The Secretary of the Army's Briefing Facilities, The Pentagon

Introduction

The Secretary of the Army has statutory responsibility for all matters relating to Army manpower, personnel, reserve affairs, installations, environmental issues, weapons systems and equipment acquisition, communications, and financial management. The Secretary is responsible for the department's annual budget (currently nearly $70 billion). The Secretary leads a work force of just over one million active duty, National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers and 270,000 civilian employees, and has stewardship over 25 million acres of land.

Board rooms aren't just for America's corporations. The military runs itself like a business today. To manage their activities, high ranking officials meet and communicate with subordinates to make decisions and move forward. To do this, excellent systems must be designed and integrated for their use. General Projection has built "board rooms" for our military's elite and highest ranking leaders. The President, Vice President, several Secretaries and the Joint Chiefs of Staff use General Projection integrated systems for these purposes. Among these are:

• Director's briefing facilities, Communications Electronics Command
• CINC briefing facilities and command and control center, United States Central Command, Tampa.
• CINC briefing facilities and command and control center, United States Southern Command, Panama.
• U.S. Army War College - Strategic Wargame Facility.
• Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing facility, Joint Warfighting Center, Ft. Monroe, Virginia.

General Projection Systems was asked to design and install (several projects over the course of two years) upgraded briefing facilities for the Secretary in his very large conference rooms and auditorium.

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Design

Each system consists of large screen, high-resolution projection systems, full media capability (1/2" VHS, 1/2" S-VHS, Hi8mm, 3/4", etc.), and sound systems all fully computer controlled through custom lecterns with touch panels for maximum "user friendliness" for the high level briefers and field grade officers presenting to the Secretary or Joint Chiefs.

One of several briefing facilities by
General Projection for the Secretary.

Signal routing and control are accomplished through video and audio switchers allowing full flexibility in media usage. Complete, automated control is provided through the remote control system. This allows rapid changes to and from medias should the Secretary or a Joint Chief have a question that pertains to medias previously viewed or utilized. Fast and efficient operation with spectacular graphic, data and media presentation capability were the primary requirements of these systems.

Additionally, these briefing facilities make use of materials and construction techniques as specified by the Defense Intelligence Agency Manual 50-3 for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF). All signal conditioning and routing is also provided and designed by General Projection with the 50-3 requirements being met for use in a SCIF.

Success

Selection of General Projection by the Pentagon for these crucial, high-level and sensitive facilities was based upon the technical superiority and value provided to the government by the firm combined with the company's demonstrated capability to provide such state-of-the-art systems.

After the conflict in the Middle East, General Projection was again retained by the Army to provide all briefing communications systems for the Secretary's new Joint Chief theater briefing facility at the Pentagon. This auditorium provides complete briefing communcations capabilities in another section of the Pentagon very similar to the original systems described above.

For more information on briefing facilities such as these, fill out our Information Request form or email Solutions@genproj.com