Earlier this
month, ECBC Director Joseph Wienand had the opportunity to speak with
journalists from the Defense Media Activity (DMA), a Department of Defense hub
for glob al armed forces news. Several news stories have resulted from the
media engagement, which informed hundreds of thousands of warfighters around
the globe today of the work that dedicated people in the chem-bio world do to
keep them safe.
“Heroes at
home, supporting heroes abroad,” is how Mr. Wienand put it, speaking of the
scientists, engineers, researchers and others working on behalf of warfighters.
“Chemists, engineers, plant operators, safety professionals and others bring
hundreds of years of experience in safely handling hazardous material 24/7.”
On Jan. 10,
journalists from DMA, Ft. Meade, Md. interviewed Mr. Wienand and Joint Program
Executive Officer for Chemical and Biological Defense, Mr. Carmen Spencer. ECBC
communicators arranged for interviews at Edgewood, APG, with the global DoD media
team, pegged to the coming use of the Field Deployable Hydrolysis System (FDHS)
in destroying Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles.DMA is the government organization responsible for hosting Army Times, Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon Channel, Armed Forces Network News and many other broadcast, web and print news services.
The initial news products from the interviews were scheduled to be seen and read in approximately 170 nations, on 78 deployed Navy vessels, and on the Pentagon Channel and its nationwide cable and satellite TV presence.
With sea
trials completed and installation of the FDHS finalized, the MV Cape Ray has
been equipped to store, manage and destroy chemical material in a safe and
environmentally compliant manner. The FDHS, engineered and constructed at ECBC,
was developed with the Pentagon’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical
and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD.)
Mr. Spencer
described the intense six-month development process that produced the FDHS.
“Without a close collaboration with ECBC, this
mission could not be accomplished, Mr. Spencer said. “We’re jointly working to make the world a
safer place,” Mr. Spencer said. “It’s a growth business and that’s not always a
good thing,” he said. “But (soon) there’s one less nation on earth that
possesses chemical weapons,” he said.
Mr. Wienand
saluted the civilian experts who wanted to become, and became, a part of FDHS’s
first international mission. Wienand cited
their dedication and patriotism, as well as their passion for what for others might
consider work that is too dangerous to do.
He related
to DMA’s journalists the story of one ECBC engineer, a former soldier, who told
him, “9-11 made me mad. That’s why I’m here.”
He ended
with the thoughts from another ECBC employee.
Asked by Mr.
Wienand why he wanted to be part of the FHDS mission, he said, “This is a part
of history. We want to be a part of it.”
To read and
hear more about ECBC’s role in destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, check out
the following DMA stories:
Soldiers
Radio News: http://www.dvidshub.net/audio/35549/soldiers-radio-news
Army.mil
| Safety top priority on chem-demil ship, officials sayhttp://www.army.mil/article/118221
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