Mighty Eighth returns to historic home

  • Published
Eighth Air Force officially re-opened its historic headquarters building in a ribbon-cutting ceremony here Mar. 26, two years after the building was struck by lightning and burned for more than 12 hours.

Guest speakers at the ceremony included Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, 8th Air Force commander, Mr. Donald W. Weir Sr., after whom the building is named; and Mr. Larry Gibbs, owner of the construction company that rebuilt the headquarters building.

Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson took command of 8th Air Force in May 2002, two months after the fire, and believed he would never have the chance to work in the historic headquarters building.

Thanks to Gibbs Construction and the efforts of countless others, Eighth Air Force personnel moved in right on schedule, he said. Taking just 22 months to go from fire recovery, to rebuilding, to re-entry of equipment, resources and personnel what an amazing feat and testament to the builders!

Mr. Gibbs said that under the best circumstances this was not an easy building to design or construct. At many times during the construction, building and designing was being done at the same time.

Mr. Gibbs construction company was awarded the Air Combat Command Construction Excellence Award for its innovative 8th Air Force Headquarters rebuilding project.

More than 200 8th Air Force members were relocated to different offices around the base immediately after the fire and of the original 14 computer servers, only two were recovered after the fire. Communications officials said they were able to salvage approximate 200 of 400 computers.

We were able to replace all of the original service with only three new servers, said Mark Winderweedle, 8th Air Force Network Integration.

Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, 8th Air Force commander, said the 21-month project was nothing short of miraculous. I truly believed Id never have the chance to work in this magnificent building, he said. Thanks to Gibbs Construction and the efforts of countless others, Eighth Air Force personnel moved in right on schedule.

Karl Geibel, 8th Air Force staff civil engineer, said the quick turn-around was due to the design-build concept that was used.

Normally, a project of this magnitude is a three to four year process, Mr. Geibel explained. But through the design-build concept, the same contractor was responsible for both the design and the construction, so some work could be accomplished before the design was completed, cutting the completion time drastically.

The restoration project consisted of 78.5 miles of fiber optics cable, adding more than 400 work stations and was completed for approximately $18 million. The interior of the building was redesigned to house a more efficient layout and improve the computer network, but the exterior was rebuilt to maintain the historical integrity of the building.

The building first served as a troop barracks for the 20th Pursuit Group, and subsequently housed the 6th Air Base Unit, Air Training Command and Second Air Force. On Jan. 1, 1975, the buildings extensive historical value earned it a slot on the National Register for Historic Places.

In 1998, Lt. Gen. Philip Ford, then-commander of 8th Air Force, dedicated the building as the Don Weir Hall. General Ford honored Mr. Weir for his life-long legacy of service to the professional world, the community and military in the Shreveport/Bossier City area.