DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

1010 DEFENSE PENTAGON 

WASHINGTON , DC 20301 - 1010 FEB 1 4 2024 

MEMORANDUM FOR SENIOR PENTAGON LEADERSHIP 

COMMANDERSOFTHECOMBATANTCOMMANDS 

DEFENSE AGENCY AND DOD FIELD ACTIVITY DIRECTORS 

SUBJECT: Resilient and Healthy Defense Communities 

To meet the objectives of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, the Department of Defense 

must recruit and retain a strong, healthy, and ready military force. Defense installations are at 

the core of our Service members' military experience. Installations are built and natural spaces 

where our people live, work, train, raise their children, and spend time with their families. 

Ensuring that these spaces are safe; appealing to current and prospective Service members, their 

families, and the civilian workforce; and supportive of their physical, emotional, and cognitive 

well-being is therefore a national security imperative. It is also our moral obligation to the 

people who defend our Nation. 

The attached Strategy for Resilient and Healthy Defense Communities will guide the 

Department's actions to achieve the following objective: healthy, safe, functional, and resilient 

spaces on defense installations that enhance the quality of life and readiness of our Service 

members, families, and civilian workforce. We envision an end-state where: 

• People living and working on DoD installations thrive as part of happy, productive, 

and resilient communities. 

• The built and natural environment around them meets operational needs and 

improves their quality of life. 

• Installation managers and senior DoD leadership have a common operating picture 

of the quality of infrastructure to guide timely decisions and resource allocations. 

• Installations are integrated with surrounding communities, providing public services 

and lifestyle-oriented features that build the readiness and resiliency of the Total 

Force. 

I appreciate your hard work in making this strategy a reality. 

Attachment: 

As stated 

OS0008028-23/CM 0013280-23 
Department of Defense 

Strategy for Resilient and Healthy 

Defense Communities 

Deputy Secretary of Defense 

February 2024 
RESILIENT AND HEAL THY DEFENSE COMMUNITIES 

Taking Care ofour People Where They Live, Work, and Train 

END-STATE 

This strategy will guide the Department's actions to achieve the following objective: healthy, 

safe, functional , and resilient spaces on defense installations that enhance the quality of life and 

readiness of our Service members, families, and civilian workforce. We envision an end-state 

where 

• People living and working on Department of Defense (DoD) installations thrive as part 

of happy, productive, and resilient communities. 

• The built and natural environment around them meets operational needs and improves 

their quality of life. 

• Installation managers and senior DoD leadership have a common operating picture of 

the quality of infrastructure to guide timely decisions and resource allocations. 

• Installations are integrated with surrounding communities, providing public services 

and lifestyle-oriented features that build the readiness and resiliency of the Total Force. 

I. INTRODUCTION 

To meet the objectives of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, DoD must recruit and retain a 

strong, healthy, and ready military force. Defense installations are at the core of our Service 

members' military experience. They comprise built and natural spaces where our people live, 

work, train, raise their children, and spend time with their families. Ensuring that these spaces 

are safe; appealing to current and prospective Service members, their families, and the civilian 

workforce; and supportive of their physical, emotional, and cognitive well-being is therefore a 

national security imperative. It is also our moral obligation to the people who defend our Nation. 

DoD' s ability to support its workforce is unmatched in the federal Government. Today, over 2 

million military and civilian personnel live and work on 538 installations across 25 countries. 

Our installations provide more than 1 million rotational and permanent bed spaces and 

approximately 250,000 homes for Service members and their families. In addition, they include 

more than 280,000 buildings and permanent structures, composed of workspaces, schools, 

commissaries, hospitals, and other facilities. The Department also manages 26 million acres of 

land and outdoor recreation spaces, including parks, protected areas, waterways, and other 

natural features that contribute to local economies and communities. 

This strategy sets forth the Department's commitment to, and strategy for, ensuring that the built 

and natural infrastructure on our installations and in our defense communities supports our 

workforce and their families. We believe that our installations can help deliver superior 

operational outcomes by being: 

• Healthy, providing spaces that are comfortable, have exceptional indoor and outdoor 

environment quality, and offer proximity to open space that contributes to overall wellbeing. 
• Safe, designing and sustaining spaces that do not endanger the wellbeing of occupants 

but rather enhance their ability to succeed. 

