“It’ll present state-of-the-art postal providers to the shoppers of Guantanamo Bay,” stated Otilio Santos, director of postal operations for Naval Provide Methods Command Fleet Logistics Middle (NAVSUP FLC) Jacksonville’s 17 websites, together with Guantanamo Bay.
“The primary profit is that postal providers can be offered in a facility that enables the utilization of know-how — a contemporary facility that enables for twenty-four/7 customer support,” Santos stated.
A grand opening ceremony is scheduled for Aug. 23. The brand new mail web site was constructed by renovating a base warehouse.
For purchasers, the brand new submit workplace will supply a brand new foyer and repair counters and the flexibility to obtain digital alerts about ready mail. Quickly, officers count on so as to add “sensible” lockers that enable contactless mail pickup across the clock.
For postal employees, the positioning gives upgraded know-how – together with a conveyer belt and mail “dumper” — that ought to make unloading and sorting the mail sooner and fewer labor-intensive.
Mail service is significant to this distinctive island group, the place army transport a number of occasions per week is the one technique of journey to the US.
“Mail is type of the lifeblood of the bottom,” stated Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Edge, Guantanamo Bay web site director for FLC Jacksonville, which is accountable for the bottom’s postal operations and different logistics wants.
“Not like every other ahead base, there is no such thing as a out-in-town possibility. If you would like one thing, they usually don’t have it on the Navy Trade, you go on Amazon or Goal.com or wherever,” Edge stated.
Base postal employees deal with about 1.4 million kilos of mail per yr. On the holidays, quantity is so excessive that volunteers from throughout the bottom – together with dependent relations – pitch in to assist kind packages.
“We now have undoubtedly run out of area,” Edge added. “Persons are bumping into one another.”
At 8,000 sq. toes, the brand new submit workplace is about 3 times bigger than the prior web site. It’s additionally nearer to the middle of base and farther away from the tidal basin, which was a menace throughout storm surges. The prior constructing would often flood throughout heavy rains, and in 2014 the roof partially collapsed because of subterranean termites. Additionally, {the electrical} system was working on the prime of its capability, which meant no new tools may very well be added with out presumably blowing the facility.
Funding for building got here from Commander, Naval Installations Command, and Joint Job Pressure Guantanamo. Undertaking completion was delayed a yr when the contract was modified so as to add fiber optic cable required to attach the submit workplace to base servers.
The transformed horse steady was all the time meant as a brief answer for the bottom’s submit workplace, officers stated. Discovering a superb location was the biggest impediment within the lengthy effort to supply a brand new one, Santos stated. For instance, the brand new web site had to supply room for big autos to enter, maneuver and unload.
“The most important problem was location, a location that met the necessities of a modern-day postal facility that included know-how, transportation and customer support,” Santos stated.
He credited an extended listing of Navy civilian and active-duty employees at Guantanamo for holding the trouble going — regardless of worker rotation off the island over time — by assembly month-to-month, and even weekly, with Navy public works officers till the undertaking was authorized.
