OBO Bugle - US Department of State

Director’s Message
Ta b l e o f
Co n T e n T s
Director’s Message
2
New Facilities
3
What’s New
12
Planning and Real Estate
12
Project Execution
19
Operations
25
Resource Management
31
Industry Corner
33
Special Projects
38
Press Coverage
40
Employee Corner
41
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Director’s Message
I was pleased to be asked to serve as Director Ad Interim of OBO and given the honor
of leading one of our Department’s most vital programs. I have the opportunity to work
with some outstanding people that I have known over my Foreign Service career and our
newer, equally dedicated and talented staff. OBO’s record of accomplishment as a bureau is
a stellar one; building 55 new facilities in six years is a tribute both to the former Director’s
efforts and the OBO staff that made it all happen. We remain committed to maintaining the
robust Capital Security Buildings Program and to moving our personnel abroad into safer,
secure, functional, and well-maintained facilities as quickly as possible.We will continue to
leverage the Standard Embassy Design (SED) for the New Embassy Compounds (NECs) and
the design-build delivery method. We are now looking to locate our diplomatic compounds
in more urban settings whenever practicable. We also need to expand the contractor base to
improve competition for OBO projects.
Despite notable success in delivering major capital projects, OBO was described by
some clients as being insular. I have made clear our intention to change that perception.
We have launched a robust outreach effort within the Department to be more responsive to
client input. Area Management will reinvigorate its role as the primary communication
mechanism between OBO, the regional bureaus, and the overseas posts. A newly installed
Executive Directorate is making OBO’s organizational structure and process comparable to
other M-family bureaus. Our combining of the former Real Estate Office with Planning and
Development fosters synergy between these closely related activities. Our new Director of
Operations also serves as Deputy Director of OBO.
A more transparent commissioning process will ensure that our new facilities are fully
ready to be managed by post staff. And, a new, comprehensive Long-Range Maintenance
Plan will complement the very successful Long-Range Buildings Plan to assure that all
of our facilities remain fully operational to meet the needs of our overseas colleagues. We
need adequate funding to maintain both our legacy buildings and the new state-of-theart
facilities we are building to protect the investment we and other agencies have made in
our Capital Security Construction Program. These buildings are clearly superior to those
they replaced by virtually every measure, but they also are invariably more expensive and
complicated to maintain and operate, and require higher levels of professional expertise for
the complicated systems. FSI is expanding our facility management training to meet these
challenges.
I will keep you informed as we proceed, but the above tells you that our mission never
changes despite management’s comings and goings. Thank you all for the support you are
giving me in my interim role as Director.
Dick Shinnick
Director, Ad Interim