MISSION POSSIBLE [Humvees overhauled at Texas prison]

Inmates at the federal prison near Three Rivers are refurbishing and upgrading war-ravaged Humvees for the US Army in Iraq

- It seemed an impossible task at first: repair, refurbish and upgrade 200 war-torn and bullet-ridden army vehicles for US forces in Iraq within 120 days.

But the inmates at the Three Rivers federal prison took on the challenge — and the US Army is saluting them for their efforts.

“Even the original manufacturer of the vehicles, the people who designed them, said it couldn’t be done in that short of a time frame,” said Michael Ginster, executive assistant to the warden at the federal prison near Three Rivers, which took on the task. “The Army wanted the motors, shocks and transmissions beefed up. The original motors, shocks and transmissions simply weren’t suitable for a war zone. The vehicles — and there are 56 different varieties of Humvees, all with the same chassis — also needed new tires, new interiors, new paint and beefed up armor. Everyone agreed there was no way all that could be done in four months.”

But the inmates who work for the prison system’s vehicle repair factory proved everyone wrong.

The 200th Humvee will be loaded on a truck on April 24th, within three weeks of the deadline everyone was afraid to attempt.

“The Army is so satisfied with Unicor's quality of work they have begun negotiations on additional vehicle refurbishing,” Ginster boasted Tuesday.

Joe Driver, Warden at the Three Rivers federal prison, said inmates working for the prison system's for-profit corporation known as Unicor not only completed the trial project but the quality of their work will save lives.

“The quality of Unicor’s products is one key to our military might and the safety of our troops. Our factory’s success is based on value for the taxpayer’s dollar, a quality product, and combat reliability during the most extreme times,” he said.

The federal prison near Three Rivers houses more than 1,500 inmates and every inmate must work. On average, inmates earn 12 cents per hour performing mundane tasks as mowing, cooking, cleaning or washing clothes. However, of those 1,500 inmates, 340 are incarcerated at the minimum security facility known as the camp. Prisoners at the main prison and camp are eligible to work for Unicor, the self-sustaining for-profit corporation operated by Federal Bureau of Prisons. Unicor pays its employees between 47 cents and $1.50 per hour. Unicor also offers vacations. Naturally, inmate vacations are confined to the prison. It may not seem like much of vacation but Ginster says some inmates prefer to spend time on their bunk rather than working.

Unicor employs 25 percent of the population, or just over 340 inmates, and only accepts work from the federal government.

At the Three Rivers prison, Unicor also operates a call-data center which tracks and records vehicle maintenance records for the Department of Homeland Security. Inmates sitting at computer terminals record incoming invoices for vehicle maintenance and notify individuals and departments of needed maintenance. For more than a decade, Unicor operated a vehicle repair factory at the Three Rivers prison. Inmates repaired and maintained the federal government’s fleet of vans and buses.

Last summer, Unicor contracted with the federal government to refit and upgrade hundreds of war-ravaged Humvees for the military.

Many of the Humvees were first put into service back in the mid-80s. Of the 56 different varieties of Humvees, many had been used during the first Gulf War. Now, 20 years and two wars later, most of the Humvees were rundown and in dire need of an overhaul. Many simple didn’t run anymore. Many had bullet holes in them and their interiors were all but destroyed through use and inhospitable weather conditions.

"It’s tough to see bullet holes in the vehicles and know that someone is shooting at our guys over there in Baghdad or Afghanistan,” says Jimmy Lee, associate warden of industry and education.

While the Humvees were being overhauled, the military wanted them upgraded with beefed up transmissions, engines, and shocks.

"At first (the military) had no private vendor bid on the job because of the tight time frame,” Lee said. “It was amazing. Not even the original designers wanted to take on the job because of the work that had to be done to get the vehicles to pass inspection and because of the short time frame.”

Lee said Unicor had to retool its factory to handle the repair and upgrade project.

“We didn’t have anything to go on because nobody had ever been asked to do something like this before,” he said. “All we had was the original designer’s vehicle specification manual. We learned a lot through trial and error.”

Unicor operates two factories at its Three Rivers’ prison for repairing and upgrading the Humvees. One of the factories is air conditioned. The other is covered but has no A/C.

