COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Airmen from the 560th REDHORSE Squadron are continuing construction on what will become the Construction Field Lab for Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture.
Modeled after the Field Engineering and Readiness Laboratory (FERL) at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the site will provide Texas A&M - RELLIS (respect, excellence, leadership, loyalty, integrity, selfless service) students with hands-on experience in construction, bridging classroom learning with real-world applications. For the Airmen of the 560th, the project offers equally valuable training.
“This project allows us to meet critical training requirements in a realistic setting,” said 2nd Lt. Schyler Carbone, the site project engineer. “It mirrors the type of work we would perform in a deployed environment and helps maintain mission readiness.”
While it is easy to train most skills, this project allows Airmen the opportunity to strengthen other skills like communication, time management and problem solving, all of which they may need in a deployed environment.
The collaboration is one of several ongoing initiatives between Texas A&M and the Air Force aimed at enhancing civil engineering education while providing Airmen with mission-relevant construction experience.
“We have students in the university as well as young military members that are growing up in construction, but don’t have the knowledge yet” said David Goltz, director of Innovation at Texas A&M. “They get the experience while the students will end up getting the end result, which is the product of the building that they can use.”
Future joint projects are under consideration, with goals to further support engineering education and expand training opportunities for Airmen in civil engineering career fields.