U.S. Army Watervliet Arsenal November 2015

THE SALVO

S to r y on Pa ge 3

1 s t- y e a r a p p r e n t i c eD e r r e l l B a r e f i e l d

4 t h -ye a r a p p re nt i c eN at h a n C o r ye a

Arsenal turns to 1905 program to retain critical skills

Page 2 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

The Arsenal Salvo is an authorized monthly publication for members of the Department of Defense. Contents of the Salvo are not necessarily the official views of, or an endorse-ment by the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, or the Watervliet Arsenal. News may be submitted for publication by sending articles to Public Affairs Officer, 1 Buffington Street, Bldg. 10, Watervliet, NY 12189, or stop by office #102, Bldg. 10, Watervliet Arsenal. The editor may also be reached at (518) 266-5055 or by e-mail: john.b.snyder.civ@mail.mil. The editor reserves the right to edit all information submitted for publication.

Commander, Col. Lee H. Schiller Jr.Public Affairs Officer, John B. SnyderEditor, John B. SnyderPhotographer: John B. Snyder Arsenal Facebook Page @http://on.fb.me/sq3LEm

ColonelLee H. Schiller Jr.

CommandingManufacturer 6

Commander’sCorner

Thank you to all the volunteers who helped build, drive, or march in this year’s Albany Veterans Day Parade. I was pleasantly surprised that a good number of workers and family members marched in the cold rain, all in an effort to help the community to remain engaged with its military. Seeing children and Veter-ans get excited as we marched and drove by them was truly inspirational and solidified the thought that we were at the right place, at the right time on this Veter-ans Day. This certainly is an interesting time of the year as we transition from one fiscal year to another and from summer to winter. Suffice it for me to say, we had a very good fiscal year 2015. Not only did revenues top $138 million, which was up from $117 million in FY 2014, we did so with a reduction in safety-related accidents. Every two weeks, I see the significant activities reports from throughout the command and I need to tell you that what we achieved last year, and in previous years, is truly exceptional when compared to fellow TACOM Life Cycle Commands and to the broader Army. As I am sure that you have noticed, we have had a significant amount of media interest in us this month. There have been more than 10 news reports this month that captured Gen. Dennis L. Via’s visit to Fred Clas at Clas’ home to award him the Army Materiel Com-mand Hall of Fame award, as well as a media focus on

a questionable video posted on YouTube that named us as a potential ISIS threat. As you have seen in the news, as well in a recent command information bulletin, we live in a time when our personal security and our way of life is challenged by fear. Although I am not aware of any direct threat to us here, it is still prudent upon all of us to remain vigilant in that if you see something that doesn’t seem right, say something. For this holiday season, I wish you all the best for a safe and joyous season. Although we still have tight production schedules to meet, I am sure that we can reach the right balance between mission and family. But whatever you do, please be safe. The holidays can be a dangerous time, especially around the home.

Page 3 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

Story continues on page 4, “Apprentices”

By John B. Snyder

From the 1940s drafting tables to the computers of 2015, apprentices have had to not only learn new technology, they also had to use it on the manufacturing floors. Here, Brian Martino, a fourth-year apprentice, is using computer design at the Hudson Valley Community College.

Photo by John B. Snyder

Apprentices help calm the ebbs and flows of manufacturing tides

Should the Arsenal care about a report last month from the New York Department of Labor signaling a continued decline in manufacturing jobs in the state? Absolutely, said an Arsenal work leader who is often at the forefront of the hiring process for this Army-owned manufacturing center. “In the last year, we have lost several experienced ma-chinists due to retirements and to promotions to other man-ufacturing departments here,” said John Zayhowski. “Try-ing to hire an experience machinist in the last few years to replace our losses has been extremely challenging because there are fewer manufacturing centers in New York from which to draw from.”

The state of manufacturing has been in decline for many years in New York. Even the once powerhouse New York City market has experienced a significant decline in manu-facturing as evidenced by having fewer than 80,000 manu-facturing jobs this year, down from more than one million manufacturing jobs it held in 1950. In upstate New York, such companies as Apex Tool Group, whose operations dated back to 1834, closed, and an Alcoa aluminum smelting plant that had been in opera-tions since the 1902 just announced that it will soon close only to be saved by a $68 million investment offered by

Page 4 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

Apprentices Cont.

Left: Even fourth-year apprentices, such as Jonathan Morehouse, right, seek all the guidance they can, especially from Toolmaker Mike Pantuosco, before they graduate. Newly arrived apprentices spend much of their first two months in the tool room where they can be mentored by senior machinists and senior apprentices as sort of a crash course in mili-tary manufacturing. Although the apprentice program is a four-year program, there is never enough time to receive all the one-on-one instruction that they desire.

Bottom: Fourth-year apprentice Anthony DiNova at night school working on his final project.

