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“We go where you go,” says the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES). The customers of AAFES are soldiers, airmen and their families on Army and Air Force bases around the world, and all military personnel through the All-Services Exchange Catalog and All-Services Exchange Online Store.

As service members are being deployed to remote locations around the world to fight terrorism, AAFES supplies them with necessities and brings a touch of home.

Today's AAFES operates more than 12,000 facilities worldwide, in 25 countries and areas overseas as well as in every state in the union. There are 1,423 retail facilities, 218 military clothing stores at Army and Air Force installations, and 1,410 food facilities including mobile units, snack bars, fast-food franchises and concession operations.

The service also runs theaters, vending centers and the Department of Defense Dependent Schools Program that serves 27,000 lunches daily to children in military families living abroad.

It all begins in Dallas at the AAFES world headquarters, the full-maintenance SupportLINK for the organization. All the buying and hiring is done there, the main records and databases are maintained, and managers for the facilities are trained and dispatched around the world.

Headquarters is a six-story building and an attached three-story North Building. The facility also houses Military Star, the military credit card system, and a 24-hour worldwide radio broadcast/TV network. Some 2,300 people work in the HQ facility. Protection of life safety and property from threat of fire is essential for employees, contractors and visiting businesspeople, as well as for the infrastructure, technology and records.

Protection is provided by an MXL multiplexed, distributed-intelligence detection system from the Fire Safety Division of Siemens Building Technologies Inc. of Florham Park, NJ. In the facility's crisis room, a networked MXL fire alarm panel complete with NCC-NT computer graphics supervises detectors and other devices located throughout the facility. A second, networked MXL control panel — this one with printer — is located in the enterprise technology center.

Siemens Fireprint application-specific smoke detectors are located in corridors and paths of egress and underfloor in the computer room at the enterprise tech center. Other addressable smoke and duct detectors, addressable manual fire alarm stations and ADA-approved horn/strobes are located throughout the buildings. The system also provides an Alpha Paging Interface.

Anthony Bloodworth, senior technical representative has hands-on knowledge of, and responsibility for, the fire safety system. The new addressable system, he notes, replaces an older system, which was notorious for its false alarms. The new Siemens system saves many hours of time previously lost through false alarms.

ROY PIERCE is the assistant chief of the facility management branch of AAFES. He is responsible for enforcing contracts and performance for fire safety systems, air conditioning, security, elevators, janitorial and yard services of AAFES facilities in the entire Dallas Metroplex area, including headquarters.