• Functional, enabling the way people want to live and work by offering intuitive, 

efficient, and user-friendly design and modem amenities and technologies; and 

• Resilient, delivering continuous service and resilience against climate change, 

environmental hazards, and other risks that have the potential to disrupt or displace. 

Defense Infrastructure Footprint 

• 538 installations - all 50 states and D.C., 2 U.S. territories, 25 foreign countries; 422 

are non-virtual installations with a physical presence, while 116 are virtual 

• 26 million acres 

• 667,760 total assets (buildings, structures and linear structures); grouped by: 

- Housing (250,000 homes, 1 million permanent/rotational beds) 

- Workplace facilities - hangers, shipyards, workshops and garages, dockyards, test 

and eval ranges, offices, etc. 

Other facilities - schools, hospitals, community centers, commissaries, etc. 

• Utilities (water, wastewater, gas, electricity, Wi-Fi) 

• Green spaces and open spaces, including protected areas and key natural features 

Improving our vast infrastructure footprint is both a massive opportunity and a significant 

undertaking. Over the past five years, the Department has invested an average of $11.4 billion 

per year to build facilities, $15.4 billion per year to maintain and repair built infrastructure, and 

$2.5 billion per year on environment restoration and conservation efforts. However, this level of 

investment is insufficient to reverse the decline of our assets. The estimated deferred 

maintenance backlog, which is based on addressing infrastructure condition deficiencies relative 

to their original specifications, stands at $134 billion and continues to accrue faster than our pace 

of investment. 

Moreover, this backlog does not account for upgrades needed to accommodate current standards 

and Service member preferences or ready our infrastructure to be resilient to changing climate 

and environmental conditions. Over 79 percent of our installations were established before 1970 

and nearly 33 percent of built assets are more than 50 years old. These assets reflect the needs of 

the time they were constructed, requiring not just regular upkeep, but potentially significant 

upgrades or outright replacements to meet evolving requirements and preferences. Additionally, 

the number of incidents where hurricanes, flooding, and wildfire have left billion-plus dollar 

recovery actions in their wake ( e.g., $1 billion at Offutt Air Force Base, $3 billion at Marine 

Corps Base Camp Lejeune, and $5 billion at Tyndall Air Force Base) is increasing at an 

unsustainable rate. 

The natural infrastructure on which the Department depends will also require significant 

maintenance investments. Nearly 95 percent of the installation lands are undeveloped or in some 

form of natural state. This natural infrastructure provides the realistic environmental conditions 

to develop and test new technologies and train our Warfighters. Just as important, it consists of 

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diverse ecosystems that supply ecosystem services critical to mission assurance as well as 

benefits to military communities by reducing risk of wildfire or flooding, improving water 

quality, reducing heat island effects, sustaining biodiversity, and improving quality of life, 

including by providing outdoor education and recreation amenities. 

Access to outdoor recreation opportunities such as hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing, boating, 

and camping, as we as to parks and other open spaces, has significant value to installations and 

surrounding communities, and there is an established and growing body of knowledge 

demonstrating the benefits oftime in nature to both physical and mental health. Numerous 

factors can affect the quality of an installation' s natural infrastructure such as a changing climate, 

spread of invasive species, and land use changes. The ecosystem service benefits received from 

natural infrastructure can be enhanced or degraded depending on how ecosystems are managed, 

both on installation and locally and in partnership with surrounding communities. Maintaining 

healthy and resilient natural infrastructure will require active, ongoing management focused on 

reducing environmental risks while simultaneously, improving the quality of the natural 

environment benefit installation residents and surrounding communities. 

The Department recognizes that a significant gap persists between installation conditions today 

and the quality standards that our Service members and their families expect and deserve. Given 

the magnitude of the infrastructure funding deficit, it is imperative that we not only invest more 

but also invest better to achieve our goal of delivering healthy, safe, functional , and resilient 

spaces. This strategy proposes three ways for the Department to do so: 

Adopt human-centered requirements: To maximize the benefit of our investments, we will 

implement the installation attributes that our users value most. Our infrastructure design and 

maintenance requirements will emphasize people and their safety, needs, preferences, and 

experiences to create spaces that support and protect them. We will invest in technologies to 

empower users with information and feedback mechanisms about their environment and to allow 

installation managers to monitor and deliver high-quality assets. We will promote strategies, 

design, and products that, where possible, avoid the use of harmful chemicals and toxins. We 

will do so through consistent policy and reliable feedback loops that allow us to recognize and 

address problems that arise. Our installation design will take into account where our people live 

and work to make sure they have access to resources, such as food, recreation, and schools, and 

to ensure that we minimize potential exposure from mission driven hazards, such as emissions 

from tanks and planes. We will consider how our Service members, their families, and our 

workforce can benefit further from our 26 million acres of managed, conserved and restored 

forests, grasslands, wetlands, coastal areas, rivers and streams as well from our local and regional 

partnerships with public land managers and private working landowners. By emphasizing 

human well-being, we will seek to create environments that don't just meet utilitarian needs and 

compliance standards, but promote happiness, productivity, and a sense of belonging. 

