Captain Colin Thompson, commanding officer of NAS Key West, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on at the station.
The USS Cooperstown arrived in Key West this week.
Captain Thompson said, “It was on Tuesday for the USS Cooperstown, which is a littoral combat ship. So they pulled into our pier on Tuesday, and we’ve been hosting a handful of those folks that are working down south right now in the Caribbean and South America, so it was a nice port call for them before they head out and head out on deployment, so yeah, it was my first time walking on board one of those. It was just fascinating. Their folks who are out there in the community the last couple days, and I think they’re getting underway later today, but imagine they’ll be back at some point for report calls during their deployments. Yeah, it was an amazing experience. Being in naval aviation, the aircraft that I used to fly on was too large to land on a ship. So, in 28 years, I’ve actually only spent two years on the ship in the Navy, if you can believe that. So, yeah, this was literally only the second ship that I’ve ever been on in my career, so it was certainly different than the last one I was on, that housed 5,000 people, where this was a crew of just under 100 so significantly smaller, but equally amazing.”
NAS Key West also has the Search and Rescue Division.
Captain Thompson said, “Last Monday, on the 18th, the Search and Rescue squadron, helicopter squadron, here had a change of command. Commander Elizabeth Janca took over from Tyler Olvey, and then later today, the Army Dive School actually has a change of command, where Lieutenant Colonel Alex Pombar is going to be turned over to Major Harrison Leary. So, lots of new faces that you’ll see in the community around Key West.”
Lifeguards are also needed.
Captain Thompson said, “We have a pool over on Trumbo Point, run by our Morale Welfare and Recreation Department. So, it’s been out of service for a few years, and we’re getting very close to getting it ready and getting it open. The one thing that’s holding us up right now to open the pool later this summer is going to be lifeguards, so if there’s anyone that’s interested, we’re talking about hosting a lifeguard certification course on the base, as well as in working with the College of the Florida Keys. So, if anyone is interested, we’re in desperate need for lifeguards, so that we can open our pool for all of our families this summer.”
What happened with the Mole Pier lease and the city of Key West?
Captain Thompson said, “We had a non-exclusive lease with the city of Key West for the Outer Mole, which was in recent years, has only been used for the for the powerboat races, and so, yeah, so the Navy did send a letter to the city of Key West, ending their lease in August, and then we have posted a request for interest for potential use of the Outer Mole on sam.gov for any interested parties can complete a pre-proposal inquiry. So, the deadline for that is on June 3. And then last week, as part of that request for interest, we hosted an industry day where their interested parties were presented with details for their submissions and to ask questions, and we intend to use that RFI responses to further evaluate the best course of action for our outer mole, and these RFIs are really, it’s just a market research tool to determine any potential business ideas out there, just for our information and planning purposes, and it does not mean that it’s a request for proposals or an RFP or a promise to issue a solicitation in the future, it was more just to see the interest out there, and what possible uses there could be. So, obviously, Race World Offshore is a big topic around here. Understand, they just signed a five year contract with the City of Key West. We were not part of that agreement, but we certainly value our longstanding partnership with the city, and we’ll continue to work closely with them, and as of two weeks ago, the city did send us a letter, and I have endorsed it and sent it up for this year’s boat races. So we’re currently real estate folks are in negotiations with the city and working on that license agreement for the boat races this year.”
What is going on with Cuba?
Captain Thompson said, “There was recently an Axios article about alleged Cuban drones and coming to Key West, and so I do just want to highlight that our installation remains vigilant and we’re going to take appropriate actions to ensure the safety and security of all of our service members, civilians and contractors and their families, and so we’re constantly assessing a variety of factors to determine what measures we institute or modify to protect our families, and so we’re watching and we’re ready should something happen. Our local assets here again are a search and rescue squadron, the VFC 111 so should something happen, obviously we’re a military airfield, and there could be aircraft that come down here to assist, but we do not have any organic assets here that would be able to assist.”