and starting to build operational expe- rience. Civilians receive that education primarily through DAU.


“It takes a civilian a little bit longer to get through all of the education require- ments because they’re taking individual courses—as opposed to the military, who are completing most of their education requirements at the beginning of their acquisition career. And, of course, we’re taking a little bit of risk in doing it that way,” said Kevin Zurmuehlen, AACoE director. “One of the benefits of DAU’s approach is that you learn something, you go back to your job, you apply it, you gain experience and go back for the next class. … Whereas we’re teaching them [military contracting professionals] a whole new language, putting them out there [and saying], ‘OK, now go gain experience. Go speak French, and try to do so fluently.’ ”


Courses at DAU are continually evalu- ated and updated, as are AACoE courses and their equivalency to DAU’s. Each career field has a functional integrated product team (FIPT) that regularly looks at the requirements. “Te contracting curriculum changes all the time to keep up to date with the newest changes to policy and regulation,” Manning said. “It is not uncommon for learning assets to be updated every 90 days in order to keep up with changes in the regulations, new policy emphasis or needed improvements to case studies.”


DAU staff and faculty, he continued, “are assigned to manage courses and to keep them up to date. DAU briefs the contract- ing FIPT on all significant changes to the curriculum. Te FIPT and DAU conduct an annual review of all course mate- rial.” In FY12, as a result of the Better Buying Power


initiative and a work-


force competency assessment, Manning noted, contracting senior procurement


Today, Hallock said, “We have a younger, [relatively] inexperienced workforce by


HONORING EXCELLENCE MG Theodore C. “Ted” Harrison III, ACC commanding general, congratulates SSG Eliud Temblador on his selection in June as the ACC Best Warrior for 2014. Temblador, a 51C contract- ing NCO from the 413th Contracting Support Brigade, Fort Shafter, HI, topped the competition with a total score of 371 out of 500 possible points. He will represent ACC at the U.S. Army Materiel Command competition July 27-31 at Rock Island Arsenal, IL. (Photo by Ed Worley, ACC)


executives directed major strategic course revisions and restructuring in DAU train- ing, including the addition of cost and pricing curricula. Anytime DAU makes a change, AACoE immediately updates its curricula as well, said Zurmuehlen.


But the requirements to be an Army con- tracting professional include experience as well as schooling. Zurmuehlen noted that


those four years of work toward


Level III certification include “actually being in a contingency environment or at a contracting center, doing contracts. You can study it all day long, but until you’re actually doing it, that’s when you’re learn- ing the lessons.”


virtue of the fact that we did very little to no hiring in the 1990s, and then most of our hiring has been done in the last decade. Te rule of thumb is 7 to 10 years to make a good journeyman contract spe- cialist,” he said, adding, “I think the folks we are bringing in are super-intelligent and savvy and hardworking individuals. It’s just a matter of getting the experience and the training they need. And frankly, we can expedite the training. We’ve been doing that. Te tough part is expediting experience. Sometimes you just need to go through the process in order to under- stand it.”


One way for contracting professionals to get invaluable experience is through exercises like the Operational Contract Support Joint Exercise (OCSJX), ACC’s


ASC.ARMY.MIL 71


CONTRACTING


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