STAFF: All right, well, good morning, everybody. I hope you can hear me. My name is Jeff Jurgensen. I know some of you. I work in OSD Press Operations. Appreciate your all RSVPing and joining us this morning for what is a very important day for the department and the announcement of a very important strategy for DOD.

As you're aware, we're here this morning to speak about the department's newly released, just this morning, Strategy for Resilient and Healthy Defense Communities. This strategy is now available on www.Defense.gov, along with a -- an accompanying press release.

This morning, we are very fortunate to have Mr. Brendan Owens with us. Mr. Owens is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations and Environment. He has a very large portfolio in the department, and among his many responsibilities, they also cover the -- the purview of this strategy we're here to talk about this morning. Mr. Owens has been leading and meaningfully involved throughout the development of this strategy.

And so, what I'd like to do is I'm going to turn it over to him here in just a minute for some opening comments and then we'll make ourselves available to take your questions. In terms of our posture today, we are on the record for by-name attribution, and everything available for you to write as delivered.

So, with that, Mr. Owens, I'll turn it over to you for some opening comments, sir.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE BRENDAN OWENS: Thanks very much, and it's great to -- to be able to share this portion of what DOD is doing to take care of our people. I think this has been something, since I started in this position, that has been a significant point of pride, to be associated with the leadership in this building that puts that -- that issue up -- the issue of its people front and center.

The Secretary, in his message to the force every year, has -- has put taking care of our people as one of the three things that he is highlighting, and this is a physical and -- this strategy will be a physical manifestation of how DOD installations, buildings, natural environment does exactly that.

So, rewinding a little bit, about a month into the job, I -- we started having -- I've -- I've been in this job 13 months now -- we started zeroing in on something that the deputy had been asking the EI&E team for since about midway through the -- the -- the second year of the administration.

The -- the thing that she was centering in on that we had -- that ultimately became this strategy was looking at the buildings, the installation, and the natural environment portfolio in terms of how it can serve to enhance readiness and make the quality of life for our service members, our -- their families, our civilians, our contractors actually something that -- that enhances readiness, that enhances our ability to -- to execute our missions. When you look at what this strategy is after, that's really what's at the core of this, is making sure that our readiness is enhanced because our people are -- are our most important asset.

So, the -- the challenge that we have though in front of us is significant. We have been under-investing in infrastructure for -- for decades. We have been prioritizing the -- the -- the mission readiness aspects and taking risk in the area that -- of installations.

And rather than try to MILCON our way out of this particular problem, what this strategy represents is a whole of department, specifically through the EI&E lens, of how we can reorient our direction and our path forward to allow us to be able to understand that it's not about how much we build, what we build and -- how we center people and centering the mission of what those people are trying to deliver in everything that we do.

So, I'm really excited about the way that this has created a -- a platform around which we can shape the culture of the -- of -- of our team, the EI&E team. And I will be working with our military department counterparts to -- to drive this -- to drive these issues forward.

And it's just going to be an excellent opportunity to be able to point to a strategy that enables us to be able to be very deliberate and very targeted about how we move forward from here.

So, a couple specifics about -- about what we are planning to do. We have underway on the back of this strategy a -- a relook at the way the unified facilities criteria, which is the Department of Defense's building code, is -- is centering things like an indoor environmental quality and -- and quality of life in -- in all of the things that we do. So, when we build a building and when we renovate a building using the UFCs, how are we positioning that facility, that renovated facility or that new facility to take account of the things that are in this strategy?

In addition to that, we are having a significant push around unaccompanied housing, and we are centering everything that we are doing in that space around making sure that we are understanding what the -- the soldier, the sailors, the airmen, the Marines, the Guardians need out of their -- out of their facilities in order to make sure that the version of themselves that shows up to work the next day after spending a night in a barracks or a dorm is the best version that we can for the mi- -- to -- for them to execute their mission. 

