Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Camp Chamberlain: Maine National Guard's New Joint Force Headquarters in Augusta

AUGUSTA, ME (05/30/2018) (readMedia)-- Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Farnham, the Adjutant General for the Maine National Guard, announced a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open the newly completed Camp Chamberlain on Blue Star Memorial Highway on Sunday, June 3rd at 10:15 a.m.

The joint forces headquarters is home to approximately 190 fulltime Soldiers and Airmen from the Maine Air and Army National Guard. This number increases to over 220 service members during a drill weekend.

The $34 million facility took approximately 2.5 years to complete. The 100,000 square foot headquarters is an energy efficient and world-class building that sits on approximately 43 acres of land.

"The Maine National Guard is fortunate to have such a phenomenal space for its joint forces headquarters and is appropriately named after one of our greatest leaders, Maj. Gen. Joshua Chamberlain," said Farnham. "This facility is more than just a building, it represents our commitment to the citizens of Maine and provides our Soldiers and Airmen with a headquarters that they can be proud of."

The facility provides ample office, classroom and collaboration space for the full time and traditional National Guard service members. The facility is state of the art, featuring an auditorium, multipurpose classroom space, operations center, multiple conference rooms, kitchen & dining area, maintenance bay, gym, showers, locker room, and will proudly display our historical artifacts throughout the building.

The facility was designed to LEED Silver and includes an 18KW Photovoltaic Array on the roof, external monitoring of heating controls, automatic sensors for lighting fixtures and use of LEDs throughout the building.

"Camp Chamberlain incorporated the input of the joint staff and was designed to provide the Maine National Guard with a 100 year facility," said Col. Normand Michaud, director of facilities and engineering for the Maine Army National Guard. "This facility will provide us with the space that is required by regulation, state of the art, energy efficient and modern facility."

This event is open to the public and will feature a brief tour of the new facility after the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Media interested in covering the event should contact Lt. Col. Darryl Lyon (207) at 430-5966, no later than 3 p.m., Friday, June 1st if possible. Media should plan to show up no later than 10 a.m. the day of the ceremony.