For the newest Dugway Proving Ground Commander, the remote and austere setting of the installation is familiar.
Col. Brant D. Hoskins said his family would travel over the mountains and into the high deserts of Oregon for fishing and other outdoor recreation when he was growing up. He said the juniper, wild horses, pronghorn and other staples of the West Desert were exactly the same as what he experienced in his childhood — even the smell.
“I don’t know what I thought originally when I found out I was coming to Dugway,” Hoskins said. “I thought it was going to be a little bit different but it’s the same and we’re excited being here.”
Hoskins will be joined at Dugway by his wife, Janine, and son, Jacob.
While Hoskins is familiar with Dugway’s setting, he’s similarly familiar with the installation’s mission. In his last assignment as Deputy Director of Security and Protection for the combined joint task force on Operation Inherent Resolve at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, he witnessed equipment and training tested at Dugway in the field in Iraq and Syria.
“So that was my function, making sure we had protective gear in place, detectors, decontamination and ensuring soldiers were trained,” Hoskins said. “And then we also worked with the Iraqis to ensure they had that capability, and our other partners.”
He said chemical weapons were the primary concern in protecting soldiers from weapons of mass destruction in the field.
“Over the last few days and in the transition period, I’ve had a chance to meet people that worked on the equipment that we had down range and see the equipment and the testing that we were doing here,” he said.
While Hoskins had come to Dugway for a brief training with his command in 2015, the transition period has shown the real world impact of the work at the installation.
“I was surprised, to a degree, by how much the work in Dugway informs what it was we were doing in Kuwait, Iraq and Syria,” he said. “It just kind of drove the point home for me that the people here and the mission here, is relevant right now. It is dealing with the threats right now and I’m excited to be a part of it.”
Another point of familiarity for the new commander was the outgoing commander, Col. Sean Kirschner, who Hoskins said he worked with previously.
“Our field is a very small one, so it’s rare when you haven’t worked with the guy you’re replacing or know them,” Hoskins said.
After his previous deployment, Hoskins said he doesn’t see any hiccups transitioning to a command with a majority civilian population. He said he looks forward to learning from the experts over the coming weeks.
“It’s humbling, right off the bat, because there’s so many brilliant people here,” Hoskins said. “I’ve already had a chance to interact with them to a large degree and I’ll continue to meet more and more as the days and weeks go on.”
When asked about recent challenges at Dugway, including the inadvertent shipment of live anthrax that was revealed in 2015, Hoskins said he would follow the current security protocols and work with experts outside Dugway to ensure the work done at the facility is safe.
“I feel the weight of that on my shoulders but I’m not intimidated by it,” he said. “I know I have a great team here and I know I’ve got the expertise, the subject matter expertise, to deal with those things we use here.”