COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service celebrated the grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony of a new building at the Brayton Fire Training Field.
The new 'Les W. Bunte Administration and Classroom Complex' will serve thousands of emergency personnel for years to come.
The building was named after Chief Les Bunte Jr., former TEEX Fire Emergency Services Division Director who has now retired. Chief Bunte began his Texas fire service career with the Austin Fire Department back in 1973 and led the Georgetown Fire Department starting in 1977.
“Having a building named after me is still very astonishing and it’s probably going to take a while for it to totally sink in. Today went a long way to do that,” Chief Bunte said.
Almost 50 years of experience in fire service, he served as a guest instructor at TEEX and was later appointed as the director of fire and emergency services in 2003 until 2011.
“Obviously, I’m very committed to the number of years that we’ve had here at the fire school,” Chief Bunte said. “It’s been totally fabulous. It’s truly the world’s best fire training field anywhere.”
TEEX Brayton Fire Training Field trains over 45,000 emergency responders every year in firefighting, rescue, emergency medical services and hazardous materials.
After five years of planning and developing, the near 40,000 square foot building houses an interactive lobby, classrooms, built-in modern technology, an EMS pod, recruit pod and gift shop.
Gordon Lohmeyer is the current TEEX Fire and Emergency Services Division Director.
He said this was a much-needed facility and allows them to serve at a higher level.
“What we added were 14 classrooms, so 14 classrooms downstairs in the building, a student capacity of 700 so you can see the capacity that we gained, but it also has a lot of technology in the building,” Lohmeyer said.
The building includes laser projectors, video equipment and microphones installed in the ceilings.
“We can do instructor-led online classes, we can livestream from this building, and of course, conduct the face-to-face training that we’re so well known for,” Lohmeyer said.
The first set of students that will get to step foot in this building will take place next Friday as part of the Industrial Fire School, followed by the Municipal Fire School later this month.