After much buildup over the last year, the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) formally signified its arrival to Joint Base Lewis-McChord from Alaska during a ceremony Monday at Gray Army Airfield.

During the hour-long ceremony in front of about 500 Soldiers and invited community members, the brigade uncased its unit colors, activated or re-designated several subordinate aviation units and welcomed a new commander.

In March, the Department of Defense announced the headquarters of the 16th CAB would move from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, to JBLM. The 16th CAB is one of 12 aviation brigades in the U.S. Army.

"Aviation is one of the biggest demands in today's Army," said Maj. Gen. Ray Palumbo, U.S. Army Alaska commanding general.

The stationing of the 16th CAB at JBLM will entail the addition of approximately 1,400 new Soldiers and 44 helicopters. Once in place, the brigade will consist of a mixture of combat, reconnaissance and logistics support aircraft including AH-64 Apache, OH-58 Kiowa, UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

While a large majority of the brigade has already arrived at the base, the transition likely won't be complete until July of next year, said Col. Robert Dickerson, who took over command of the brigade from Col. Robert Werthman at the ceremony.

"The gates have been opened," Dickerson said. "It's going to be very busy (over the next year)."

Some helicopters will remain at Fort Wainwright, but the unit's headquarters will be at JBLM.

"It's going to be a mutually supporting relationship because I have aircraft here that can do air to ground integration with units in Alaska, and the Chinooks up there will be supporting units here at I Corps," said the 47-year-old Dickerson, a Wilmington, Del., native. "It's a mutually supporting relationship, and quite frankly this is how we operate every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's very common how we operate today and we've gotten pretty good at it."

Unit leadership, Soldiers and support staff worked hard to get the unit moved down from Alaska over the last few months, Dickerson said.

"(We're) doing this all while planning, equipping and deploying basically two battalions," the colonel said. "Trying to manage that movement, and then also push two units to Iraq and Afghanistan, it's quite a feat."

The re-designations detailed in the ceremony included the 4th Squadron, 6th Air Cavalry Squadron, which is already stationed at JBLM and was re-designated and re-patched as the 4th Squadron, 6th Attack Reconnaissance Squadron. The 46th Aviation Support Battalion and the 2nd Battalion, 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion were also activated during the ceremony.