Interview with Community Initiatives Team

Soleil Sykes:  My name is Soleil Sykes. Today is March 28th, 2018. I am at Luke AFB. Could you both please introduce yourselves and state your relationship to the Community Initiatives Team? 

Rusty Mitchell: Sure, Rusty Mitchell, director, Community Initiatives Team.

Barbara Plante: Barbara Plante, deputy director for the Community Initiatives Team.

SS: Wonderful, thank you. Then, just to get started, if you could, talk about how you came to work with the Community Initiatives Team. 

RM: Well, we have to go back a ways. To understand that the Community Initiatives Team at Luke Air Force Base was a one of a kind staff. 15 years ago, now. This month almost. The wing commander here realized that an Air Force base surrounded by 11 municipalities, a county, and a state, 13 political subdivisions. He as the wing commander would not have time to build relationships with those people in his two-year assignment and still conduct the mission that he had to do here training fighter pilots, primarily. So he asked me to come on board and gave me some positions to fill and our sole purpose from the beginning has been to build those relationships with the community and as an elevator speech it probably boils down to "our job is to keep the base open." And the best way to do that is to make sure the surrounding political subdivisions understand what our mission is and what the mission requirements are to conduct it. And so Ms. Plante, myself, and Chris Toale we continually go out to the city councils and give them a mission updates so that they know what's going on and then they're able to approve or deny development around the base with the background of education of what our mission requirements are. Before our office stood up some of the cities were approving developments that were negatively impact our mission. But they weren't doing it because they didn't support us or didn't like us, they just, they were doing it because they weren't aware of what the requirements were. And that's what we really brought to the table of that knowledge. And so, as anything, relationships aren't born overnight and so over a 15 year period we have built the relationships with the mayors and the city councils and the land developers and land owners, and they know that you know they come to us, either myself or Barbara, for any kind of questions they may have on development. You know we've been lucky in that the state of Arizona has enacted a state law that protects us for con, for incompatible growth around the base. It stipulates what can and cannot be built within a certain distance from the runway based on noise and because of that, we are well-suited for, you know, a long time in the future and hence. A major factor in the air force deciding to put the newest fighter, the F-35 here at Luke Air Force Base because of the stability that the community and the state gave Luke Air Force Base for a long term mission sustainability. 

SS: How did you, perhaps this is a more personal question, but just to sort of understand how you yourself came to be at Luke and involved in work in this position?

RM: It was unique in that I had known the wing commander previous to his assignment here as the wing commander. I'd been his number two guy when he was a squadron commander seven, eight, nine years earlier and so we had a trust already. And when he acknowledged the fact that this was going to be something that required a full time, focused effort on, he asked me if I would be willing to come and work for him and do that. And the fact that we had worked with each other before, close personal friends, the trust was immediately there. And so one of the things that the community appreciates is when we go to a city council meeting or a workshop at a city and they have questions of whether or not they can do something because of the trust between myself and the wing commander that has been handed over to eight, I think, commanders subsequent, we don't have to run back to get guidance from the wing commander, we have the authority to answer on the spot on behalf of the wing commander and Luke Air Force Base. And the development community and the elected officials, they really appreciate that quick response. Ms. Plante, I was fortunate enough, she was a director of community relations for the base when I asked if she would be willing to come over to the office and work on the staff because over the years of her service in public affairs and community relations she had already built the same relationships that I had and that's something that you can't train. That's something that takes time and she had already done that and so for her to come over from public affairs to this staff she brought all those relationships with her and then was able to learn the state law black and white. It was pretty objective, but the subjective part of those relationships she already had established and is really indispensable and critical to the success.

SS: So is the Team, is it part of the base formally or is it an independent entity?

