After the closing ceremony at Deseret Chemical Depot had ended last week and the flags were taken down for the final time, Crystal Anderson lingered a little in the parking lot, looking at the place her work family had called home for the past 18 years.
“I think I ended on a very good note,” she said. “It’s definitely a success story — a bittersweet one.”
The Tooele native, 50, took the government’s option to retire after nearly 34 years working for Tooele Army Depot and, later, Deseret Chemical Depot. She helped establish DCD when it was re-separated from TEAD in 1996 and was there to turn the lights off at the end.
Last month, she was given the Superior Civilian Award and was one of just 16 in the nation to get the Louis Dellamonica Award from the Army Material Command.
When her achievements and honors are mentioned, Anderson is quiet, but when the conversation turns to the people she worked with for three decades, she grows animated.
“I have been in a visible position for a lot of years, but I don’t work one bit harder than anyone else,” she said. “Every single one of them means something to me.”
From the beginning, employees knew the point of their job was essentially to work themselves to unemployment through destroying the chemical weapons stores and demilitarizing the area. Still, Anderson said, although the end had been coming for 18 years, it was somewhat difficult to finally reach that goal, in large part because of the people she worked with.
“It was hard leaving. That place was a family,” she said. “Everything we did, we did as this little group out there in the desert.”
That remoteness meant employees could not simply step out of the office to grab fast food for lunch, she said. It meant the facilities managers essentially ran a small city in terms of basic infrastructure needs. It even meant the possible difference between life or death for workers dealing with hazardous materials. The remoteness required closeness between coworkers, and that in turn inspired camaraderie.
“It wasn’t because I’m so smart. I’m not college educated. I have a high school education,” said Anderson. “But I was given the leniency and the trust by the commanders to fly, to do what needed to be done.”
Anderson got her start after graduating from Tooele High School as a typist at Tooele Army Depot. At the time, she said, her goal was to work her way up to be an administrative specialist. She was 17.
After three years, she was promoted to work as a secretary in the commander’s office, where, she said, she was taught much from the sink-or-swim atmosphere and by the example of others.
She also worked for a year in the personnel office with Terri Cook, whom Anderson called a mentor, and who would eventually rejoin Anderson at DCD before Cook passed away in November 2012. Anderson said that year in the personnel office, as well as the reduction in force necessitated by the base realignment and closure (BRAC) in 1993, prepared her for the closure of DCD.
In October 1996, with the beginning of the earliest trials of the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF) being safely completed, DCD was again separated from Tooele Army Depot. Anderson, then administrative specialist with TEAD, was transferred through a reduction in force to be the command executive secretary or DCD’s first commander, Col. Robert Coughlin.
Anderson said while the task to set up what was essentially a new depot was tough, Coughlin was the man for the job. Overall, Anderson worked under eight commanders, the majority of which, she said, were good officers and leaders. Included in that majority is the last commander, Col. Mark Pomeroy, who was exceptionally supportive in helping to provide vocational training and find new jobs for the soon-to-be-displaced workforce, she said.
“We had a list on the wall of all the people who still needed jobs, and when they’d get a job, we’d highlight their name, so we could tell where we were at,” she said. “Every morning, he’d [Pomeroy] sit in front of that list and pray for those people. Every morning.”
By the time it was turned back over to Tooele Army Depot, all but 20 of the more than 400 depot employees had found other work or, like Anderson, had retired. Anderson said they also worked closely with URS, which contracted with DCD, to help their workforce be transferred or find other jobs. By being proactive with the shrinking workforce, she said, they helped mitigate the economic effect on the community, as well as doing right by the people who had built and carried the installation.
Still, it is those 20 people that stick in Anderson’s mind now, she said.
“It’s a bittersweet ending. The sweet part is that we destroyed all of that nasty stuff without a single death, and with very few serious injuries,” she said. “The bitter part is those 20 people. I really want to see them get a new job.”
She said although it is not in her job description anymore, she still plans on scouring job sites and other resources, and emailing those tips or openings onto those workers.
“That will get me through this year,” she said.
Anderson said she could not possibly have guessed at the upward twists and turns her career would take as she began working as a 17-year-old typist, much less anticipate ending her career as the executive officer of a military installation. Still, she said, she does not believe she could have gotten half as much done without significant support and encouragement from those around her.
“It’s not false modesty. I truly, truly believe it was because of those I was supported by,” she said. “I have been blessed by God. I have been blessed because of my family and I have been blessed because of this incredible group of people I’ve worked with.”