FROM THE PENTAGON Federal News Radio host Jerod Serbu interviews Hallock on May 14 at the Pentagon, for “On DOD,” a weekly one-hour show that focuses on the programs and policies that affect the Defense Department. (Photo by Kathie Scarrah, ODASA(P))


of when a typical day at the office should have begun.


I have never served in the military, nor has the Army asked me as a civilian to deploy in a “boots on the ground” capacity, but I can say that the pride and exhilaration I felt that night as the con- tracting officer in direct support of those at the tip of the spear gave me a sense of accomplishment that I will never forget. Jan. 17, 1991, was my personal testament that our actions in contracting make a difference and contribute to the suc- cess of our men and women who serve in uniform. I am reminded of this every day as I see the tremendous effort our contracting workforce puts forth and the amazing successes.


EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY Before Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, we didn’t have the


pressures and challenges of learning “on the go,” as so many of our contracting professionals do today. We tended to think of our business


During in terms of effi-


ciency more than effectiveness. Te dollar amount of obligations and the number of contract actions executed back then were about one-fourth of what our folks must execute today.


We didn’t realize how significant an impact downsizing the workforce in the 1990s would have on contracting actions some 25 years later, or how the workload pendulum would swing back so dramati- cally as we contracted for contingencies in two theaters at the same time, all while technology and automation made the job faster if not necessarily easier. As a result, we didn’t allow for an orderly plan to downsize the workforce; frankly, we had no concrete expectation that the pace of contracting would increase.


the wars in Southwest Asia,


Congress stood up the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Com- mission on Wartime Contracting and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction—three organizations with oversight of our contingency contracting efforts—to assure the American public that we were contracting smartly and were being held accountable. Tese and other oversight organizations found that the Army was relatively proficient in executing contracts but delinquent in administering them, especially in oversight of the large number of service contracts that directly supported the war effort.


We were effective, but not so efficient. Yet, I believe we couldn’t have accomplished what we did in support of our Soldiers, nor turned around our imbalance of effectiveness at the cost of efficiency, if not for the professional, trained civilian and military contracting cadre that got


ASC.ARMY.MIL 107


COMMENTARY


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