Optimize our footprint: We will ensure that the scale and scope of our infrastructure footprint is 

aligned with the needs of our people. We will consolidate underutilized or underperforming 

assets and ensure that new facilities are built to last and are adaptable to evolving demands and 

conditions. We will seek targeted opportunities to upgrade and modernize our existing asset 

portfolio to increase longevity and reduce operating costs. We will also prioritize maintaining a 

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healthy and resilient natural environment and seek opportunities to enhance degraded natural 

areas on installations and through conservation, restoration and management, create amenities 

for our service members, their families, and our workforce on existing properties. Our goal will 

be to create a smaller, higher quality portfolio that is utilized for longer periods of time, thus 

reducing the total lifecycle cost of infrastructure delivery. 

Transform how we manage our portfolio: In addition to optimizing the size and mix of our asset 

base, we will adopt an asset management strategy that improves performance and places our 

building and facilities portfolio on a more sustainable financial path. We will also continue to 

move towards managing natural infrastructure as critical assets for supporting our mission, 

installation residents and communities. We will deepen partnerships with private industry, local 

and state governments, and academic and community organizations to leverage their capabilities 

in infrastructure financing, design, construction, and management. Further, we will update 

internal construction and maintenance processes to enhance infrastructure quality. Across our 

portfolio, we will establish meaningful oversight and accountability mechanisms that support 

consistent delivery of human-centered assets. 

Underpinning these three efforts are key strategic enablers: clear and measurable outcomes to 

track our progress; training and skill-building of our built and natural infrastructure management 

workforce to better deliver on these commitments; and continuous user engagement with Service 

personnel and family members to ensure we are capturing and meeting their expectations. These 

efforts will be done in conjunction with existing Department of Defense quality of life initiatives. 

Together, these efforts will drive changes across the defense infrastructure enterprise and ensure 

that it is managed as a strategic asset to promote the well-being of our Total Force. 

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Strategic Framework 

Objective 

Healthy & safe, functional & modern, and reliable & resilient installations that 

enhance the quality of life of our Service members, Families, and Civilians. 

Put people first 

Improve built &natural infrastructure; 

Right size our portfolio 

Improve cost and performance 

Clear outcomesbased metrics 

Strategic Enablers 

Workforce education Constant user 

& skill-building engagement 

II. ADOPT HUMAN-CENTERED REQUIREMENTS 

Our Service members and their families spend a significant amount of their time living and 

working on defense installations. Thus, every design, land use, and construction decision we 

make - from the ability to walk to access basic amenities, to how much natural light is available 

in their homes, to the systems that ensure the cleanliness of their water, to how often they pass 

through communal spaces that facilitate social interaction - has consequences for our people' s 

physical and mental health and well-being. Similarly, the management and condition of 

installation lands as well as that of surrounding public and private lands can affect air quality, 

noise pollution, light pollution, fire risk, flood risk, water quality and access to or quality of 

outdoor education and recreation opportunities. We must therefore put human needs and values 

at the center of our approach to delivering and maintaining built and natural infrastructure. We 

must further ensure that we measure asset performance and prioritize investments based on 

human welfare and outcomes. 

Our approach will leverage the growing body of research that links architecture, design, and 

urban planning concepts to physiological responses with near- and long-term health outcomes. 

Working with the foremost industry and Government experts in these fields, the Department will 

adopt a more human-centered approach to infrastructure delivery through three key initiatives. 

Create livability standards. We will place "livability" at the heart of our design and planning 

principles, translating this concept into objective and measurable standards of asset performance 

along four dimensions: health, safety, functionality, and reliability. Across these categories, 

specific standards may include: indoor and outdoor environment quality, such as air and water 

qua) ity and thermal, lighting, and acoustic comfort; availability and reliability of utilities and 

5 
amenities; walkability and accessibility; prevalence of shared and community-oriented spaces; 

and proximity to critical services, such as child development centers, school, healthcare facilities, 

and dining facilities. These standards will be tailored to, and cover the breadth of, different asset 

classes, including barracks, family housing, office spaces, urban green spaces, natural areas, and 

indoor and outdoor recreational spaces. 