New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo that will keep the Al-coa plant open to at least 2019. So, even companies with a rich manufacturing history have not been spared and now are becoming statistics in New York Department of Labor’s manufacturing reports. Additionally, the difficulty about filling a machining job at Watervliet transcends the small pool of available ap-plicants. The scope of machining talent required to man the nearly 600 machines may be the broadest application of skills of any manufacturing center in New York state. “Our machinists are not the typical type of machinist that one would often find on a commercial production line where a machinist may operate just one machine for years,” Zayhowski said. “Our machinists have to be creative, read blueprints, input computer-aided designs, write programs and then, be able to run any one of the 600 machines that we have here. For those reasons, that is why an Arsenal machinist is in such high demand and hard to replace.” At the end of the day, an Arsenal machinist must also have a strong sense of purpose due in large part to the Ar-senal’s 202-year history of providing the military hardware that helps the Nation’s troops to safely come home from battle. So, if there is a continued decline in the available market for quality machinists, will the Arsenal’s critical skills be eroded into a death spiral? Absolutely not, Zayhowski said. “Since the Arsenal opened its gates in 1813, we have lived through the ebbs and flows of available labor,” Zay-howski said. “We will once again turn to a program that was created in 1905 to fix this very issue.” When Zayhowski isn’t supervising machinists, he is su-pervising the Arsenal’s apprentice program and fortunately for the Arsenal, Zayhowski has two classes currently in ses-

sion. This program has for more than 100 years provided a backstop to the erosion of critical skills here. The apprentices undergo a challenging 8,000 hours of hands-on training at the Arsenal and four years of school-ing at the Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y. The Arsenal’s senior class of apprentice are in their final year of the program and will graduate in August 2016. The freshman class are in their first year of the program and will graduate in 2019. There are efforts underway to start a new class in 2016. “One of the things that is great about the apprentice program is that during the 8,000 hours of hand-on training we can use that time to shape the apprentices’ individual skills toward any potential skill gaps that we may have,” Zayhowski said. In addition to machining skills, the apprentices must also learn to become good team members. A great example of this teaming philosophy occurred this month as fourth-year apprentices spent a considerable amount of time mentoring first-year apprentices through their first machine cuts. “There is nothing better than to learn by trial and by fire,” said Nathan Coryea, a fourth-year apprentice, in de-scribing why first-year apprentice Derrell Barefield was already cutting steel. “I think it is great for us (senior apprentices) to share our recent experiences and lessons learned with the new guys and so far, they seem very recep-tive to what we have to say.”

Story continues on page 5, “Apprentices”

Photos by John B. Snyder

Page 5 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

Considering that Coryea has a blacksmith shop set up in his garage at home, the apprentice program has been a tremendous opportunity for him to work in a job field where his passion lies. Even though he has a few months left in the program, Coryea said he believes that he is already a good machinist even without the official title. Colin McCarthy, a fellow fourth-year apprentice, reflected on his years in the apprentice program as drinking from a deep fountain of knowledge. “I have had many opportunities to learn from some of the greatest machinists at the Arsenal, from Scott Ashton to Frank Taylor,” McCarthy said. “What I truly like about the Arsenal’s senior machinists is that they demonstrate a great work ethic and they don’t give us anything. They make us work for every piece of their knowledge and when they do share their expertise, it is like drinking from a deep fountain of knowledge.” As New York’s manufacturing industry will continue to suffer through the ebbs and flows of cus-tomer demand, the Watervliet Arsenal will look to calm the waters by taking care of its own, training the future master machinists in a program started on the hallowed grounds of this War of 1812 factory.

Apprentices Cont.

4 t h -ye a r A p p re nt i c eC o l i n M c C a r t hy

4th-year ApprenticeScott Dingwall

4th-year ApprenticesNathan Coryea & Stephen Luther

4th-year ApprenticeJames Nowell

4th-year ApprenticesJeremy Brackett & Joshua Feldman

4th-year ApprenticeAndrew Mesick

Hudson Valley Community College

4th-year ApprenticeJeffrey Gracon

Page 6 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

On a cool November day, Gen. Dennis L. Via, the commanding general of the Army Materiel Command, honored a promise he made to Arsenal retiree Fred Clas by personally delivering Clas’s AMC Hall of Fame Award. Here, Via is met by Clas at Clas’ house in Niskayuna, N.Y.

Gen. Dennis L. Via honored a promise he made last month to a 93-year-old arsenal retiree by traveling from Alabama to upstate New York on November 15 to present a Hall of Fame award to Fred Clas, the for-mer director of Arsenal operations.