RM: It is, it is. We are, we are all what's called general services employees, GS employees. So the staff is myself, Barbara, and Chris, and the way they divide the task, Barbara takes all land issues and Chris, when he retired from the active duty he was, he retired, from the chief of air traffic control here at Luke Air Force Base, and so he has an intimate knowledge of all the airspace and where we fly and why we fly there, and so he takes all the air space issues. And so they divide it between the ground and the air, and then I kind of do the policy stuff. So we work directly for the wing commander, which is another little difference from other military bases in that when General Breedlove, that was the first wing commander, when he set the office down at Luke and, and told us to go work, we actually sat down on several sand boxes. We sat down a little bit on Public Affairs in our community relations part, we sat down on top of community planning and the civil engineers' area, a little bit of a JAG issue when interpretation of state law and things like that. And then, a couple of other ones, but the combination of bringing those all together is what really coalesced us to be able to work and, and again to be able to waltz literally down the hall here in this building and go into the general's office and say, "Hey, we've got something going on, Mayor so-and-so, you know, is upset about something," which, you know, I can't remember the last time when a mayor was upset about anything. But, but that axis and that response time is a big benefit. 

SS: Moving over to the F-35, can you talk a little bit about the Luke Forward campaign and 

RM: Sure.

SS: and sort of the effort to bring the F-35 to Luke Air Force Base. 

RM: Yeah, it was [a] huge, huge campaign, almost, almost embarrassingly, overwhelming community support. When the F-35 was first being fielded, it was fielded first at Egland Air Force Base in Florida and a town off the end of the runway, Valparaiso, Florida pushed back really hard on the F-35 coming in there. And they were pushing back on based on air force reports that had some errors in them that were identified and so it wasn't a factual push back as much as an anticipated worst case kind of thing. But, be that as it may, they did push back and so here, because of the relationship that that the base had with the community and in large part to the work of this office, Barbara and Chris the community was standing by and they made a point of don't confuse Luke Air Force Base and the West Valley of Phoenix with Florida. We not only want the F-35 here, but we want as many as we can get, and we want them as soon as we can get them. So, literally a 180 degree out from the kind of community interaction they were having at Egland Air Force Base at the time. So really wasn't difficult. One of the challenges that we face as much as anything is, I don't mean to demean it by saying, herding cats, but that's really what our job is not so much to generate the support because that has already been self-generated because of the relationship building over fifteen years, but it's really kind of managing everybody in the same direction and the challenge there is that each city surrounding the base and this is a wonderful situation to be in, but each city surrounding the base really competes against each other to plant the flag in support of Luke Air Force Base on the top of the hill. They literally compete with each other on who can be the biggest supporter, and that's a wonderful situation to be it. So you take that environment, and the Air Force then looking for basing for the F-35, it was not secret, was not close hold that the F-16 was coming to the end of its operational life, and that they would be retiring over the next decade and so a follow on mission to Luke had to be found if Luke was going to stay here. Well, at first light you would think that a major military instillation flying fighter aircraft, single engine, inside the confines of the nation's fifth largest urban area might not be the best thing. Well the community rose up to say, "yes it was because it not only gives all the airmen a wonderful place to live and work but it also they acknowledge the fact that Luke Air Force Base, based on a study by the state of Arizona brings 2.4, 2.14 billion dollars to the economy, 2.11? 2.41? 2.41. Ah, what's three hundred million dollars. So brought a significant economic impact to the community. And that's not necessarily that important to us as military members and DoD employees, what's important to us is to be able to produce the fighter pilots and the controllers and the maintenance personnel for the nation's defense, but, the economic impact is important to the community. And how we compare that, a little tongue in cheek, but we compare it as city of Glendale and the Cardinals stadium get the Super Bowl here about once every ten years and that ten year economic impact once every ten years is about a half a [b]million dollars so we do over four Super Bowls every year and that's a significant economic impact. 

Soleil: Can I briefly ask you to state your name and relationship to the Community Initiatives Team?

Christopher Toale: Sure, my name is Christopher Toale and I work directly for Mr. Rusty Mitchell in the Community Initiatives Team office. And my responsibility is primarily air space encroachment. 

SS: Thank you. You've mentioned this a little already talking about education in the community, but I'm wondering if specifically during the Luke Forward campaign, what other forms of advocacy or outreach did you use to gain and maintain that support?