This approach will extend the Department' s traditional focus on the utility and condition of 

physical infrastructure to also include enhancement of the user experience. We will integrate 

livability standards into our policies and Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC), which inform the 

Department's infrastructure planning, design, construction, sustainment, restoration, and 

modernization efforts. These efforts will take into account where people live and work and 

promote strategies, design, and products that avoid the use of harmful chemicals and toxins. We 

will also continue to develop our Integrated Natural Resources Management Plans (INRMPs) in 

coordination with other programs and offices so that we consider how the management of natural 

infrastructure can support our Service members, their families, and our workforce. 

Increase digital connectivity. Core to the livability concept, new personnel joining the 

Department will expect greater digital connectivity and access to modern technologies on DoD 

installations. We will need to ensure that installations are equipped with 5G and next-gen 

communications networks that can handle massive amounts of data in near real-time. This 

digital infrastructure will not only enable key military applications, such as augmented and 

virtual reality training, but also allow Service members and families to access virtual healthcare, 

remote work and education, smart home technologies, and a range of lifestyle-enhancing 

applications and services. 

At the same time, this infrastructure will be critical to realizing the benefits of "smart cities" 

technologies and creating connected installations, while strengthening cybersecurity measures. 

To implement and monitor livability standards, we will equip installations with an array of 

sensors that enable remote equipment diagnostics, preventive and proactive maintenance, and 

overall better-informed infrastructure investment decisions. 

Invest in user technology. We will further support our Service members, families, and civilian 

workforce with a variety of digital tools to improve their user experience on defense 

installations. Unlike workers in many other sectors, our Service members rarely choose where to 

live and are frequently asked to relocate within the network of defense installations with little 

information about their future homes and communities. Leveraging best practices from many 

commercially available services and applications, we will equip our people with critical 

information about bases and surrounding communities, such as housing floor plans, walkability 

scores, accessibility features, recreational options, and environmental factors, so they can be 

better prepared for relocation to any given installation. In addition, we will make available 

digital tools that allow users to directly report quality issues and provide feedback in real-time or 

through periodic structured surveys. 

These user-centric tools, coupled with sensors and monitors for asset performance, will enable 

installations managers and senior leaders to make better investment decisions about our 

installations. Taken together, the data will enable installation managers to identify and remediate 

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issues, empower users with information about their environment, and increase overall 

transparency and accountability for the quality of our installations. 

III. OPTIMIZE OUR FOOTPRINT 

While the Department evaluates the total number and location of defense installations based on 

the National Defense Strategy and global posture reviews, this strategy aims to align the scale 

and scope of assets within installations to our mission and our people's needs. Over the years, 

the combination of new missions, evolving user preferences and tastes, and changing 

environmental and climate conditions has naturally resulted in a portfolio size and mix that is not 

fully optimized to today 's demands. As we update this portfolio, we will find opportunities to 

create a more consolidated and efficient footprint within installations, build high-quality, 

resilient built and natural infrastructure that lasts, and invest in targeted upgrades that add to the 

longevity of our assets, all in service of meeting our people' s needs while reducing the total 

Iifecycle cost of our infrastructure assets. 

Increase efficient use ofour assets. While the size of our force has declined over the past 10 

years, the size of our defense footprint has remained relatively steady over the same period. The 

DoD building inventory has an average building condition index below 80, indicating significant 

investment is required to restore and maintain it at an acceptable level. The Department can no 

longer afford to invest in excess or underutilized buildings. As a starting point, we will survey 

the existing footprint to better align supply with demand, identifying opportunities to 

consolidate, repurpose, and, where applicable, dispose of excess facilities that are no longer 

necessary to execute the mission or meet our people's needs. We will do so in ways that are safe 

and sustainable, relying on long-term planning to preserve structures that can be adapted for 

reuse in the future. We will further leverage lessons from consolidation projects to generally 

plan better for the end-of-life of all assets. We will also prioritize maintaining a healthy and 

resilient natural environment, which like built infrastructure, require active and ongoing 

management to reduce environmental risks and improve the quality of the natural environment. 

Through conservation, management, and restoration we can enhance benefits to our people by 

making best use of existing properties. 

