Breaking New Ground—Stories from Defence Construction Breaking_new_ground | Page 85

Project: NORAD Command and Control
In 1973, NORAD decided to upgrade its communications and control equipment— SAGE and its related systems— and to create Regional Operations Control Centres( ROCCs). After examining a number of approaches, NORAD decided that Canada and the United States would work jointly to develop and install equipment for all seven Control Centres, with the two Canadian centres co-located at North Bay in order to reduce costs.
In 1980 – 81, contracts were let for SAGE’ s modernization at North Bay. By 1982, work on the ROCC was completed at a cost of $ 2.1 million, with the second phase of the project launching in 1983 – 84 for almost $ 1 million. from the late 1950s and early 1960s— including a 1958 position paper on the Canadian construction industry written by then-President R. G. Johnson— to Colonel Dave Battye, the ROCC project manager at DND. Battye found them to be a“ great help.”
One of the points that the documents stressed was a familiar stand for DCC: that the Canadian construction industry was in a position to take on large-scale projects and that, as Johnson had written,“ under the conditions which exist today the industry would strongly protest any steps which would mitigate against Canadian contractors obtaining work in Canada.”
DCC’ s experience helped guide it not only for this project, but later for the North American Air Defence Modernization project as well. In late October 1984, Joe Bland sent copies of DCC files and project summaries
BREAKING NEW GROUND DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA
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