Naval Facilities Engineering Command The Naval Facilities Engineering Command ( NAVFAC ) is the United States Navy ' s engineering command , committed to the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps combat readiness . NAVFAC is headquartered at the Washington Navy Yard and under the command of the Chief of Civil Engineers , and , is commanded by RADM Kate Gregory . The Naval Facilities Engineering Command is the oldest of the Navy ’ s System Commands , having been established as the Bureau of Navy Yards and Docks in August 1842 . Its officers comprise the Navy the Civil Engineer Corps , which came into being in March 1867 . During the 1966 reorganization of the Department of Navy , the Bureau of Yards and Docks became the Naval Facilities Engineering Command ( NAVFAC ) . NAVFAC has 14 component commands , with 10 commands either reporting to NAVFAC Atlantic or NAVFAC Pacific . There are also two specialty commands , Navy Crane Center and Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center . The Bureau of Yards & Docks . On August 31 , 1842 , the Bureau of Navy Yards and Docks ( BuDocks ) was established , the forerunner to the Naval Facilities Engineering Command . In early days of BuDocks , the command originally had responsibility only for the design , construction , and maintenance of Navy yards and a few other shore stations . In 1842 there were seven Navy yards arrayed along the eastern seaboard of the United States . Captain Lewis Warrington , a line officer , and six civilian employees , were assigned to administer public works at these yards . During the second half of the 19th century , the Bureau of Yards and Docks guided the temporary expansion of the shore establishment that was necessary to fight the American Civil War . It also oversaw the development of permanent Navy yards on the Pacific Coast at Mare Island , California , and Puget Sound , Washington . In 1898 , the Spanish - American War precipitated a great increase in the Bureau ’ s activities . Its civilian workforce grew from 7 to 22 people and the Civil Engineer Corps – which had been established in 1867 – was expanded from 10 to 21 commissioned officer s , five of whom reported for duty at Bureau Headquarters . The treaty at the war ’ s end led to the construction of naval stations in Puerto Rico , Guam and the Philippines . In the next few years the Navy yards at Boston , Norfolk , and Philadelphia were modernized and a new yard was built at Charleston , South Carolina . History . During the early years of the 20th century , the United States Congress expanded the Bureau ’ s responsibilities by consolidating Navy public works under its control . The most important law was passed in 1911 , when Congress placed the design and construction of all naval shore stations under BuDocks control . Previously the bureau that operated each type of shore facility had performed its own design and construction ; for example , the Bureau of Ordnance built naval magazines and the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery built naval hospitals . The experience gained by the Bureau during its first 75 years laid the foundation for its large growth during World War I . Between July 1916 and the armistice in November 1918 , the Bureau expended $ 347 million for public works . That was more money than the Navy had spent on shore stations in the previous 116 years . The construction program included 35 naval training stations , in addition to submarine bases at New London , Connecticut ; Pearl Harbor , Hawaii ; and Coco Solo , Panama ; as well as naval air stations at locations throughout the eastern United States , and in the United Kingdom , Ireland , Italy , Tunisia and France . Between WWI & WWII . The period between the world wars was generally a time of retrenchment and stagnation for Navy public works . By 1921 , more than 375 ships had been decommissioned and the shore establishment shrank accordingly . During the Great Depression of the 1930s , Congress appropriated some money for a naval construction program , which made improvements in shore facilities while providing much - needed jobs for unemployed civilians . When the Second World War broke out in Europe in 1939 , the Civil Engineer Corps ( CEC ) had fewer than 200 officers on active duty and the shore establishment was woefully unprepared for a major conflict . After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 , the Navy ’ s military construction program amounted to global proportions , expanding far beyond the continental United States and its prewar possessions to Europe , North Africa , Asia and the far corners of the Pacific . To provide supervisors for this huge wartime effort , more than 10 , 000 Reserve CEC officers were recruited from civilian life between 1940 and 1945 . The establishment of bases in war zones , where workers were subject to enemy attack , made the use of civilian construction men impractical at many overseas locations . Therefore , in 1942 Rear Admiral Ben Moreell , Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks , implemented a proposal mapped out by the Bureau ’ s War Plans Section during the 1930s where experienced construction workers were recruited into the Navy to build overseas bases . Thus , the Naval Construction Force – popularly known as the Seabees – was born . The new Seabees received brief military training before shipping overseas to build advance bases in war zones . Led by Reserve CEC officers , the 325 , 000 men recruited for the Seabees during World War II built bases on six continents and at locations all over the Pacific . Without the Seabees , the Navy ’ s huge advance - base construction program would not have been possible . WWII Boom . World War II presented the Bureau of Yards and Docks with the greatest challenge in its history . The value of the naval shore establishment in 1939 was estimated at less than half a billion dollars ; by 1945 the shore establishment was worth at least $ 6 . 