It began four years ago to meet the need to certify the growing number of contracting interns. Now it has become a program that addresses specific areas of concern within the Army contracting community.
The Army Contracting Command Mobile Training Team augments training opportunities contracting specialists need to obtain their Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certifications, said Beverly Hopkins, ACC deputy chief of staff, Human Capital G-1 Mobile Training Team course director. The team?'s roots go back to a time when the Defense Acquisition University had resource constraints and could not keep up with the number of interns ACC was hiring. Interns need to get their first certification within 24 months, she added.
?"Essentially, we teamed up with the Army Acquisition Center of Excellence, under the Army Logistics University umbrella, which is a sanctioned equivalent provider of the military personnel, and incorporated students into their courses," Hopkins explained.
ACC?'s mobile training team and the AACOE are located on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus, not far from ACC headquarters. In addition to conducting classes on the UAH campus, the MTT travels to ACC sites when there are enough students to warrant a class.
According to Hopkins, the team now focuses on ACC internal courses such as the contracting boot camp, contracting officer refresher course, cost and pricing, and professional skills.
?"We are able to develop course material to best meet the needs of the command and address specific areas of concern such as (contract) cost and pricing," Hopkins said.
She said the four-week boot camp interns attend before attending DAU has resulted in a lower attrition rate in the DAWIA certification courses.
In the future, Hopkins said the MTT will only teach ACC internal courses. ACC students will be returning to DAU for DAWIA certification courses.
More information, including the MTT?'s schedule, is available on the MTT SharePoint site, https://acc.aep.army.mil/G1/MTT/default.aspx.
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