RM: Yeah, and Barbara can speak to this much better than I can, but there's a public affairs requirement that the base have a recurring meeting with the surrounding elected officials, it doesn't say how often, and it doesn't really say what the content necessarily has to be, but when Barbara was working on public affairs she formulated a council called Luke West Valley Council and so every quarter, all of the mayors in the West Valley plus representatives from the congressional offices, the senate office, and the governor's office come out here for a meeting chaired by the wing commander and a rotating co-chair of one of the mayors, and that group right there talks about issues for sustainment, what's going on in the area, what kind of development's going on that could be concerning things like that. But then that same group, and this is back to the Luke Forward issue, is that same group then outside of the base, separate from the base all chipped in money and that group, same people except for the base, was called the West Valley Partners, and they use that term to differentiate from Luke West Valley Council because the West Valley Partners all chipped in money to hire a full time lobbyist in Washington, D.C. to monitor track, pay attention to any issues that would come out of the Pentagon or the State Department having to do with Luke Air Force Base. And so that combination of Luke, West Valley Partners, and the lobbyist then came up with a marketing campaign of support for the community and at first that manifested itself in just some community meetings, but then when the environmental impact study officially started then that was dictated by NEPA and how we had scoping meetings and then we had public hearings and then that Luke West Valley Partner group kind of managed all those meetings, got the people to those. We had over almost 500 people that came to all the public hearings and out of the five hundred people there was a hundred and twenty or so oral comments at the meeting and out of the 120 oral comments there were eight that were negative and a couple that were not sure. So we'll just say ten out of 120 that were negative and the other hundred and ten were overwhelmingly supportive. One of the negative complaints was that there were so many people plusing, saying "Yes, we're all for Luke," that they weren't able to get to the mic to say, "I'm concerned about this or that." But overwhelming support. I started it all by saying almost embarrassing and it's really unmatched in the nation for the community support that that the airman at Luke and their mission get from the community. So that Luke West Valley Council, West Valley Partners, Fighter Country Partnership, they really kind of did everything outside the base. We provided technical information as far as airplanes, where we fly, and all of that, but as far as generating the support of the community it was really West Valley Partners and Fighter Country Partnership through the Luke Forward campaign.

SS: Do you work primarily, it sounds like you work mostly at the government level, city, local and then going a little bit further up. Do you work with community organizations or is it mostly with government officials? 

RM: Our target is primarily at the mayoral level and up; however, we absolutely will go to a city council and talk to the city council either at a city council meeting at the dais or at a workshop for the city council toward details. But we, I don't think we've ever turned away a group below that. You know if homeowners' association or realtor association, brokers, anybody like that wants to know anything about the mission in those kind of categories then the three of us are out there and we will talk to them. So we kind of focus our attention on the elected officials but we don't say no to anybody else. 

BP: We also have a quarterly planning and zoning. All of those political subdivisions get together in one room and started out kind of being what deconflicting with what Luke wants to do, but we found that it's such a, there's really great synergy there and they deconflict with each other as well, so it just really is a great, it ended up being a great 

RM: Right. 

BP: Venue for them to cross talk as well with us. 

RM: That came out at the symposium that we went to at Dayton last summer, is none of the other military instillations, Air Force, army, navy, any of them, they would just shake their head in disbelief when Barbara explained the planning and zoning meetings that we hold quarterly. The Luke West Valley Council meeting quarterly. Just kind of leading the way as much as we can on how to interact. We found that that that support and trust is based on relationships and again, like I said before, you can't do that overnight. It takes time. But with her doing all those meetings and then we go down to Phoenix Sky Harbor and have a quarterly air space meeting with them because they and us are the two largest controllers of the air space in the area, so it only makes sense, for the same reason that we do the planning and zoning, that Chris and I go down to the to Phoenix and talk to the aviation people because again it's just as important for the air space. 

SS: Okay. 

