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FLETC

FLETC Front GateAfter the Navy ceased operations at the station, the Glynco Reuse Steering Committee sought new tenants for the 4,200-acre site.  The land was split into several parcels for disposal, and on January 28, 1976, the General Services Administration transferred 1,524 acres to the Department of Treasury for use as the campus for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC).

FLETC was established in 1970 in temporary facilities in suburban Washington DC.  It began as an interagency "police academy" operating within the Department of the Treasury.  Congress intended that police officers and criminal investigators of all government agencies, except the FBI, would be trained at the new Center in order to facilitate a uniform training program.  FLETC came to Georgia in the summer of 1975 and began training in September of that year.  The initial staff at FLETC included 90 permanent employees with a first-year budget of around $30 million to convert the facilities into an advanced law-enforcement training center. 

Local officials and businessmen were pleased that the facility was home to a non-polluting industry with high-quality personnel earning good salaries.  By 1984, the Center had approximately 800 employees and an average of 1,400 to 1,600 students on the grounds at any one time, with 14,000 graduating that year. 

FLETC serves as the focal point for most of the U. S. government's law enforcement training programs, providing facilities, equipment and support services.  The training at FLETC includes such traditional police skills as arrest techniques, fingerprinting, interviewing, driving training, law-enforcement photography, self-defense and use of firearms; but it also includes classroom study of the rules of evidence, the federal court system, the Constitution and principles of law, and courses in white-collar crime and the use of computers in criminal operations.