A CONTRACT FOR THE FUTURE
chaired by Dr. Jacques S. Gansler, former undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, found, among other things, that the Army’s acquisition workforce was
“not adequately staffed,
trained, structured, or empowered to meet the Army needs of the 21st Century deployed warfighters.” Te commission found that only 56 percent of military and 53 percent of civilians in the contracting career field were certified for their positions.
“What should be a core competence— contracting (from requirements definition, through contract management, to contract closeout)—is treated as an operational and institutional side issue,” the report stated. In particular, the commission noted major deficiencies in expeditionary contracting.
Te report emphasized the role that contractors played in Iraq and Afghani- stan, noting that they constituted over 50 percent of the force. “Because of this, contracting (including requirements trans- lation, pricing, acquisition strategy, and contract management) must be part of all operational planning.” Making that hap- pen required a culture change in the Army, and the commission recommended add- ing training to make certain that military commanders understood the fundamental importance of contracting to the Army of 2007 and into the 21st century.
“We didn’t have the right qualified peo- ple over in theater” doing expeditionary contracting, Hallock said. “But the gen- esis of that was we really didn’t have the right numbers of qualified people here in CONUS [the continental United States] as well. So we had to build up both. In order to build up the contingency con- tracting expertise, we had to build up the peacetime contracting expertise that was downsized in the 1990s.”
Today, Harrison said, “operational com- manders understand they can’t execute
70 Army AL&T Magazine
their missions without professional, well-trained and -equipped contingency contracting officers on the ground and engaged from day one, supporting the full range of contingency missions from humanitarian assistance and disaster response to combat operations.”
‘GROWING’ PROFESSIONALS IN CONTRACTING Tere’s another kind of contract—the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improve- ment Act (DAWIA)—that spells out the minimum requirements for a defense acquisition professional. In many respects, the process of “growing” the Army con- tracting professional is significantly more rigorous than that of industry. Accord- ing to Leonardo Manning, director of the Center for Contracting and Small
Business
at Defense Acquisition Uni-
versity (DAU), “it takes four years for a contracting professional to complete all required training and experience require- ments to be Level III certified,” after obtaining a college degree with 24 hours of business courses. Levels I and II are attainable within a year or two.
Te Army Acquisition Center of Excel- lence (AACoE) in Huntsville, AL, centralizes training, education and career development for Army acquisition offi- cers, noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and DA civilians, but it caters primarily to the military workforce. Military con- tracting professionals need to complete all of their educational requirements before joining the acquisition workforce at the 8- to 10-year mark in their service
FROM AWARD TO CLOSEOUT
ACC – Rock Island (IL) Contract Closeout Branch Chief Andrea Kalb, left, joins contracting officers Thomas Petkunas, Joseph Jakubowski and Christine Fricke in a warehouse containing more than 8,000 boxes of contract files that originated in Iraq and Afghanistan. Properly closing contracts is a key part of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars; the Contract Closeout Branch recently surpassed the $300 million mark in recap turing current and expiring funds. (Photo by Liz Adrian)
July–September 2014
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