WORKFORCE


ARMY ACQUISITION: A BRIEF HISTORY


Legislation, scandal, regulation, reform by Mr. Steve Stark and Ms. Susan L. Follett T 126


he U.S. Army has been procuring goods and services from the private sector since long before there was a United States. Individual handcrafted rifles and pistols, food and clothing, gunpowder and lead were


some of the not particularly sophisticated needs of the nascent republic’s Army.


But acquisition today is more than procurement, and today the Army’s needs are very sophisticated indeed. Te Hon. Heidi Shyu, the Army acquisition executive, is also the assistant secre- tary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, and nowadays “acquisition” is an umbrella term that indicates not only procurement, logistics, and science and technology, but also research and development, contracting, sustainment, main- tenance—and anything else in the cradle-to-grave life cycle of defense materiel and services. Te general umbrella of acquisi- tion may encompass more subspecialties than any other field in DOD.


Te story of acquisition as we know it today is also a parallel history of legislation and regulation begat of investigations and presidential commissions—in particular the Packard Commis- sion, also known as the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission


Army AL&T Magazine October–December 2014 on Defense Management, in 1986—and in reaction to pro-


curement-related scandals. Te Packard Commission, chaired by David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co. and the deputy secretary of defense from 1969 to 1971, came about as a result of headline-grabbing cost anomalies during the military buildup in the first term of President Ronald Reagan, such as $600 hammers and $700 toilet seats.


Te Packard Commission’s report was followed by the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, which created an acquisition execu- tive for each service. Until the report and the ensuing legislation, the concept of a professional “acquisition workforce” as we know it today did not exist. Te commission’s report resulted in, among other things, the creation of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition as well as the acquisition executive positions. It also led to the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act in 1990, the creation of the Defense Acquisition University in 1991, and a host of other reforms that are part of the way Army acqui- sition does business today.


In 1989, GEN Carl E. Vuono, then chief of staff of the Army and previously the commanding general of the U.S. Army Train- ing and Doctrine Command, authorized the establishment of


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