Top Program and Program Management demands meticulous attention to detail. For example, when GIBB personnel managed the Universal Studios theme park design, build and opening programs, this involved projects encompassing utility infrastructure, roadways, parking structures for 6,000 automobiles, people movers, waterways, information technology networks, telecommunication networks, sophisticated wireless networks, attractions, hotels, show sets, rides and roller coasters, pyrotechnics, interactive electronics, fighter-trainer motion bases moving in three dimensions while traveling through attractions on rails, and coordinated Bose focused sound systems and three-dimensional film projection. Hundreds of projects with dramatically divergent systems had to be knit together, and seamlessly integrated simultaneously. The programs required extraordinary human interface safety protocols and certification processes. Building a multi-billion dollar theme park is driven by the imperative to open every single piece and part of the park simultaneously, within budget, and on time, as advertised. When a major theme park finally opens to the public, it is a living testament to successful project and program management on an incredible scale. Our GIBB personnel helped make this happen, twice.
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The Afghanistan Security Forces Infrastructure program requirement emerged very quickly and was considered an urgent program. GIBB personnel won the design and program management contract rapidly recruited and assembled the Program Management Office (PMO) team and successfully managed thousands of infrastructure projects. The task was originally to develop the logistical network of facilities to support the development of an Afghan Army, and National Police Force, courts, and detainee facilities. That planning effort transitioned into an effort to actually design those facilities in Afghanistan, with the secondary objective of building some in-country facilities design and construction capability. Afghanistan is primarily a tribal network nation, lacking a national justice system and a standing army. Therefore, no such supporting facilities existed. The facilities and networks envisioned by the Coalition nations had to be conceptualized, designed, and built from scratch.
The United States imposed extensive Defense Department and Congressional oversight with the $12 billion program investment. The Air Force Center for Engineers was charged by the Department of Defense to execute the program. Several GIBB personnel served in key roles, and literally assembled the outsourced Project Management Program Office under contract. GIBB personnel recruited expatriate American and British professionals to lead a team of Afghan personnel to plan, estimate, budget, financially manage, design, procure, contract manage, quality control and inspect, make payments based upon earned value, negotiate changes, make financial need projections, estimates to complete, commission and accept facilities and close out contracts. The PMO office was set up in Kabul, Afghanistan, and managed by GIBB personnel and recruited expatriates. A local facility was then equipped with a modern Information Security network with software uniquely developed for the day-to-day needs of that program and its projects. That IT system included state-of-the-art security and cybersecurity systems and protocols sufficient to build a secure IT-linked pathway to dozens of investors or contributing agencies or nations. The PMO successfully managed U.S. investments, completed, commissioned, and turned over these systems, closed out the construction program, and demobilized, withdrawing from Afghanistan.