Due to health issues, Clas was unable to attend the U.S. Army Materiel Command’s Hall of Fame In-duction Ceremony conducted by Via at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., on October 27. Nevertheless, Via, the commander of the U.S. Army Materiel Command, called Clas just prior to the ceremony and promised

Clas that he would bring his award to him in the near future. With Clas facing major heart surgery on No-vember 16, there was not a better time than now for the visit.

The rarity of such a visit cannot be overstated. It is a toss-up as to which is more rare: a four-star general making a house call on a retired employee; or the fact that a former Arsenal apprentice was selected into the AMC Hall of Fame. Suffice it to say that both are rare.

Four-star general hand delivers award to former Arsenal director

By John B. Snyder

Photo by John B. Snyder

Story continues on page 7, “Visit”

Page 7 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

Clas met Via on his driveway to his house, introducing his wife, Marion, and two daughters, Janet and Karen, before leading Via into his basement that is rich with Arsenal history.

Once in his base-ment, Clas slowly led Via down a hall-way adorned with awards from such lead-ers as the Sec-retary to Army, as well as a rare 1940 pic-ture of Clas in an apprentice class. Once into the main area, Clas had meticulously lined up his 45 years of history along a long wooden table. Starting with his apprentice notebook to a letter from President Ronald Reagan, Clas walked the general through 45 years of history in about 30 minutes.

When Clas had worked his way to the end of the table, it was time for the presentation of the Hall of Fame Award.

Via said it was a tremendous honor for him to of-ficiate this ceremony to a remarkable Army Civilian

Visit Cont. with such a powerful life story.

“I’m extremely proud of Mr. Clas and he is indica-tive of the great people who serve our Army,” Via said. “This is a truly an inspirational day for all of us.”

After receiving his medal and plaque from Via, Clas said that because he is not a college gradu-ate he doesn’t have the right words to

say of just how proud he is to receive such a high award and to have a four-star general personally de-liver it to him.

After Via and the media had left. Clas’ eyes teared up as he humbly talked about the day’s events, espe-cially about the importance of the award and the personal visit by Via.

He said he hoped that although the day’s focus was on him, that he was able to portray his great pride for the Arsenal workforce who were, and still are, like his family.

“While I was the director, we were able to achieve great things due to the wonderful workforce who would give anything and everything they had to sup-port me and the Arsenal,” Clas said.

Top: Having just received his AMC Hall of Fame award from Gen. Dennis L. Via, this became one of the few times that Fred Clas has been at a loss for words.Bottom: In his basement, Fred Clas is walking Gen. Dennis L. Via through his 45-year career.

Photos by John B. Snyder

Page 8 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

By John B. Snyder

Beyond the celebration, mission creep for Watervliet’s

Retirement Services Office

In a small room on the edge of a building built during World War I is a small team of volunteers who celebrated quite an achieve-ment this month. The Army’s Retirement Services Office located in the former Arse-nal post restaurant celebrated on November 14 the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Army Retirement Services. Ken Hunter, the Arsenal’s RSO senior volunteer, said that although

the Army has been providing retire-ment services for 60 years, the Ar-senal’s operations started 25 years ago by a retired Army colonel. Through the years, the Arsenal’s operations have grown from sup-porting about a thousand retirees to today’s number that exceeds 7,500 retirees from all branches of mili-tary service. Hunter said that he and four oth-er military retirees offer support to not only the retiree, but also to their family members. In fact, most of the queries and walk-in traffic are

about family benefits. “We are a one-stop shop for any military retiree and their family members who may have questions about survivor benefits, health care, retirement pay, and military awards,” Hunter said. But in recent years, as the mis-sion has grown, the funding for the retirement office has not. “We are truly an operation fund-ed by the spirit of volunteerism,” Hunter said. “Our operation here

Story continues on page 9, “RSO”

Retirement Services Officer Ken Hunter pointing to his area of responsibility,which will grow by a couple of counties in the near future.

Page 9 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

was initially funded by the Army, but funding stopped several years ago.” Hunter and his staff do not get paid and must fight for every resource they get to run their operation. “We even had to have several of our volunteers attend training out of state at their own expense,” Hunter said. Nevertheless, the sense of duty and support for the troops is evident in each volunteer who do the best they can with the limited resources they have. The Arsenal does provide free administrative office space and communications support. So, why do these volunteers keep supporting a mission that receives such limited support from the Army? “Several years ago, I became interested in what this retirement service office offered through a newsletter they (RSO office) had sent me,” said Adrienne

Daniels, a former Navy senior chief who retired about 11 years ago. “But when I came in I found that they did not have a Navy representative and so, who better to answer questions from former sailors than a former Navy senior chief? I started volunteering.” Retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Tom Hatlee quickly echoed Daniels’ comments. “Although I retired in 2003, it wasn’t until five years ago that I waked into this office and saw the value that it provided, Hatlee said. “I had a great 40-year Army career and so, working here makes me feel as if I am still serving, giving back to the military that I love.” Hunter had 29 years of military service and retired as a Master Sergeant. He has been volunteering at Watervliet since the office opened 25 years ago. The two other volunteers are retired Maj. Wayne Petterson and Sgt. Maj. Joe Novak. The Retirement Service office is looking for more retired military volunteers, especially those who may be fluent in social media skills.

