Louisville District’s Brantley Thames awarded HQ Climate Champion Award

Brantley Thames, Hydraulic Engineer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District and member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Climate Preparedness and Resilience Community of Practice and National Policy Advisor for Climate and Military Programs, was awarded the HQ USACE Climate Champion Award in July 2022. This award signifies a commitment to promoting climate resilience across all USACE Civil Works business lines.

“I value my role as a public servant and saw the opportunity to support the CPR CoP utilizing my skillset as a hydraulic engineer and H&H modeler to address the threats of climate change,” Thames said. “My support to the CPR CoP is not signified by a single project but an overall commitment and passion to improving the nation’s resilience to climate change in both the Civil Works and Military Programs.”

The CPR CoP, as Thames explained, is the group of USACE professionals responsible for evaluating the impacts of climate change to USACE missions and informing adaptation activities to ensure resilience to climate change.

“My main contribution, to date, has been supporting the development of the Defense Climate Assessment Tool (DCAT) and the supporting Army Climate Resilience Handbook. DCAT provides installation planning teams a better understanding of climate change exposure for eight climate hazards (coastal flooding, drought, energy demand, extreme heat, historical weather events, land degradation, riverine flooding and wildfire) so they can develop climate resilient plans across Army’s installations,” said Thames. 

Thames has spent his entire career in theUSACE, which began over twenty years ago, because of the opportunities the Corps offered, and the impact Corps projects have on the environment. 

“From the time I started working for the Corps, I recognized that the Corps works on large, complex, publicly impactful projects, which has always provided value to me as a Corps employee,” Thames said. “I feel like I have the best job in the world. The value of the work we do coupled with the ability to provide value to our nation as a public servant are the two main things that have provided me enjoyment and fulfillment throughout my career. I am honored to be in this position and did not envision the opportunity to serve in this position.”