The war-torn vehicles are shipped to Corpus Christi and other seaports, transported to Ft. Hood in Killeen, Texas, where they would be picked up by 18-wheelers driven by Unicor employees and transported to the prison near Three Rivers.

The Three Rivers prison has four tractor-trailers. Each one can carry three Humvees.

When the Humvees arrive at the prison they are off-loaded from the 18-wheelers. Some are sent to a covered garage where they are sanded and prepped for painting. Others are moved directly into the two factories for refurbishing and upgrading. There, the vehicles are inspected and the engines removed and shipped to a factory in Beaumont, Texas, for an overhaul. Transmissions are shipped to a plant in South Carolina for overhaul. Later, the vehicles are shipped by truck to Bastrop, Texas, for painting and if needed to Ohio for heavier armor plating.

The federal government allocated $200,000 to Unicor to add a paint shop on at the Three Rivers prison. Even though engines and transmissions are shipped out, work on the vehicles never stops. New parts, including heavy duty engines and transmissions, are ordered from a warehouse located on the grounds of the Three Rivers prison.

“We have almost all the parts we need in the warehouse,” said Warehouse supervisor Hugh McClaugherty. “Anything they need they send us a (request form) and we send them the parts they asked for. We keep engines, transmissions — everything we will need — in stock.

He said the parts warehouse is state-of-the-art and employs 30 inmates who continually issue and reorder new parts for the vehicles.

“We have modern parts-tracking computer software that is as good or better than anything in private industry,” he said. “When our inmates leave here they will be qualified to work at any warehouse for top pay.”

A team of mechanics work on one vehicle from start to finish. When the project first began teams worked two shifts, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and noon to midnight shifts. Now they work two 8-hour shifts daily: 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and noon to 9 p.m.

Darryl Yarbrough, one of the factory supervisors, says many of Unicor’s employees are trained mechanics. “Sure, we sometimes have to hire people who are not trained mechanics but those who are trained teach those who are not so it all works out,” he said.

“The prisoners have to apply for a job with Unicor so they have to go through an interview process to work for us,” Zamzow explained. “That’s great because we know which inmates have the skills and training we need.”

“A lot of these guys were in the military and worked in the motor pool on these same types of vehicles,” he said. “So we're lucky there.”

Inmate Mark Goetz of Waco is a former Navy machinists mate who now spends much of his waking hours refurbishing the Humvees.

While the pay is good, or better than anything else they can get, many inmates feel good about helping the war effort, he said.

“It makes you feel good to know you're helping our guys over in the war zone,” he said. “I think it makes you work extra hard to get things right because if our guys are under fire we don't want their truck to break down.”

Brian Zamzow, one of four Unicor supervisors, said the inmates also feel a lot of pride in a job well done. “When we shipped our first batch of trucks back to (Fort Hood) for inspection, and they failed inspection, a lot of our guys were upset,” he said. “Of the 79 we sent for inspection, only 25-30 passed on the first go-around. It was disappointing but our quality of work improved in four months to the point we rarely fail inspection.”

Yarbrough agrees Unicor faced some big challenges. “We had some big challenges at first,” he said. “No one had done this kind of work before so all we had to go on was the original vehicle specifications manual and the contract from the federal government telling us what they wanted to improve.”

“They worked hard on those vehicles,” Lee says. “They were crying they were so upset.”

“At first we didn’t know what we were doing,” he said. “Our first batch of vehicles didn’t pass inspection but we figured out what we needed to do to pass inspection and now we rarely have a truck sent back. Now we’re surprised if they tell us one of our trucks didn’t pass inspection.”

Yarbrough said he has heard that army personnel in Iraq favor the vehicles refurbished in Three Rivers.

“I’m told they fight over our trucks because they're just like new and much more powerful than the ones they are presently driving,” he said. “That makes you feel good.”

Ginster, the Camp administrator and public information officer for the prison, said the military is so impressed with the quality of Unicor’s work that it is already negotiating a new contract.

“The project wasn’t even over and they were already asking us if we could rebuild more vehicles,” he said. As important as it is for Unicor to earn a profit, the corporation also provides inmates with a great opportunity to learn a skill, Warden Driver said.

