Surrounded by his team, memories Col. Charlie Smithers receives a fond farewell from members of his Corps and RFO team at an off-duty reception held in his honor. (l to r) Angie McClellan, Leo Arbaugh, RFO director Mike Park, New Orleans District deputy commander Lt. Col Murray Starkel, and Karen Durham Aguilera, director for Task Force Hope. LA-RFO Photo by Spec. Larry Gleeson. Back to Features

The Team of Teams
Retiring LA-RFO Commander honors to those in service to Louisiana
By Dave Harris, public affairs specialist, Louisiana Recovery Field Office

The presence of many important Corps leaders and peers spoke volumes for the high regard held for retiring LA-RFO Commander Col. Charlie Smithers. It was Col. Smithers' last official visit to New Orleans after serving as leader of Corps' Louisiana Recovery Operations for the entire response following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

What touched him most was the big turnout of grassroots workers – Civilian technicians, administrative clerks, and specialists and enlisted Soldiers representing the “Face of the Corps” from almost every district in New Orleans providing an unprecedented response to an unprecedented disaster. 

This was Col. Smithers’ “team of teams” which has included over 3,000 Corps responders from around the world, hundreds of Corps returning-retired and contractors, and scores of Soldiers and responders from other Federal agencies.  

In an emotional farewell, Smithers talked about the honor of working with the Corps’ finest who had deployed for recovery operations since he first arrived at the Louisiana Recovery Field Office Aug. 30, 2005.   The Memphis District was challenged to set up the equivalent of a large-sized, full-service Corps district of over a thousand in a matter of days.

Since landfall, the team had “blue roofed” 81,000 homes, delivered ice and water for 40 parishes, built 310 critical temporary facilities, installed 288 generators, demolished 6,500 hundred homes, removed about 28 million cubic yards of debris, 59,000 dead trees, over 5 million pieces of hazardous household waste and a quarter million tires, removed debris from 46,000 private properties, and executed a recovery program in excess of $3 billion. 

He said he thought he had personally interacted with more than 2,000 team members.

“One hates to say that it was a hurricane that brought this great team together.”  It was the mission that gelled the team.  The Louisiana Katrina response broke records in many areas for volume, speed, execution, integrity and safety. 

The colonel commended the national contributions of response teams such as the housing team from Huntington District led by Leo Arbaugh, who later joined the LA-RFO team. The Huntington housing team had helped Memphis District respond to recovery operations in Missouri in 2006. 

“Look around the room. The team you work with will never be the same as it is today,” he said. “The team tomorrow won’t be better or worse. It just won’t be this same great team.” 

Smithers said he doesn’t know what he’ll be doing after he retires July 13, but that it would be interesting sorting it out. 

“You never quit,” he concluded. “You work hard and have fun doing it.”