5 billion . All of this new construction was carried out under the Bureau ’ s cognizance . At the end of the war , the Bureau faced a new problem – maintaining a much larger shore establishment with reduced funding . The onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s led to some much - needed increases in the Bureau ’ s budget . Then , in 1950 the Korean War , which required more men and materials than World War I , presented the Bureau with new challenges . With the help of the Seabees , it met the emergency . CEC officers and Seabees built bases throughout the Pacific to support United Nations troops . In Korea the Seabees placed landing causeways for the invasion forces and built air bases and camps . Vietnam . In the mid - 1960s the Vietnam War started . Although it was modest in size compared to World War II , it nonetheless created a demand for a substantial amount of military construction . In 1963 the Bureau of Yards and Docks was formally designated as the contract construction agent for Southeast Asia and became responsible for nearly all U . S . construction there , including facilities built for the United States Army , the United States Air Force , and other federal government agencies . Nearly 1 . 8 billion dollars ’ worth of construction went into Vietnam under the Military Construction Program commonly known as Milcon . Meanwhile , in May 1966 , as a result of a Navy Department reorganization , the Bureau of Yards and Docks got a new name , Naval Facilities Engineering Command ( NAVFAC ) , one of six systems commands under the Chief of Naval Material . This reorganization eliminated the traditional bilinear organization under which the Chief of Naval Operations and the chiefs of the various bureaus reported separately to the Secretary of the Navy . The result was a unilinear organization , under which the systems commands reported to the Chief of Naval Material , who in turn reported to the CNO . In the mid - 1980s the Naval Material Command was disestablished ; and NAVFAC began reporting directly to the Chief of Naval Operations . U . S . forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1973 and the end of American participation in the war brought demobilization and funding cuts to the Navy . In 1970 , in anticipation of postwar reductions , NAVFAC consolidated its 13 engineering field divisions into six . The concentration of technical expertise into fewer and larger divisions led to a stronger and more efficient field organization . Within NAVFAC , in the 1970s emphasis was placed on improvements in personnel facilities to support the new all - volunteer Navy , environmental protection , and energy conservation . Peacetime Buildings . The tight military budgets of the 1970s did not last long , however , for in 1980 the United States began one of the largest peacetime military buildups in its history . For fiscal year 1981 , President Jimmy Carter requested an increase in the Department of Defense budget of more than 5 percent real growth . After Ronald Reagan took office the next January , the DOD budget grew even faster . In 1981 Secretary of the Navy John Lehman embarked upon a major program of shipbuilding to increase the fleet from 540 ships to 600 ships by the middle of the decade . This expansion meant that the Navy needed more shore facilities to support the new ships , which in turn led to more construction work for NAVFAC . Between fiscal years 1982 and 1985 , Congress appropriated more than $ 5 billion for Navy Milcon projects . Post Cold War . At the end of the 1980s , the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an abrupt end to the Cold War and the Navy no longer needed as many ships , planes and bases to support them . From NAVFAC ’ s perspective , one of the most important results was the Base Realignment and Closure Program ( BRAC ) . Between 1988 and 1995 , Congress authorized four rounds of selections for base closures and numerous installations were slated for disestablishment . Until the fall of 2004 , NAVFAC managed the BRAC Program for the Navy and Marine Corps . By the end of fiscal year 2004 , the Command had helped the Navy dispose of 72 unneeded bases and had an inventory of 19 closed installations remaining to be excessed . In October 2003 an important change occurred in the administration of the naval shore establishment with a new command known as Commander Naval Installations Command , ( CNIC ) was established . The CNIC would provide uniform program , policy and funding management for all Navy shore installations . In 2004 , NAVFAC embarked upon a realignment of its organizational structure and its business lines . It made a major move towards improving and standardizing its business processes to help NAVFAC better support the Navy and Marine Corps and other federal clients . The most significant aspect of NAVFAC ’ s transformation was the consolidation of NAVFAC field activities – including engineering field divisions , engineering field activities , officer in charge of construction organizations , public works centers and departments – into regional facilities engineering commands , or FEC ’ s . The FEC ’ s provide the Navy , Marine Corps , and other clients with a single center for all NAVFAC public works , engineering , and acquisition support to ensure a uniform , enterprise approach to accomplishing its mission . Closures & Relocations . A side effect of this realignment was the decommissioning ( via BRAC ) of several NAVFAC components and displacement of several hundred employees . Most notable among the closures was Engineering Field Activity Northeast ( EFANE ) in Lester , Pennsylvania . The Navy Crane Center , which was also located in Lester , was relocated to Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth , Virginia . Another command , Southern Division in Charleston , South Carolina was officially decommissioned in September 2007 . The command was realigned in Jacksonville , Florida , to become NAVFAC Southeast .