“Unicor is essential not only to government entities, but most importantly as a critical component for an inmate’s successful re-entry into society,” he said. “Many inmates hone their present job skills, interview techniques, and personal responsibility in our Unicor factories. Our focus with inmates is to move them through their period of incarceration to a self reliant level of personal education. Unicor is an investment in quality products and people.”

Goetz seemed less interested in gaining job skills and more on helping American fighting men and women.

“Those guys are depending on us,” he said. “If we fail then they could die. When it gets right down to it we may be inmates but we’re still Americans and want to help our guys win the war.”

More American than some people outside the prison walls.

That may be, but I wonder how hard they tried to find a contractor that would not employ convicted felons, or at least only employ those who have served their time? Once upon a time being a convicted felon, was a bar to working on military equipment, is it now a requirement? I also wonder if they offered the non prison contractors the same sorts of incentives they gave the contractor using inmate labor?

This smells an awful lot like a non admitted "set aside" similar to the incentives for "women and minority owned businesses" or "small businesses".

I see, low wage prisoners instead of law-abiding craft labor from the general population. This would be called slave labor in China. Immigrants "take jobs" from long-time residents because immigrants are willing to take less pay? How is it better that inmates take jobs for even less pay?

We complain about "slave labor" in Red China. Since this UNICOR is really just a branch of the federal prison system. (In reality as well as on paper) how is this any different?

I passed a flatbed with two beat up Humvees yesterday on I81. They were in sad shape but did not look wrecked. The heavy glass in one was severly broken, possibly shot up.
the other had the engine missing and doors banged up.

They were headed north however.....not south toward
Texas.

I have passed a lot of remanufactured Humvees with the beefed up armor and BR glass. I got a very good look as several as I looked as long as I wanted while passsing.

It is entirely inappropriate to have prisoners working on these vehicles at the same time that long standing employees of various contractors and military depots are being put out on the street, many of them veterans who didn't commit felonies after they left the service.

Unicor pays its employees between 47 cents and $1.50 per hour.

Slave labor. Cheaper, even, than illegal alien wages...

This is all very nice. Especially since the proposed BRAC closing of the Red River Army Depot (that does Army vehicle re-furbs) threatens to wreck the economy of Texarkana, TX and the surrounding area... </SARC>

Do you also have a problem with the 12 cents per hour they get performing mundane tasks such as mowing, cooking, cleaning or washing clothes? You'd rather they just sit in prison, (being paid for by your tax dollars), and do nothing constructive, than learn some skills, take pride in what they are doing and help our military? I don't get it.

Do you also have a problem with the 12 cents per hour they get performing mundane tasks such as mowing, cooking, cleaning or washing clothes?

Is it a problem when Chinese inmates make that or less to supply Walmart?

We complain about "slave labor" in Red China. Since this UNICOR is really just a branch of the federal prison system. (In reality as well as on paper) how is this any different?

China puts political prisoners to work doing this kind of stuff - people of the wrong religion, the wrong sexual orientation, the wrong political beliefs, etc. These guys who work for Unicor are just ordinary criminals paying their debt to society. For the prisoners, both during and after their incarceration (skill-wise), this is better than breaking rocks or picking up highway trash. And if the Feds are getting back some of the cost of housing and feeding these guys, so much the better. Prison labor isn't unique to China - for criminals, prison ought not be a free ride. What is unusual about China is that the guys carrying out prison work aren't people who would be in jail, if they were citizens of a free country.

Texas prisoners used to make our license plates.

It's good to see that someone is putting one of these pools of potential labor to good use.

Maybe some of these guys will become self-supporting mechanics one day.

I agree with some of the earlier posts... These are great jobs and probably nice pay for law abiding workers, so why are we using prisoners for $1.50 and hour? To save money? Please! With all the money our Gov wastes, they don't need to worry about the cost to equip our nation's finest. I think companies with law abiding workers should get these contracts. Why don't Ford, GM, Chrysler try to get this work? During WWII For and GM built everything including aircraft.

If these non-criminal workers will then deduct the cost of housing these prisoners out of their salaries, I see this as a workable proposition. The reality is that prison labor isn't really new or a profit-making proposition - it's an attempt to partially defray the cost of housing large numbers of federal inmates. To the extent that criminals can be employed in useful trades, the budget deficit is trimmed by that additional amount. Since we're providing convicted criminals with free housing, food and health care, we might as well get some of the costs back.

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