ARMY AL&T
on-the-spot sales at the customer’s location, the Mobile Store is stocked with more than 125 top-selling products such as toner, writing implements, and paper.
“We expected the IB Express Store-Fort Detrick partnership to be a huge success even before the doors opened,” said Hobart. “Fort Detrick has vigorously supported AbilityOne for nearly 10 years via its online e-commerce program. Typically, Internet sales take a big hit when we open a new store. Not only have Fort Detrick’s Internet sales remained strong, but Fort Detrick continues to lead all IB Milwaukee BSCs in gross Internet sales, even though many of our BSCs are much larger.”
In June, just 1 year after it opened, the Fort Detrick AbilityOne Store was selected by the National Industries for the Blind to be one out of eight cornerstone BSCs, of a total of 136, to be showcased as part of the 15th anniversary celebration of the national BSC program.
AbilityOne History The AbilityOne Program, formerly the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Program, was established by Congress in 1938. It is the coun- try’s largest source of employment for blind and severely disabled individuals. It coordinates the participation of 650 nonprofit agencies throughout the country that hire and train blind and severely disabled Americans to produce many of the products and services purchased by the federal government. The program operates at nearly 1,000 locations nationally, including 136 military bases.
The Fort Detrick IB Express store stocks more than 1,300 “in- demand” products, including office products, cleaning supplies, clothing, and mission-essential items. In addition, mission partners have access to more than 500,000 commercial prod- ucts and services, ranging from information management and information technology to full “turn-key” furniture solutions, through AbilityOne’s network of authorized manufacturers and distributors. Post customers are assured that all purchases from IB Express stores comply with federal procurement regulations.
Additional information about the AbilityOne Program is available at
www.abilityone.gov. Products and services can be purchased online through AbilityOne’s e-commerce program at
www.basesupply.com.
Jack Meikrantz is a Business Development Specialist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, Business Oversight Branch, Fort Detrick. He holds a B.A. in business administration and accounting from Lycoming College.
During Operation Unified Response, ECC contracted for supplies, services, and equipment for military and federal responders, as well as Haitians affected by the earthquake. (U.S. Army photo.)
OCTOBER –DECEMBER 2010 66
Contracting Lessons Learned and Used During Haiti Deployment
Larry D. McCaskill
Members of the U.S. Army Expeditionary Contracting Command (ECC) nullified potential problems during their contingency deployment to Operation Unified Response, the Haiti humanitarian assistance disaster relief mission that ended June 1, 2010.
The first ECC Soldier arrived in Haiti within 48 hours after the devastating 7.0 earthquake rocked the country on Jan. 12, 2010. The deployment provided opportunities to use lessons learned from previous military deployments, as well as to capture new ones.
During Operation Unified Response, ECC contracted for supplies, services, and equipment for military and federal responders, as well as Haitians affected by the earthquake. At one point, ECC helped to supply and deliver more than 15 million meals to the Haitian population within 10 days, establishing distribution points for families to receive 25- and 30-pound bags of rice, beans, and cooking oil. ECC contracting efforts also helped turn dangerous rudimentary shelters into areas with safer tents where water and meals were delivered on a routine basis. By the end of the mission, ECC had created more than 380 contracting actions valued at almost $12 million.
“We took advantage of a lot of lessons learned from previous deployments,” said BG Joseph L. Bass, Commander, ECC. “We didn’t do these types of things early on in Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom. However, we learned those lessons and brought these capabilities to Haiti early on. We were very proactive from the beginning, deploying the right personnel mix needed to provide quality assurance, legal, policy, and other
CONTRA C T ING COMMUNI T Y H IGHLIGHTS
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