Joint Reserve Intelligence Center gets grand opening

The ceremony took place in front of building 135, which several years ago served as a meat freezer for the base commissary. Special guest speaker Rear Adm. Ann Gilbride, commander Navy Reserve Intelligence Command, ex-plained her first reaction to the idea of using the building to be more comical than optimistic.

"When I first saw the building, I thought 'how are we going to make this a pristine place of business?' It was old and unclean and the smell was terrible," said Gilbride. "I kept thinking of the 'where's the beef?" commercials."

She then turned from comical to endearing.

"I can tell you now that the meat is still right here in this building. The meat is the service men and women that made all of this happen and turned this old meat freezer into a pristine and professional place to do business."

Lt. Cmdr. Claudia Flores, the officer in charge of RIA-13, initiated the project three years ago. According to her she could not be happier with the way the building turned out and the space they now have to do their jobs.

"I am very excited that I could see everything come together before I transfer," said Flores. "Our staff worked so hard to make this all work. We support the war right from this building and now people can come to work, and do their job comfortably and know that they have everything they need to accomplish their tasking."

Both RIA-13 and the JRIC operated out of building 966 where they had a total of 6,000 square feet. Out of the 6,000 square feet, 4,000 square feet was used as special compartmented information facility, (SCIF). Intelli-gence analysts and targeteers shared 11 secret Internet protocol routing network, (SIPRNET) systems, three open source information system, (OSIS) and 43 joint worldwide intelligence communications system, (JWICS) terminals. The new building now has 18,000 square feet, 12,000 of which, is SCIF space. The new JRIC facility has 100 individual and collaborative workspaces, which is currently configured with 30 SIPRNET terminals, 17 OSIS and 63 JWICS systems.

Capt. #### Russell, commander of RIA-13 said he has been so impressed with the work of his staff, and is very excited about the building. He thinks the new building will allow his staff to do their jobs better and allow for expansion if needed.

"This is truly a joint facility undertaking joint endeavors, and I have no doubt the synergy we create as a team with our active component counterparts will make this facility the premier JRIC in the country and as requirements increase, we now have the capacity to add additional systems as well as personnel to support our active component commands," said Russell.