Before soldiers at Fort Benning, Georgia, could demolish a building once used by one part of the Defense Logistics Agency, another of its components offered its help to clear the building.

Property from the former DLA Document Services site at Fort Benning was turned in to DLA Disposition Services to ensure the proper disposal solution. Property Disposal Specialist Raphael Berrios said Document Management Assistant Ruth Hasselbrock from DLA Document Services reached out after the staff learned they were closing their facility to discuss the turn-in of all of their equipment and to find a new home for one of their employees.

“We communicated with DLA Document Services to see what their needs were and came to an agreement,” Berrios said. “DLA Disposition Services had space to host a DLA Document Services employee work in its facility.”

The employee, a customer relations specialist/management and program analyst, has been working from the DLA Disposition Services building since earlier this year, before the demolition started. Berrios described how some of DLA Document Services’ equipment such as an electric pallet jack and forklift were received in place and made available for reutilization, transfer and donation requests. Other equipment such as a paper cutting machine and paper drill was shipped to the DLA Disposition Services site at Warner Robins, Georgia. Since DLA Document Services had no material handling equipment to load the equipment onto trucks, base transportation assets were requested to assist with the project.

Afterwards, Hasselbrock sent her thanks to her DLA colleagues for their help.

“I want to personally thank you for … your help … during the closure of our print shop,” Hasselbrock said. “The large items that had been lifeless for year would have been almost impossible to remove without your willingness to help ... You helped make our mission and deadlines a success.”

A story by the Fort Benning Public Affairs Office said soldiers from an engineer unit of the Georgia National Guard used the demolition work to get training time on their equipment. The story noted that the collaboration helped the garrison demolish unoccupied buildings at less cost.

“It was more cost-effective to take them down, free up the area, create green space for the local area, and possibly provide space for a future building,” said Tim Stone, an installation facilities utilization specialist at Fort Benning.