In line with our focus on user experience, we will fully consider the impacts of these decisions 

against our goals to accommodate the needs of our personnel and of the surrounding 

communities. The Department will conduct user experience assessments, which could include 

on-site observations, interviews, and surveys to better understand how people are using facilities 

and amenities on and off-base to inform any decision on reducing the size and scope of our 

infrastructure footprint. 

Build facilities that last. Looking ahead, the Department will review all installation master plans 

to ensure they reflect compact and efficient use of land and assets. For new construction or 

major renovations, we will explore leading practices for modular, open architecture that can be 

adapted to a variety of purposes to determine where to incorporate it within our inventory and 

mission sets. We will also leverage the latest in infrastructure innovation and high-quality, low 

impact construction materials to build facilities that will be usable, when maintained 

appropriately, for many decades to come. We will seek opportunities to develop assets that can 

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be shared between military units, other government agencies, and with the broader defense 

community. 

Integrate climate and environment risk assessments. Across the United States and overseas, 

our installations and their surrounding communities are vulnerable to rapidly increasing threats 

of wildfires, floods, and hurricanes as well as the persistent hazards of warming and droughts. 

These factors will only exacerbate infrastructure deficiencies which, if left unaddressed, will 

create short-term and permanent disruptions to people's lives, as well as have negative health 

and safety impacts. The Department has made notable progress in understanding an 

installation's vulnerability to climate-related hazards, including changes to sea levels, riverine 

flooding, stormwater management, drought, heat, land degradations, energy demand, and 

wildfires, through implementation of the DoD Climate Assessment Tool (DCAT). We will 

integrate climate risk assessments and natural infrastructure resilience strategies, such as naturebased solutions, into design and construction processes, understanding that proactive 

management of our infrastructure to adapt to or mitigate against evolving risks will have 

significant impacts on our people. 

We will further work to expand DCA T with new predictive models, decision tools, and 

technologies that capture various climate scenarios and associated ecological and human 

impacts, to better equip our installation managers to plan for an uncertain future, and to inform 

installation master plans that drive design, construction, and maintenance decisions, including 

which materials to use and where to locate new infrastructure. Similarly, these scenarios and 

impacts shall inform installation integrated natural resource management plans to develop 

actions to reduce environmental risks, improve environmental quality, and promote health, 

wellbeing and recreational opportunities. 

Increase energy and water resilience. We will continue to utilize all available acquisition 

methods, especially those that leverage third party financing, to improve energy and water 

resilience at our installations. We will focus research and innovation towards improving 

electrical and water system quality, reliability and resilience through integration of new 

technologies and improved operational approaches. The Department will further extend our 

energy resilience investments, such as microgrids, beyond our most critical operational facilities 

to include those facilities that most impact our personnel's day-to-day quality of life, including 

housing, commissaries, and other priority assets. Similarly, the DoD will continue to work to 

maintain and create the natural infrastructure needed for water resilience both on and off 

installation. 

The Department will support the robust private-sector innovation in energy resilience and adapt 

new technologies and electrical-system designs to increase system reliability, provide longduration backup power when required, and provide greater flexibility in the control and delivery 

of power. We will similarly continue to invest in technologies that ensure installations have 

reliable and secure sources of water during times of water scarcity and extreme weather events, 

including consideration of natural infrastructure or nature-based solutions to reduce energy and 

water demand. 

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IV. TRANSFORM HOW WE MANAGE OUR PORTFOLIO 

Achieving the ambitious commitments set out in this strategy will require an effective asset 

management strategy that leverages the suite of government and external stakeholder capabilities 

to maximize our return on investment. We will need to approach design, construction, 

maintenance, and project development differently, both in terms of seeking new and innovative 

ways to partner with industry, communities, and other external stakeholders and reforming 

internal construction processes and maintenance regimes. Our asset management approach will 

need to be supported by meaningful oversight and accountability mechanisms as well as accurate 

cost and performance data to help balance cost, performance, and risk. 

Explore privatization opportunities. The Department has implemented various approaches to 

design, build, and operate our infrastructure, ranging from full government control across all 

three dimensions to full privatization, and combinations in between. This menu of options 

allows the Department to make different trade-offs when it comes to the level of financial risk 

versus the amount of direct control over design, build, and maintenance decisions. 

The Department has realized significant benefits from privatization in the case of family housing. 

