SPOTLIGHT MR. PHIL DAVIS
by Ms. Margaret C. Roth P
hil Davis, 33, was a college student selling refrigera- tors for Sears in Oviedo, FL, and looking ahead to a career in law or business when the contracting career path opened up to him. One of his customers hap-
pened to be Kim Denver, then director of contracts at Program Executive Office Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) and later deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement.
“He showed me his Army card and said ‘Hey, give me a call,’ after I sold him the refrigerator,” Davis recalls. “I kind of looked at it like, yeah, I’m not going to call this guy. Well, he ended up call- ing me back and saying, ‘I’m looking for interns. I want you to come in for an interview.’
“First, he said, ‘Why didn’t you call me back?’ ” Davis laughed. “And he convinced me to come in for an interview. And when he started talking to me about what he actually did, I was interested.” Davis was a prelaw student with a minor in business at the Uni- versity of Central Florida (UCF). “I had that prelaw background, I had a business minor, and [contracting] seemed to me to be very similar to what I was doing already with respect to my college career.” Plus, Denver said the Army might also be able to fund an MBA degree. “He pretty much hooked me,” Davis said.
A GO-TO GUY Davis started at PEO STRI in January 2005 as an intern in the Student Career Experience Program. While working full time, he completed his undergraduate degree that spring and contin- ued at UCF to receive an MBA, which the Army paid for, true to Denver’s word.
In his nearly 10 years at PEO STRI, Davis has become the go-to guy in contract administration for matters concerning source selection. “Any new acquisition that comes up, that’s kind of
154
been my area of expertise.” Tat, he said, is reward in itself, con- sidering that the end product can save Soldiers’ lives.
Not that Davis himself ever was a Soldier. He has never served in the military, nor has anyone in his immediate family, although various members of his extended family have served. Te same is true of many of his civilian colleagues at PEO STRI, which made their passion and dedication all the more surprising to Davis when he began working there.
“Before I started working here, I probably had the impression that civilian people, they’re probably going to go home and they’re not going to take this home with them. What I’ve learned is, that’s not the case. Tey care just as much as our colonels down the hall.” Tey share an understanding, Davis said, that “if we don’t get this on contract, Soldiers are going to perish.”
In recognition of his hard work, Davis received the high honor of being named PEO STRI’s 2013 Acquisition Per- son of the Year. Te citation noted “his top-notch contracting support to the Combat Training Center – Instrumentation System [CTC-IS] program, as well as to the foreign military sales [FMS] case for the Egyptian Armed Forces Combat Training Center.”
Currently he’s the lead contract specialist in support of the $4 billion recompete for the Warfighter Field Operations Customer Support (FOCUS) contract, assigned to the project manager (PM) for field operations and support. Warfighter FOCUS, with a 10-year term and a ceiling of $11.2 billion, “pretty much does the sustainment for our entire portfolio here at PEO STRI with respect to our simulators,” Davis explained.
His work on Warfighter FOCUS involves market research on different types of contracts and researching PEO STRI’s
Army AL&T Magazine
July–September 2014
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176