CT: I think it's still a little [unclear] into the other federal sectors that aren't at the federal government mayoral level. We hold also, it's chaired out of an office, not our office but another office, our range management office on base, chairs a Arizona military air space work group and although you would think that is primarily military organizations, such as other military institutions in the state, leading all the way down towards the Barry Goldwater range where we fly and fight, we have , Davis Monthan Air Force Base, we have the Marine Corps air station Yuma, we have Fort Huachuca, and so those organizations come together as well, not to mention Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, national firefighting organizations, those types of organizations also come together to learn exactly what it is that we have to kind of share some boundaries with. That is another very successful forum. 

BP: And one thing that takes and makes this office wildly successful is the fact that, the community, we're civilians so we don't turn over every two years, they know we may not have the answer but we know who to get the answer from. So we're a belly button to call from outside to say, "Hey, I need this." Okay, either we can take care of it or we know who to get to because the other offices, the military as an officer they probably leave every two to three years and as enlisted, maybe a little bit less, but still you just don't have that continuity, so that's what makes it so so successful is that he's been here for fifteen years, it's the same face, it's the same information, it's the same mission going out. 

RM: We're careful not to imply that we are a filter between the mayors and the wing commander and they understand that, but they also understand, like Barbara's saying, that they can probably get the answer, the same answer, a lot quicker by calling one of us, because the general's either flying or he's TDY across the country or around the world some place. So they now because again, I go back to the trust issue, they know that the answer that we provide them would be the same answer that they would have got from the wing commander if they were to track him down. And just like any other business, you probably don't want to go to the top guy to ask a question, because you know they're busy and so that's where we come into play and catch those phone calls. And literally Barbara, Chris, if they call her in the office they can answer the question, and I've received phone calls from around the world while I'm not here, and I've sat in the cockpit of my airplane and answered questions from mayors many times, so it's worked out really well.

SS: And beyond that trust, and the finding of the support, what other values or messaging or ideas do you use in communication with your various counterparts.

RM: It's a little bit of a counterintuitive in that the fact that the air force and at the time General Breedlove and this office here made the commitment to give a full-time staff to do nothing but that job, to do nothing but interact with the elected officials and the major landowners and such showed a commitment on the side of the Air Force that they wanted to be good neighbors. It was important. It was not only important to the air force so it can maintain our mission sustainability and produce fighter pilots for the nation's defense, but it was also important that we do that in a compatible way so that the surrounding community is still economically successful. And so that's what we spend most of our energy on is, and I say it every time I'm talking to a city council at the dais, is that we're not here, and I had to say this more early because they assumed we would come to the city council and say, "No, that doesn't work, can't do that." And thankfully and by design that has evolved now to the point were in the middle section I was saying, "We're not here to say no, we're here to say what works? What works for you and for us so we can still do our mission and is economically successful for you." I don't, I can't remember the last time I had to say that in front of a city council meeting now because the relationships have been built and are so strong that they know that when they call us, the answer is not automatically no because that's the easy way to do it. We spend a lot of time trying to find a way to say yes on things that we can figure out how to make it work for both the base and for the community. And I tell you, if you don't have a dedicated staff doing that you don't have some--you cannot ask a military person or even a civilian that's got other jobs to do, you can't ask them to put that kind of attention on finding the yes when no is so much easier to get to. And so that's the value of having a dedicated staff to do that. And I've got a soapbox that I'll stand on all day long and say that every military installation, and I'll be parochial and say certainly every Air Force installation, needs a dedicated person, a dedicated office to do that. Not every base needs a staff as big as mine, but surrounded by 13 political subdivisions, I think that was a wise move. But there are other bases that have to deal with one city, one county, one state, that could conceivably be one person. I would argue that you need back up but it needs to be a dedicated person and a dedicated mission of that office to just do that because you can't build those relationships as an additional duty. It just doesn't work. And so that's what the three of us--we jump on a soap box on that every chance we can in trying to push that to the Air Force. And I will say that just over the last couple years we've started receiving phone calls from around the Air Force of, just like this, "How did you do it? How are you so successful in your community relations?" And we've had the opportunity to go--I've been to the Air Force academy in Colorado Springs several times, San Antonio several times, Madison, Wisconsin several times--we've been all over the country talking to people of how we did it. It's not the same every place. Every place is different based on the personality both inside the fence line and the personality of the community outside. So, you can't, and this is what the Air Force doesn't really like in that they really appreciate and would love to have a checklist and an OI, operational instruction of how to do something, but other than big picture, you can't do that because, because our relationship with our community is different than the relationship of Davis Monthan in Tucson, or Madison and the Truax people or the Academy in Colorado Springs, it's all different. So, it's a challenge, it's a big challenge, because there is not a cookie cutter approach to it. 

