By Pacific Island Times News Staff
The military buildup on Guam has further accelerated with 58 active construction projects as of the end of fiscal 2024, according to the Office in Charge of Construction Marine Corps Marianas or OICC MCM.
The construction office said the ongoing projects are located on Naval Base Guam, Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz, the Skaggs Training Complex
in Yigo and Andersen Air Force Base North Ramp.
“I’m grateful to be a part of this incredible team,” said Capt. Blake Burket, who assumed command of OICC MCM in the summer of 2024.
“Together we are aggressively delivering excellent buildings, facilities and
infrastructure. This is history in the making. We are literally constructing
a legacy that will endure for generations," he added.
Projects have varied requirements, ranging from upgraded utility infrastructure and warehouses to training ranges and aviation facilities.
The U.S. Department of Defense is investing $12 billion on island in preparation
for the relocation of 5,000 Marines from Okinawa. The first small flow is anticipated to arrive by the end of the year.
The Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Pacific recently awarded a $113 million contract for the construction of an auto shop and electrical maintenance facilities at Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz.
The contract was awarded in September to a joint venture between Granite Construction Inc., of Watsonville, Calif., and Obayashi Corp., of Tokyo. The project supports III Marine Expeditionary Force’s 9th Engineer Support Battalion. Construction is expected to begin in October and finish in January 2027.
First commissioned in 2016, the OICC MCM is responsible for all projects funded through the Defense Policy Review Initiative.
"DPRI projects account for $8.9 billion of construction, of which $3.9 billion is funded by an international agreement between the United States and Japan," the construction command said.
The command said it has approximately 130 personnel monitoring and managing the construction projects on Guam.
Its mission “is to deliver high-quality enduring infrastructure on time, on
budget, and safely for the Marine Corps and Joint Forces to train and operate from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.”
OICC MCM said it uses two industry standards to measure the quantity and quality of their construction work: Work in Place or WIP, rates, progress
metric, and the Days Away, Restricted or Transferred, or DART rate, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety metric.
The WIP rate reflects the cost of actual work conducted on a construction project compared to the expected total cost of the construction contract.
In fiscal 2024, OICC MCM recorded a record-breaking $809 million of WIP completed, at a rate of 99 percent contracted costs. This is the highest recorded WIP rate since the command’s commissioning, according to a report sent to Naval Facilities and Engineering Systems Command Pacific.
The DART program records safety incidents that cause construction workers
to step away from work, restrict their work processes, or transfer to a different task.
“We are making history with these projects, but none of that matters unless
everyone goes home with limbs, eyesight, and hearing,” said Burket.
A DART rate of 1.8 per 100 workers is considered the industry standard. The OICC MCM collects DART rates from all 14 contractors working active
construction sites.
In fiscal 2024, OICC MCM recorded an overall rate of only 0.05 DART incidents across a workforce of over 6,000 personnel.
“This is even lower than our DART rate in 2023,” said Johnny Cruz,
occupational, safety and health manager at OICC MCM.
Cruz visits construction sites to meet with each contractor’s safety managers and assists them with their safety programs. He attributed the remarkable safety program to the proactive efforts from contracting companies.
“Creating this proactive safety culture relies on collaboration and
expertise of many outstanding safety professionals,” he said.
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