Megan Dabney
Les W. Bunte Jr.
Les W. Bunte Jr. gives a speech at the ribbon cutting for the building named after him.
The Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) held a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the official opening of the new Les W. Bunte Jr. Administration and Classroom Complex. This 38,692 square foot complex is the newest addition to the Brayton Fire Training Field.
The building is named after the retired TEEX Division Director/Chief of the Texas A&M Fire School, Les W. Bunte Jr.. Les first joined TEEX as a guest instructor at the annual Municipal School in 1976. He later assumed the role of chief of the fire school from 2003 until 2011 and is credited with turning the school into the fine institution that it is today.
“To have the building named after me is still very astonishing,” Les says. “I am very flattered that this has occurred. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think this would occur.”
The Texas A&M Fire School is one of the best in the world, but it wasn’t always that way. Although this building is named after him for his leadership and contributions to turning around the TEEX fire program, Les says it was the second chief of the fire school, Chief Henry D. Smith, who really set the course for becoming the world’s best fire school.
“We’ve seen tremendous changes to this school over the years, particularly under Chief Smith,” Les says. “It meant a lot to me to simply just follow his footsteps and never lose sight that Texas A&M will always have the largest and best fire school in the world. I felt it was my responsibility when I became chief to carry on that particular aspect of the school.”
The new building is two stories tall and contains six classroom pods that can seat up to 700 students at a time. The first floor is where the classrooms, wall of gratitude, hall of honor recognition wall and gift shop are located. The second floor is where the TEEX administration and staff offices reside. TEEX Agency Director, David Coatney, says this is a game changer given the previous setup they had.
“When you look at the student experience, this building is beyond anything we’ve had before,” David says. “The technologies in it really move us forward into the appropriate century, and also, it gets a lot of our instructional training that was originally done in portable buildings into one collocated facility. The benefit of this is not only do they train together in this building, but then when they go out into the field, they start training together in the real world.”
The cost to build this complex was around $32 million. David says the planning and building process took about five years from the time they first started talking about it to completion.
“They did it on budget, which is pretty amazing, especially when you consider that COVID was going on during that time,” David says. “The benefit is that it included reskinning of the fire station next door, so they have identical designs now. It’s just a beautiful building named after an amazing leader.”
During the ribbon cutting, Les took the time to thank those who helped make this building a reality and to reminisce on highlights in his career. Les started his career in the fire service nearly 50 years ago, in 1973. He worked for the Austin fire department for 30 years and served as Assistant Chief from 1994-2002. In addition to working full time at the Austin Fire Department, Les also served as Fire Chief of the Georgetown Fire Department from 1977-1994. He says although he is retired, he is still going to be around the school.
“I still return back to the fire school every July to help with the Annual School,” Les says. “So I am always going to be here in July.”
The Les W. Bunte Jr. Administration and Classroom Complex is located off Nuclear Science Road next to the TEEX Brayton Fire Training Field in College Station.