So there's a lot that I could get into, but in the interests of making sure that y'all get a chance to pick apart any part -- any -- any of this that's of specific interest, I'll stop there, and if there's additional desire for me to -- to continue to talk, I'm happy to -- happy to go through specifics of what we are -- what we're working on, as well.

STAFF: Right, sir. Great. Really appreciate the overview. 

What we will do now is I think we've got about 15 media outlets on the line. If you have a question for Mr. Owens on the strategy, what I'll need you to do is go ahead in Zoom, either raise your hand or indicate that you have a question in the chat, and I will go ahead and call on you. So, if I could ask you to do that, that'd be great. 

First question, I think, is Joe Clark from DMA. Joe? Can you hear me? Joe, you're free to go ahead. OK, hearing nothing from Joe, we can always come back to you. 

Is there anyone else on the line who has a question for Mr. Owens? Like I said, just go ahead and raise your hand in Zoom or indicate in the chat, and we'll give you a call.

All right, well, hearing nothing, sir, I will turn it back over to you if you have some final comments you'd like to make. 

And again, Joe, if you'd just please stay online if there's an issue with your audio. We'll come back to you here in just a moment.

But Mr. Owens, any additional or final thoughts you've got?

MR. OWENS: Yeah. Final thoughts, you know, the built environment is -- oh, wait.

(CROSSTALK)

MR. OWENS: I get -- I get a redo? That's great.

(CROSSTALK)

STAFF: Mr. Ditchey, could I ask you to do a comms check? We think we might have had a problem with the -- with the audio feed. Bob, can you hear me? Or type in the chat if -- if you can or cannot.

(CROSSTALK)

STAFF: Joe, if you're on the line, go ahead with your question.

(CROSSTALK)

Q: Are you able to hear me now?

STAFF: Yeah, Joe.

Q: OK, great. Sincere apologies for that and thank you so much for your time and for doing this. My question was on that resilience piece specifically. Your office has done a lot of work in kind of describing and driving the ball forward on -- on making enough military infrastructure resilient to -- to climate change as really describing the national security imperative of doing so. I think you made a lot of sense and -- and done a -- moved the ball forward a lot in that regard. I wanted to see if you can highlight that principle in this strategy. Do you see any changes to previous work, or is this continuation of that work? Can you kind of unpack that for me? And thanks again.

MR. OWENS: Yeah, for -- thank -- thanks for the que- -- question, Joe, and I -- I -- I do agree the team has done a tremendous amount and moved a significant -- significant, significant efforts forward to improve resilience and -- and -- and mission right -- the capability to -- to both respond quickly to challenges whether they're -- they're -- they're kinetic or man-made or -- or -- or weather-driven around resilience.

I -- I think this is really about a continuation of that work, but centered through the lens of how it impacts people, right? So, from -- from that standpoint, all the things that we are doing for efficiency, for resilience are going to be things that improve quality of life, right? So, if we have the ability to ensure power during storms, that is something that is one less thing that a -- you know, a -- a -- a sailor who has to go to work, leave their family at home. Don't have to worry about power outages in -- in their -- in their -- in their family housing areas. That's a -- that's a level of making sure that we understand that the benefit of resilience is not just to the direct mission; the benefit of resilience also has a knock-on effect for the people who are in the sailor's life, in the soldier’s life, and making sure that they're taken care of.

So that's an element of the benefit of resilience through the lens of what it means for people that we have not necessarily been leading with. But when you talk -- when you start to have those conversations with the people who are responsible for making sure that the installation's energy system is resilient, that gives them a better connection to a purpose. That changes the way, for the better, in -- in -- in all my experience so far, that the -- the -- the -- changes their focus and -- and makes them more able to -- to connect the direct -- connect directly to the outcome of that work from the standpoint of how they're -- they're executing it.

Q: Amazing. Thank you so much.

STAFF: OK, anybody else with a question? Just go ahead and raise your hand in Zoom or type us in the chat, and we'll call on you.

MR. OWENS: Yeah, let me just maybe wrap it up here.