Amid the cold temperatures, Louisville District Commander Col. Eric Crispino visited the Miami River Area lakes to tour the flood risk management projects and meet with district staff, Feb. 4 and 5.
The trip included stops at Brookville Lake in Brookville, Indiana; West Fork Lake in Cincinnati, Ohio; William H. Harsha Lake in Batavia, Ohio; Caesar Creek Lake in Waynesville, Ohio and C.J. Brown Dam and Reservoir in Springfield, Ohio.
“It was wonderful to visit the Miami River Area projects and meet the staff at those sites,” Crispino said. “I was energized by the passion our employees have for their projects.”
District commander’s visits are important to the field team, according to Operations Division. These visits show command-level interest in their day-to-day work activities and provide field staff the chance to show off their projects, share stories of their successes and the challenges they overcome to push the mission forward.
“It truly is nice to have an in-person visit and to see him not just via WebEx or virtually,” said Stephanie Ison, Brookville Lake and West Fork Lake project manager. “I think it is important for the staff to meet the commander. He really seemed to want to listen and make sure we were heard on some of hard topics like the vaccine, teleworking in the future and how we see our workforce changing.”
During the visits, Crispino walked the grounds at the lakes, went inside the dam’s control towers, toured some of the newer constructed facilities and saw ongoing work at the project sites to better understand what is going on behind the scenes.
The commander also used this time to personally recognize employees. During his stop at Caesar Creek Lake, Crispino presented Louisville District Natural Resources Management Specialist Matthew Palmer with a commander’s coin for his assistance at the division, district and project levels with fiscal year 2023 budget development.
Crispino intends to visit all the project field offices during his assignment with the Louisville District and has already visited several sites in his eight months as the commander.
“From the maintenance workers to the park rangers, it is evident they love their work; they have an incredible depth of knowledge and experience, and they love to be the face of the Corps to the public,” Crispino said. “Visits like this are critical for me to build understanding of the full breadth of our programs in the Louisville District.”