SS: Do you think that, you mentioned the idea of being good neighbors and then the economic impact of the base, do you think that those specific contributions are more persuasive, or is it more just the fact that as a team you go out and you are willing to invest in relationships, or is it the specific ideals that you're advocating?

RM: I don't want to diminish the importance of the economic impact, but Americans are very patriotic. And we've been in, the Air Force specifically has been in combat operations for twenty something years. More than twenty years, 1989. And the American people understand the commitment that the airmen make when they join the Air Force and so every airman, and I'm showing my age here, most senior leaders in the Air Force now had joined at a time when they knew they were going to go in harm's way and knowing that, they still raised their hands, still swore to defend the Constitution, but they joined the Air Force. And I think the community is smart enough to understand the commitment of those young airmen, we're talking especially the 18, 19 that's all they've known is the War on Terror. They didn't know what it was before Iraq attacked Kuwait, but they joined anyway. And it's just heartwarming to see the community support for that. So it is a mixture. We give the political leaders the ammunition of the economic impact because it's a dollar figure for them sometimes, but I don't mean to diminish their patriotism either. It is a combination of both economic and patriotism that we--it's been a tough twenty something years of combat. Air Force is tired. Aircraft are tired. We need capital improvements. But it's also been kind of heartwarming to see how the nation has put their arms around the military and really supported the military when they raised their arm to go in harm's way. So it's a combination of both. 

SS: Do you have something? W do you think, particularly, because Luke does seem to be, excuse me the surrounding townships and cities

RM: Mhhm. 

SS: seem to be incredibly supportive, what do you think accounts for that support compared to, for example in Florida? 

RM: Well again, each base is different, so you can't you can't categorically say this or that has done that, but I cannot enough emphasis on the relationship building, and again, that takes time, so it's one of the frustrating things. And you know they're looking at the F-35 and how do they get the community support and I say, "Well, you know you're not going to get that in six months, you know it's not going to be a year, it's going to take time to build that relationship." So I think the effort of the Air Force to have a dedicated office to build those long term relationships has really been a key in the support of the base. And again it's not so much that they wouldn't want to support us, it's just that they would have made developmental decisions that would have hurt our ability to do our mission not knowing that it would hurt us. And at any other base, that risk is there if there's not a dedicated office paying attention to what's going on outside the fence. What happens is, and I used to use this story a lot when I was talking to groups, the wing commander all of a sudden looks over the fence one morning, goes, "Wow, where'd those houses come from? This is unsafe to fly single engine fighters here anymore because those houses are right here." Because we get so insular in our mission accomplishment inside the fence line that historically we haven't paid a lot of attention to what's going on outside the fence line. Well with all the BRACs that have been going on and everything else, the military has been cutting down on their infrastructure to the point we can't afford to lose military installations that are doing a valuable mission. The fact that Luke Air Force Base is in Arizona has a lot to do with the weather, but it has everything to do with the Barry M. Goldwater range down to the south along the Mexican border and south of Interstate 8. You cannot replicate that anywhere in the country. That is key. That's why Davis Monthan is here. That's why we're here. Why Fort Huachuca to some degree, they do some intel work that's not really range particular, but most of the major installations are here because of that range and so the military, whether its Army or Air Force really can't afford to have bases closed. We lost Williams Air Force Base in the nineties and I'm really good friends with the executive director of the home builders association which you would think on the surface would be an adversarial group. They want to build houses, we don't want any houses close by blah blah blah blah. He and I are great friends. And he told me one day when we were hunting, with live weapons, guns, and everything, that they did a study on the economic recovery of the East Valley from Williams Air Force Base and that the projection for the economic recovery [cough], excuse me, of Williams Air Force Base was so far out in the future that it did not help their argument that let's close the base and redo the area for development. Because it was thirty, forty, fifty years and in fact as late as four or five year ago the East Valley had not recovered fifty percent of the economic impact of losing Williams Air Force Base. And, so the same thing applies to Luke, as nice of an area it is surrounding us and how the land and to be able to build houses, the economic impact of that 2.4 billion dollars would take generations to recover. And it's just not economically feasible. So it's that awareness and I, forgot the question actually. [Laughs] Don't put that in your article. [Note: Researcher asked for permission to use interview content, with specific reference to this instance and received written consent.] [Laughter]

