used so much that they were no longer safe to play on, they were no longer level, they had divots and holes and our drainage system was failing. That really was the main impetus for this whole project — creating safe playing and training environments.” ...