Pacific Ocean Division's Change of Command June 13, 2024

On June 10, 2024, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Alaska District participated in a ceremony to recognize the start of construction for the Kenai River Bluffs Erosion Project. Col. Jeffrey Palazzini, district commander, gathered alongside several stakeholders and political officials at the Kenai Senior Citizens Center and delivered remarks about the project’s significance. In attendance was Sen. Lisa Murkowski and representatives from the office of Sen. Dan Sullivan; Brian Gabriel, mayor of the City of Kenai; and Peter Micciche, mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough

As a crew for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked to clear buried munitions from the Fort Glenn Formerly Used Defense Site on Umnak Island in the summer of 2020, it unexpectedly discovered a 500-pound bomb. The following year, the team returned to the project site in remote Alaska with a remote-controlled excavator to safely neutralize the explosive device along with three others of the same size. (U.S. Army Photo)

Kim Kyong-ho, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Far East District Geotechnical Branch chemist, analyzes an asbestos sample collected from an U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan-Casey building through a microscope. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asbestos was used in many types of home building products and insulation materials until the 1970s. (U.S. Army photo by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Far East District)

FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii – Members of the Mississippi River Commission pictured at the Pacific Ocean Division Headquarters commenced the 2022 Mekong-Mississippi Sister Rivers Exchange engagement starting with a prep session in Hawaii on July 6, with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Army Pacific, and the Asia Pacific Center of Security Studies. Delegation members include Brig. Gen. Kirk Gibbs (center-right), Pacific Ocean Division commanding general, located at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, and Mississippi River Commission members: Maj. Gen. Diana M. Holland (center-left), commanding general of Mississippi Valley Division located in Vicksburg, Mississippi and Mississippi River Commission president, Norma Jean Mattei (second to left), Ph.D., professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New Orleans, Col. Geoff Van Epps (far-left), commander of the Northwestern Division, located in Portland, Oregon, Rear Adm. Benjamin Evans (second to right), director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Coast Survey, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Col. Andy Pannier (far right), deputy commander, Mississippi Valley Division, located in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The Kyogamisaki Communications Site sits on the scenic cliffs of Japan’s western coast. Sandwiched between the ocean and the mountains, the site commands a strategic location facilitating the early warning of threats from nations in the region who would seek to do America and Japan harm.

Nathan Epps, acting deputy chief for the Engineering, Construction and Operations Division, stresses the importance of triangles while testing the load capacity of a student’s bridge design with a toy car on Feb. 22 at Clark Middle School in Anchorage. A team from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Alaska District spoke with an applied technology class at the school during National Engineers Week to encourage students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. (U.S. Army photo by Rachel Napolitan)