99 percent of U.S.-based family housing is privatized under the Military Housing Privatization 

Initiative (MHPI). After an initial series of reforms focused on strengthening DoD oversight and 

tenant rights, these privatization projects have yielded consistently higher quality assets on 

shorter construction and delivery timelines resulting in higher user satisfaction. 

The Department will explore where private contractors, through outsourcing and other available 

tools, may be well-positioned to provide solutions at similar or better quality on a more costeffective basis other asset types, such as ancillary support facilities, office buildings, barracks, 

guest lodging, and utilities. Relatedly, we will review authorities to allow greater flexibility in 

management models in international locations, where the Department is currently restricted to 

full y Government-owned and -operated facilities. 

In constrained budget environments, third party financing through privatization or performance 

contracting can decrease the impact of the risk assumed in trade-offs between mission and 

Service member support. The Department will seek to integrate authorities for privatization and 

performance contracting to deliver benefit across multiple outcomes simultaneously. 

Build strong external partnerships. In addition to industry, we have strong and long-established 

partnerships with other Government agencies, state and local governments, academic 

institutions, and civil society organizations in the communities in which we operate. We will 

continue to explore ways of collaborating with these stakeholders to deliver high-quality 

infrastructure in cost effective ways, including maximizing the use of Intergovernmental Support 

Agreements (IGSA) with state and local governments to provide, receive, or share installationsupport services. We will also continue to partner with academic and research institutions on 

areas such as ecosystem conservation, sustainable design, and climate change risk assessment. 

We will also continue to work on natural infrastructure beyond the fence line through the 

Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) program and Sentinel Landscapes 

Initiative, partnering with other federal government agencies, state and local governments as well 

9 
private conservation organizations to avoid land use conflicts, address environmental restrictions 

that limit military activities, and increase resilience to climate change. 

Optimize construction and project delivery. Military construction or large-scale maintenance 

projects currently start at the local level with the requirement identified in the installation master 

planning process. Depending on the specific Military Department's priorities, a project can take 

five years to be incorporated in a budget request to Congress and once funded, can take 

potentially another four years to obtain beneficial use. 

The Department must develop more timely and flexible processes and organizational structures 

to enable more agile delivery of infrastructure needs. We will continue to work with industry to 

incorporate best practices on planning, design, and construction activities into Government 

efforts. The Department has already issued policies that better align roles and responsibilities of 

project sponsors, installation managers, and construction agents to deliver better outcomes, such 

as early involvement by DoD construction agents with project sponsors to inform project scope, 

cost, and schedule. We will undertake additional efforts such as developing guidance for risk 

management in cost estimating; adopting a data dictionary that crosses project management, 

acquisition, financial, and real property data systems; and providing guidance on when the 

various types of project delivery and acquisition methods should be considered based on the 

unique characteristics of a project. We must also develop solutions and guidance to expedite 

environmental reviews and permitting to achieve more timely infrastructure delivery, as well as 

incorporate strategies to not only minimize environmental impacts, but sustain or improve 

environmental quality. 

Maintenance and improvement of our natural infrastructure likewise starts at the local level, 

through the development of Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans. The plans, 

developed with State and Federal resource management agencies, outline overall goals and 

objectives regarding the management of our lands and waters, including those aspects related to 

access and recreation. Current policies require integration with other installation plans and 

processes, such as master plans, and consideration of the landscapes surrounding the 

installations. Additional guidance, training and resources will need to be provided to more 

directly incorporate established livability considerations into the development and 

implementation of the installation INRMPs. 

Develop targeted maintenance regimes. Currently, the Department utilizes the Facility 

Sustainment Model (FSM) to provide sustainment budget requirements at the portfolio level. 

The FSM generates aggregate sustainment requirements that treat facilities similarly for 

investment purposes regardless of age, condition, or maintenance history. As the Department 

works toward the replacement of the FSM, it will build a process that derives a sustainment 

requirement at the individual asset level and incorporates asset age, functionality, and condition 

as well as building system, component, and subcomponent condition (e.g., HVAC, plumbing, 

electrical, etc.). The replacement process will optimize limited FSRM budgets by 

recommending investments that maximize condition of facilities in a component's portfolio. 