CT: Rusty, did you talk about one of our neighboring cities that wasn't always supportive of Luke? [Cross talk]

RM: Yeah, and that's a great story. So as you know, and I mentioned Valparaiso and Egland Air Force Base. Valparaiso off into the runway, anti-, don't bring the F-35 here, go away. When President Obama announced the economic stimulus package, one of the cities located off the end of our runway, a couple miles, went back to Washington and they wanted a percentage of that economic stimulus package to support Luke Air Force Base. They did that at the request was through Senator McCain's office, and I think they were asking for 400 million dollars is what they wanted or they would not support Luke Air Force Base continued mission with the F-35. Based on relationships, while they were in Senator McCain's office, my phone rang from Senator McCain's office going, "Who are these people? Why didn't you give us a heads up?" Didn't know anything about them going back, none of the surrounding cities, all those West Valley Partners and the Luke West Valley Council, none of them knew that they were going to go back. So they were off on a flyer on their own to try to do this. And of course Senator McCain said, "We're not going to give you 400 million dollars." And so they came back and they sent people to Val Pariso to find out how they pushed back from the Air Force in Florida, and they went to school, and they came back here and they started having anti-Luke community meetings. And a lady in the community in the same town, El Mirage, was appalled. She was very supportive of the military, didn't agree with what her city council was doing, made her voice known, and then she would have a pro-Luke mission community meeting. And so we went through about three iterations of this. We went to a negative one, positive, negative, positive, negative, positive and finally I asked the lady if she would go to lunch with me and at that lunch I said, "Look, we can do these meetings forever. You know it's refreshing to see all the pro people, I know there's a lot of pro people out there, but we're not accomplishing anything. You know, if you really want to accomplish something, then you need to run for mayor." And so this was a wonderful, is a wonderful retired lady who was enjoying retirement and she, "I've never done that." And I said, "Well, time to reach out." So she went out and found two or three other Luke supporters. The four of them ran for city council the next, in the--timing's everything, so within a couple months there were elections and they all got swept in by a huge vote. And so that city now off the end of our runway, every one of their city offices, all their police cars, fire trucks, utility trucks, the symbol on the side of their truck is an F-35 saying "El Mirage, Proud Neighbor of Luke Air Force Base." So, the transformation of anti-Luke to proud neighbor of Luke Air Force Base was democracy in its finest and that was wonderful and we have a wonderful relationship, the three of us have a monthly lunch with that mayor to this day just checking on what's going on in the city, what can we do to help, we have a lot of mutual aid agreements, which we had before. We didn't increase them, but we paid attention to them and making sure that they had--and they're impacted by our noise, so it's something that we put effort in to try to help them where we can in accordance with state law and also that we don't lose our mission requirements. 

SS: Was El Mirage impacted in different ways that maybe Goodyear or the other cities weren't?

