CONTRACTING
PM TAS will begin training the Indian army on the howit- zers next year.
Ayoub leads a team of government and contractor employees through the cost, schedule and performance aspects of the M777 production program. Te team is responsible for the GFE contracts, the prime contract, materiel handover and warranty portions of the foreign military sales (FMS) case.
With roughly 20 people, the team represents an array of skills, Ayoub said. “We have people with experience in design, production and program management, and people with experience in working with other government agencies and acquisition centers—it’s a true integrated product team.”
Ayoub and his team recently encountered a production issue at a manufacturing site for a key component. “Te biggest challenge we face is to make sure we’re monitoring priorities at government facilities, and that we’re keeping an eye on production and delivery schedules,” he said. “Trough com- munication and developing a contingency plan, we were able to mitigate the risk that the throughput problem might have caused.”
Te India FMS case, which also covers five years of spare parts, “turns the production lines back on” for the howit- zer, Ayoub noted. “As the M777 reaches the sustainment and active-refresh portion of its life cycle, being able to real- ize cost savings for spares due to economies of scale on an active production line has benefited all customers,” he said. In addition, “Ensuring that there is an institutional knowl- edge that’s being maintained and developed for the future by keeping production lines operational is vital to the artillery community over the long term.”
He has traveled to India a handful of times as part of the project, sitting in on meetings at the Ministry of Defense to discuss the FMS case with high-ranking members of the Indian army’s Directorate General for Artillery, and touring the facility where the joint receipt inspections and materiel handover for all deliverables will take place. As the contract progresses, someone from his team will be in India each month.
“Te experience has been eye-opening,” he said. “Te dif- ference in the culture is very interesting to see and, from a professional development standpoint, I would never get to sit through meetings with members of the U.S. Army at those
levels. It provides insight into what officers at that level are looking for when being briefed.”
An engineer by training, Ayoub got his start in acquisition in 2010. After college, he was looking for an employment opportunity “that was not ‘traditional.’ Having interviewed at Picatinny Arsenal, I knew it was a good fit for what I was looking for,” he said. “Seven years later, it is just what I thought it would be: Every day means a new challenge, and never is one day like the previous one.”
In 2013, Ayoub took a temporary position as the component acquisition lead for the 105 mm M119A3 howitzer, which ended up having a long-term impact on his career. “At the time, I had been managing my own acquisition efforts, but in the component acquisition role, I was forced to expand my knowledge of procurement contracts and the impacts that they had at a programmatic level,” he said. “I had the oppor- tunity to sit in on higher-level meetings, and that helped expand my knowledge base for leading a program. Tat assignment was also the first time in my acquisition career that I managed a team.”
Also influential to Ayoub’s career was his decision to expand his skills by getting his Project Management Professional cer- tification. “Tat certification gives me a toolset to evaluate the health of any program, as well as an understanding of the indicators for making that assessment,” he explained. “It’s invaluable for anyone looking to further a career in project or program management.”
Finding “a core group of leaders and peers” is also a big fac- tor in long-term career success, he said. Officially part of the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineer- ing Center and assigned to PM TAS, Ayoub had access to two different groups of potential mentors.
“I had the chance to be mentored by various people in differ- ent stages of their careers who were able to provide insight on both technical and programmatic perspectives,” he said.
“Te guidance I have received from the branch chiefs, divi- sions chiefs, program managers, functional leads, project leads and peers has been instrumental in helping me get to where I am.”
—MS. SUSAN L. FOLLETT +
ASC.ARMY.MIL 89
CONTRACTING
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