BROOKS CITY-BASE, Texas (AFPN) -- The Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence, with headquarters here, has been renamed the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, Air Force officials announced May 31.

The agency's acronym, AFCEE, will remain the same.

Its new designation "more accurately reflects the organization's increased scope of responsibilities," Air Force officials said.

The "increased scope" includes management of the service's three capital investment programs: military construction, military family housing and the environmental restoration account.

Moving the responsibility of these areas to AFCEE relieves major command civil engineers from managing the programs, Air Force officials said.

The centralization of these functions is, in turn, being driven by the transformation taking place across the Air Force, which includes an across-the-board reduction of more than 30, 000 active-duty military personnel.

"Reductions in both the military and civilian sides mean that commanders are not going to have the resources they need to manage their entire programs," said Paul Parker, AFCEE director. "So many programs are being centralized in places where they can best be run."

For AFCEE, centralization means a gain of about 130 people from the major commands. The agency also has created two program management offices to handle the new assignments. One PMO will oversee the work in the military construction and military family construction programs while the other will focus on environmental restoration.

"I think the challenge for all of us as we go down this path of centralizing the management of environmental restoration, military family housing construction and traditional design and construction at AFCEE is to remain accountable to the people we serve everyday," said Mr. Parker.

Formed in 1991, AFCEE is a field operating agency of the Office of the Air Force Civil Engineer in Washington. It employs more than 370 civilians and 36 military members as well as contractor personnel.

The center has a multibillion dollar contracting capacity that supports its worldwide mission.

Although created as the Air Force's environmental services center, the organization from the beginning has offered commanders support in a number of other areas, including military construction and military family housing program management.