RM: Well the argument could be made that a larger percentage of El Mirage was impacted by our noise contours than the other cities, percentage wise. And by that, everything's predicated on the 65 decibel line and the state law has literally drawn the line at the 65 decibel line for residential development. No new residential inside the 65 line is what state law says. And a larger percentage of El Mirage falls inside that 65 line. So, they can't do as much residential as Goodyear or Peoria or Surprise has the ability to do. So we spend a lot of time, Barbara and Chris and I spend a lot of time with city of El Mirage trying to bring in commercial and industrial use, trying to trying to investors in. We've been successful in that in several areas and we're always keeping our eyes and ears open for potential investors that we can push to El Mirage for commercial and industrial use. So it helps them out. It's, again, it's not something that you would ever find in an Air Force regulation that you need to go out and find investors for a surrounding city, but that's what we spend a lot of our energy doing is trying to find compatible investors for that city. So it's worked out well. 

CT: And when those investors are about to make a purchase on a large plot of land and they want to do some sort of facility with manufacturing, something industrial that is compatible within various contours of our noise contours then a pre-meeting with them gives them the reassurance that what they want to do is compatible with state law, with Luke's operations, is because they know the great community relationship we already have, they don't want to come in and disrupt it. They also don't want to come and buy something, a plot of land or make an investment inside those contours, that they legally can't compatibly build or develop, so meetings with those zoning attorneys and the land developers that own the land that are helping those industries move into the area here, pre-meetings with our office is what really sets us apart to that forward thinking and that forward communication before they ever set foot on the ground. So by the time they come here, and they build and they want to hire some of the veterans that come out that are great workers and have great skill sets and great integrity, and they steal from us from those that separate and that's perfectly fine because they go on to become great citizens and employees of those organizations. So that just fosters the development and the growth with those companies that are in the cities as well.

RM: We just came from a meeting today Barbara had set up with a zoning attorney downtown and it was for a piece of property kind of on the border of El Mirage and Maricopa County north of the field. And it, exactly like Chris is describing, the success of this office is when speculators or land investors talk to their attorneys and they come to us before they've put money on the table because if they want to put a ten story condominium off the end of the runway, we want to be in that conversation before they buy the land to do that, because once they've bought the land to do that, then they're going to fight hard. And so that's the whole purpose of this office is to get as far in front of the process as possible before people commit money and then find out they may not be able to do what they thought they could do because they got a great deal on some land in the West Valley and it just so happened to be off the end of our runway. So there are in fact, I say we're not here to say no, but there are some, there are some yes/no issues, and we have to be able to fly airplanes off the runway. So everybody understands that and that's not where we spend our time. We spend our time in the margins of what can be done on that 65 line in that area so it's a huge success. There's some big box distribution centers south of the airfield down here, sub zero, REI, Dick's Sporting Goods,

CT: And UPS.

RM: And at least two of those that I remember and it might have been all three, but at least two of those, the ownership of those companies came and talked to the land owner out there and asked us to come to that meeting and to explain what our mission requirements were and explain how the state law impacted that land and after they heard us talk they couldn't sign the paperwork quick enough because they knew that we were a good neighbor. And again, the stability of knowing what the air force requirements was going to be took that speculation out of their purchase of that property and boy, they jumped on it and that is that is the pure success of this office is to get that far out of the process to help people decide to come to the West Valley. And it's good for everybody, it's good for the economics in the area.

SS: Do you have anything else you would like to add?

RM: I, just that I, and I am only going to repeat it because I want to make sure it shows up, is that the success of Luke Air Force Base can be the success of every military installation across the country if the senior leadership of those services and the senior leadership of that installation will commit to giving resources to do it. General Breedlove was forward thinking in the fact that he gave us our staff and told us to go and do the job. I cannot emphasize enough that as I've said already but I'll say it again, every installation needs a person or an office dedicated to do that, to build the relationships and to make sure the community is educated to the point where they're making development decisions around that installations that will be both beneficial for their community but also beneficial for the military installation to be able to do the mission they have. We don't have the Department of Defense infrastructure surplus any longer to lose critical air fields and army installations that we have around the country so it's a two way street. The military needs to commit the resources to do that and when the community sees the military committing those resources to doing that, then it brings them to the table as well, so that this is important enough for them and they've got both the military and the community interest at heart, then that brings the community to the table looking for the way to find a yes for both of us and you have to have that. 

SS: Alright, thank you very much.