US Department of Defence civil engineers have begun construction on a STEM facility for Girl Scouts in Camp Paumalu in Oahu, Hawaii, including the creation of a concrete slab for work to begin on. It is hoped the facility will encourage more girls to choose STEM and improve representation.
The work included clearing and surveying the local area and starting the construction of walls for the facility along with accompanying living quarters and a road to access the building. The Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) project featured 50 personnel from the Air Force, Marine Corps Reserve, and Air National Guard.
Capt. Jason Barron, 944th Civil Engineer Squadron operations commander and Air Force reservist said: “This STEM building represents enabling the development of more technologically advanced individuals at an earlier age.”
“We were able to bring the same team (who deployed) here and hit the ground running. Typically, you have a crawl, walk, run stage. We were able to look at the prints, understand what was involved and needed and meet a very critical timeline.”
“We are hitting almost every single aspect of training from a CE standpoint on this portion of the project. In addition, we are marrying up with the Marines who bring their own skill set in trying to provide ‘combat ready forces’ from an integration standpoint.”
The aim of the exercise was to allow DoD service men and women to learn new skills and collaborate with other services within the armed forces. It is part of the ongoing IRT programme which recently saw similar work done in Southwest Asia.
The construction of the institute is expected to be completed within the next two years. Local contractors were used for aspects of the project and to allow the defence personnel to learn new skills within their specific fields.
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air force Air National Guard construction Hawaii STEM US DoD US Marine Corps