Further, the Department will set condition goals for different facility categories to ensure that 

quality oflife is not short-changed at the expense of mission needs. This process will also ensure 

transparency across infrastructure investments and allow full consideration of trade-offs. 
Similar consideration for how to prioritize improvements of our natural infrastructure, while 

aligning it with established livability standards, will need to be developed, as management of our 

natural areas is currently driven primarily by compliance requirements established through 

federal laws and regulations. Additional criteria addressing current and desired condition of our 

natural infrastructure will assist in developing budget requests incorporating quality of life 

considerations along with mission needs and regulatory requirements. 

Increase oversight and accountability. The Department will need to establish authoritative cost 

and performance data sources to continuously evaluate and update our asset management 

approach. We will update our condition assessment processes to prioritize human-centered 

requirements, leverage digital diagnostic tools, and deploy expert inspectors. Together, these 

will enable a common operating picture of our built and natural infrastructure that can guide 

decision-making. We will further centralize information on infrastructure project costs as well as 

ongoing operating and maintenance expenses to inform decisions on optimal asset management 

approaches and resources allocations. We will ensure all planning, development, and operations 

will incorporate metrics as it relates to health, safety, and environmental quality. 

V. STRATEGIC ENABLERS 

This strategy aims to transform the ways in which the Department manages and assesses the 

performance of our infrastructure to focus first and foremost on our people. Achieving this 

transformation will require not just a realignment of priorities and resources, but a wholesale 

cultural shift toward elevating people as our most important asset, and the physical and mental 

well-being of our people as our most critical capability in any warfighting domain. 

Key to the implementation and delivery of the strategy will be: 

(1) Clear and measurable outcomes to track our progress; 

(2) Workforce education, focused on training and skill-building to better deliver our humancentered approach; and 

(3) Frequent user engagement with Service personnel and family members to ensure we are 

meeting expectations. 

Metrics and outcomes. While specific lines of effort will have more targeted metrics, we expect 

to measure progress against the holistic strategy across the key dimensions of (1) health, (2) 

functionality, and (3) reliability, along with (4) overall user satisfaction and (5) aggregate 

portfolio quality. The Department will develop the appropriate mechanisms, including user 

surveys, on-site visits, and deployment of sensors and other technologies to measure our progress 

in these five areas. We will further invest in the necessary data and analytics capabilities to 

aggregate these metrics across our widespread installations footprint, report them in senior 

governance forums, and use them to inform budget decisions. Specific metrics may include: 

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Ke outcome Sam le outcome metrics 

Health Average temperature, humidity, and air quality in buildings 

Water quality 

Installation walkability score 

Access to recreational activities 

Functionality Asset mix that supports needs and preferences of personnel 

Accessibility 

Number of installations with next-gen Wi-Fi coverage 

Availability of modern appliances 

Resilience Utilities up-time 

Building availability 

Mean time between failures 

User satisfaction % users satisfied with various aspects of housing conditions 

% users satisfied with workplace conditions 

Mean time to repair 

Wait times to qualify for military housing 

Aggregate portfolio Asset utilization rates 

quality Value of accumulated infrastructure deficit 

Number of vacant/low occupancy buildings 

Lifecycle cost of key assets 

Workforce education. We will ensure that we have an appropriately sized and skilled workforce 

of engineers, public works specialists, natural resource managers, financial analysts, contracting 

officers, and other personnel to deliver infrastructure to the standards we require. We will 

review and, as necessary, enhance skill development opportunities, including apprenticeship and 

secondment opportunities with industry and academic institutions. We will particularly invest in 

training and skill-building on concepts of human-centered design and delivery, leveraging 

partnerships with universities, design firms, and other stakeholders to incorporate leading 

practices into the Department's approach to infrastructure delivery. 

User engagement. Our military personnel and their families are at the heart of this strategy. We 

will continue listening and learning about issues that are critical to their health and well-being 

and seeking opportunities to better support their quality of life. We will elicit user feedback 

through regular engagements at various levels of the installation's governance enterprise, 

including through digital touchpoints, installation townhalls, and on-site interviews and 

observations. We will use this feedback to evolve our strategy as we continue to modernize and 

transform our infrastructure portfolio. 

VI. CONCLUSION 

The places people work and live have a direct impact on their wellbeing and quality of 

life, and the fai lure to adequately invest in necessary infrastructure hinders DoD's ability to 

recruit and retain a strong, healthy, and ready military workforce in support of the National 

Defense Strategy. Implementing a human-centered approach to the built and natural 

environment will provide healthy, safe, functional, and resilient spaces, which will improve the 

quality of life and readiness of our Service members, families, and civilian workforce. 

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