RSO Cont.

Arsenal History

Christmas Day - 1863 On Dec. 25, 1863, Lt. Col. Peter Hagner assumed com-mand of the Watervliet Arsenal and would remain in com-mand for the next 17 years, the longest serving command-er in the history of the Arsenal. Hagner was a Veteran of the Florida and Mexican Wars, and had been wounded in the battle for Mexico City. He had commanded several other depots and arsenals prior to taking command, here. During Hagner’s Civil War days, about 2,000 were em-ployed at the Arsenal, nearly 500 were children. For most of the Civil War, the Arsenal employed only boys but in 1864, Hagner began hiring girls to help make ammunition cartridges.

Page 10 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

In the cold rain on Veterans Day, thousands lined the streets of Albany to honor our Nation’s Veterans. There was no shortage of youth who braved the weather to include this young man waiving an American flag. Whoever said you can’t inspire today’s youth was wrong.

Photo by John B. Snyder

Who said you can’t inspire youth, just look at this photo

Some may wonder how New York’s Capital Dis-trict, a community without a strong military presence, could turn out thousands to honor the Nation’s Veter-ans at its annual Veterans Day Parade on November 11. But it did and we, the community, should feel better for such a show of support to the Nation’s for-mer military members. To find the answer all one had to do was to walk along the parade route through the City of Albany to see older Veterans unsteadily rise up from their seats to salute the American flag or witness the hundreds of children, many with an American flag in hand, jump with joy as military units passed by. No … New York’s Capital District is not a military community, but it is a community with military. After a nearly 20-year absence, the Watervliet Arsenal launched itself back into community events, such as marching in community parades, about seven

years ago. And today, the Watervliet Arsenal fields the largest parade contingent for the City of Albany Veterans Day Parade and for the City of Watervliet Memorial Day Parade. For fiscal year 2015, the Arse-nal participated in more than 60 community events. To assist the Arsenal with the parades, every di-rectorate, the NFFE union, and special staff were well represented throughout the planning and execu-tion process. We also had representatives from the Army’s Albany Recruiting Battalion join with us this year. But having said that, the largest contributor of weaponry comes from Benét Laboratories, which is collocated on the Watervliet Arsenal. This unique synergy, via collocation, is often used in the produc-tion of legacy and future weapon systems for the De-partment of Defense, as well as for community events. The Arsenal is already planning for its participa-tion in upcoming Memorial Day Parades for the City of Watervliet and the Village of Green Island.

By John B. Snyder

Page 11 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

Veterans Day2015

Page 12 Salvo Nov. 30, 2015

Office of Personnel Management Update Federal benefits open season is here. Each year OPM encourages all employees and retirees to review their benefits and make sure that they have plans that work best for them and their families. From November 9 through December 14, employees and retir-ees can review and update their health, dental, and vision choices. Eligible employees who are not currently enrolled can also select plans for the first time. Retirees not cur-rently enrolled in the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Program (FEDVIP) can also select dental and vision plans for the first time during open season.

The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHB) covers over 8.2 million em-ployees, retirees, and their families all across this country. For 2016, there will be 252 health plan choices available, with 11 of them available nationwide.

Beginning in 2016, all carriers will offer three enrollment types: Self Only, Self Plus One, and Self and Family. This year is your first opportunity to enroll in Self Plus One, which allows you to cover yourself and one eligible family member, such as a spouse or child.

As always, OPM encourages you to look at all available health, dental, and vision plans and decide which ones best meet the needs of you and your family, as everyone’s needs are different. If you decide that your current coverage still works for you, you don’t have to do anything. Your benefits will remain in place for next year.

If you are eligible to sign up for the FEHB Program, you can also participate in FSAFEDS, the health and dependent care flexible spending account program. These accounts allow employees to set aside pre-tax money to pay for eligible health and de-pendent care expenses, such as co-pays, prescription costs and childcare.

Two changes were made to Health Care FSAs last year. Employees can enroll with just $100 contribution. Also, participants can re-enroll and carry over up to $500 of unused FSA money into the following year. This means that you won’t have to forfeit money you don’t use by the end of the calendar year.

If you want to participate in FSAFEDS, be sure to sign-up by December 14. When it comes to FSAFEDS, everyone must re-enroll on an annual basis.

Don’t forget, employees and retirees have until December 14 to make their choices. For more information about the Federal benefits open season and to find the right option for you, visit opm.gov/openseason.