The Army's nationwide Residential Community Initiative (RCI) provides a new vision for solving an old problem. Years of funding shortfalls and resource allocation decisions created a significant deterioration in the construction repair and maintenance of housing. The Department of the Army with Congressional support started RCI in an effort to leverage private funds through a partnering arrangement to stem this decline and improve family and soldier Quality of Life (QOL) overall service member satisfaction and retention in the all-volunteer Army. Congress conceived this program with legislation approved in 1996. Since that time changes in the environment like September 11, 2001 the Global War on Terrorism and Operations Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom in Iraq continue to impact all Army programs. Other new initiatives under review by the Chief of Staff of the Army also have the potential to affect the RCI program. The purpose of this paper is to examine RCI and assess program progress determine its ability to meet stated goals identify areas of concern and recommend solutions to current emerging and future challenges.

"Prepared for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Installations, Energy & Environment."

The purpose of this MBA Project was to investigate and provide a comprehensive overview of the Residential Communities Initiative within the US Army. This project was conducted with the assistance of the Monterey Bay Housing Program Executive Office and the Program Manager for Residential Communities Initiative. The goal of this project was to analyze this initiative and compare the way the Army is privatizing housing with the initiatives that the US Navy and US Air Force are utilizing. We also wanted to use Monterey Bay as a case study to investigate how RCI was instituted at an installation and analyze this from a business and contracting standpoint.

In April 2005, the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment (ASA(I & E)), Mr. Geoffrey Prosch, asked the United States Military Academy (USMA) to conduct a functional evaluation of the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) Portfolio and Asset Management (PAM) program and provide an independent assessment of the adequacy of the Army's RCI PAM program in achieving its intended objectives across all domains and all phases of the program. The study focused on five areas of interest. The results of the assessment of the RCI PAM program and its' processes in the context of 1) Conflict of Interest, 2) Best Value, 3) Financial Analysis, 4) Best Practices, and 5) Education and Training are presented in this report.

The purpose of this MBA Project was to investigate and provide a comprehensive overview of the Residential Communities Initiative within the US Army. This project was conducted with the assistance of the Monterey Bay Housing Program Executive Office and the Program Manager for Residential Communities Initiative. The goal of this project was to analyze this initiative and compare the way the Army is privatizing housing with the initiatives that the US Navy and US Air Force are utilizing. We also wanted to use Monterey Bay as a case study to investigate how RCI was instituted at an installation and analyze this from a business and contracting standpoint.