March Air Reserve Base, located in Riverside County, California, is one of the United States Military’s oldest airfields. March Field, as it was called in its early days, first opened as a training facility in 1918 and became an operational base by 1931. Over the years, it has served to advance the science of aviation and has been key in the modernization of the United States Air Force. Today, the base is home to the Air Force Reserve Command’s Fourth Air Force Headquarters, and also houses units from the Navy Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Army Reserve, California Air National Guard, and the California Army National Guard.
March Air Reserve Base was looking to modernize their Emergency Operation Center (EOC), which is used mainly by high-level officials. The goal was to make the room a high-tech hub for presentations, strategic planning sessions, training, secure conference calls, and monitoring classified operations. It had to be secure, since its occupants would often be dealing with sensitive and classified information, but it also needed to be high-functioning.
Base personnel had been procuring equipment on their own for several years, but eventually the time came to bring in a general contractor, a professional Crestron programmer, and an integrator to complete the project. AC Lopez Construction out of Oceanside, California was hired as the general contractor by the air base, who then brought in AV Programming Associates, based in San Diego, California, to complete the Crestron programming work. Crestron programming would give the room the high level of functionality that the base was looking for in an EOC. BarMak Systems was chosen as the Crestron dealer for the project.
One of the base’s main requirements was that the operation of the AV equipment and other systems in the room be user friendly. Now that the Crestron programming is complete, the room’s power, sound, and content switching can all be controlled from a single interface—a touchpanel or an xPanel on a computer. Audiovisual content can be displayed on the four monitors throughout the room for presentations, training videos, and monitoring. A DM16X16 Crestron switcher was used to allow true matrix switching. In addition, the space was configured for a FLEX audio conference system.
The completion of the EOC on March Air Reserve Base offers military officials new ways to communicate information in an effective way, as well as provides members of the United States Military with a space for high-tech training and monitoring.
The project was a true team effort, with contributions from base personnel, the general contractor, the systems integrator, and the team at AV Programming Associates.
To learn more about the Crestron programming capabilities of AV Programming Associates, visit their website: https://www.avprogramming.com/