TOOLS OF THE TRADE
ing isn’t finished on time, then the entire project suffers—a surprisingly accurate parallel to Army acquisition.
J JAMES VANATTA
COMMAND/ORGANIZATION: Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition, Project Director Joint Bombs
TITLE: Program analyst
YEARS OF SERVICE IN WORK- FORCE: 13 years
DAWIA CERTIFICATIONS: Level III in business – cost estimating and in business – financial management; Level I in program management
EDUCATION: B.A. in general studies, Temple University
Today, Vanatta is a program analyst for the Joint Bombs project office within the Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition—an office that was just starting out when he joined the team on a rotational assignment. “I went over there, not knowing that they were literally 12 months into inception. Tey were a brand new organization and I got thrown into the fire immediately. Tere were only four or five of us—it was kind of like a new startup company, that’s the best way I can describe it.” Vanatta said the experience of joining a brand new organization was unique in many ways. “When you’re starting an organization from the ground up, you have to be involved in all the facets of daily operations. With such a small staff, if somebody’s out, the task is going to fall to you. You had to come in with a self-starter attitude. You had to come in wanting to learn, to accept pressure and responsibility, or the organization would suffer.”
If you think that scenario sounds a bit like working in residential construction, you’re not alone. “Tere are definitely some similarities,” Vanatta said. “If your material doesn’t show up on the job one day, you can miss your inspection and then the whole house is going to sit for a month. Our team is that small, where if one group doesn’t show up, we could be set back for a month.”
Te team at the Joint Bombs project office has grown since the early days, and now includes 20 full-time personnel dedicated to Army, Navy and Air Force products. “We’re part of the SMCA, the Single Manager for Conventional Ammu- nition. We provide acquisition management of transitioned bombs and Navy gun ammunition and focus on industrial base planning and integration. We have
As a newly minted college graduate, Vanatta found himself at an unexpected cross- roads. He had planned to attend law school after finishing his bachelor’s degree, but the job market was not favorable and he didn’t think it was the right time to take on such a large amount of debt. So he went back to what he knew—construc- tion. It was the family business, after all. His grandfather had moved from New York to Pennsylvania to start his home building business decades earlier. Vanatta worked as a plumber’s apprentice for about two years before he decided to explore job opportunities at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey. “My neighbor worked at Pica- tinny, and my mother-in-law as well. I didn’t know anything about government jobs until I sat down and spoke with my neighbor and he told me what he did. I’ve always been interested in business, so I decided to give it a shot. I put my resume in, interviewed, and I got lucky, honestly.”
ames Vanatta doesn’t use a pipe wrench at work anymore, but he still uses the life lessons he learned years ago as a plumber’s apprentice in north- east Pennsylvania. Show up on time, be honest, help out your team, take responsibility and understand your role in the larger project. If the plumb-
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Army AL&T Magazine
Fall 2021
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