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FORT HUACHUCA — A multimillion-dollar facility is being built on this Southern Arizona Army post to help meet the need for more highly trained human intelligence specialists.
On Tuesday morning, a groundbreaking ceremony was held to officially begin construction of the 60,000-square-foot, $12 million facility to house the Department of Defense Human Intelligence Training Joint Center of Excellence. Those involved in the ceremony noted it was something needed for a long time.
The new facility will replace where the center is temporarily housed, which is an area that was established in April 2007.
The creation of the defense center “was an enormous victory toward our goal to revitalize human intelligence in the United States Army,” said Maj. Gen. John Custer, commander of Fort Huachuca and the Intelligence Center.
 Fort Huachuca Commander Maj. Gen. John Custer finds a place for his hard hat after groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Department of Defense Human Intelligence Training Joint Center of Excellence on the fort on Tuesday. From left are Michael Pick, chief of the Counterintelligence and HUMINT Enterprise Management Office; Greg Rose, director of the Human Intelligence Training-Joint Center of Excellence; Custer; Col. Melissa Sturgeon, the fort’s garrison commander; and Erick Sletten, president of Sletten Construction. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review) |
The Department of Defense facility is for all branches of the armed forces, as well as other intelligence agencies. It will be where military and civilian specialists are trained, Custer said.
While human intelligence comprises more than 27 percent of the Army’s intelligence branch, “the best tactics, techniques and procedures for executing HUMINT (human intelligence) operations in today’s complex environment must be understood by all branches of the services and all agencies,” the general said.
For retired Army Col. Michael Pick, the defense department’s center of excellence has long been the goal of what he called “legends” in the intelligence community.
The audience laughed when he said many of the legends are probably considered dinosaurs, whose days have come and gone. But Pick said they are the ones who led the fight to bring together the complex world of intelligence to ensure the nation is secured.
The importance of the “human intelligence tradecraft” will be made better in the new facility, said Pick, who is the chief of the counterintelligence and HUMINT enterprise management office.
National and international intelligence knowledge training is being done at one location, he said.
One of the classes being taught at the Human Intelligence Training Joint Center of Excellence is the defense strategic debriefer course, which Pick notes had its start on Fort Huachuca 25 years ago in August.
“Tomorrow 72 students will begin (the class),” he said.
For the center’s director, Greg Rose, also a retired Army colonel whose last active-duty assignment was as the deputy commander of the Intelligence Center and the fort, the center provides the best information for decision-makers.
“HUMINT matters to field commanders and national leaders,” the center’s director said.
Once the new building is completed, those who graduate from the eight different courses will provide the best to the decision-makers, Rose said.
Besides the defense strategic debriefer source, the center also teaches advanced source operations, source operations, joint interrogation certification, joint analyst-interrogator collaboration, joint source validation, joint senior interrogator and joint HUMINT officer courses, all part of the center’s “Three Pillars of Discipline” — source operations, debriefings and interrogations.
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
