BEDFORD – Scott Johnson who is a retired Engineer and Division Manager from NSWC Crane after 38 years of service and a representative of the White River Military Coordination Alliance addressed the Lawrence County commissioners Tuesday morning about the Navy Community Partnership Program.
The goal of the program is to establish a partnership between the Navy and a municipality that capitalizes on redundant or shared services performed by both the Navy and the municipality by reducing the cost to each.
“We are working on establishing this partnership with the five counties that borders touch Crane,” said Johnson.”To begin a dialogue to understand potential opportunities for partnership across a range of functional areas or services common to both Crane and local municipalities. The program also helps to cut through the red tape – federal contracts can be difficult to negotiate.”
The partnership will be used to collaborate partnership agreements for services, material procurement, and mutual support that will benefit both the Navy and the local communities.
Planned benefits:
- Save money through Economies of Scale
- Increase and retain Navy speding in the local community
- Enhance the Quarlity of Services and resiliency of Navy and Community operations
- Improve Navy & Commuity Cooperation
- Provide additional capacity in resources, skills, expertise, facilities & infrastructure
- Improved Navy & Community Relations
Approach:
- Navy conducts initial community awareness events
- Navy identifies an initial priority list of services and shares with local communities
- Community Leadership analyzes the priority list and their capacity to engage NSA Crane
- Community and NSA Crane subject matter experts share process details/cost of items on the priority list
- Communities and NSA Crane ask a round of clarifying questions then develop a draft solution concept that meets their respective needs.
- Communites and NSA Crane confirm willingness to provide needed services, procurements or mutual support
- Navy and Partners coordinate internal reviews (counsel, etc.) and determines appropriate partnership tool needed to achieve the partnership goals
- Navy & Partners negotiate terms and conditions of agreement to codify documents
- Once an agreement is approved, everyone signs documents and beings the partnership implementaion
