410th CSB supports PANAMAX-14

By 410th Contracting Support Brigade, Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam HoustonSeptember 3, 2014

PANAMAX
PANAMAX is an annual U.S. Southern Command-sponsored multinational training exercise series that focuses on ensuring the defense of the Panama Canal. Personnel from 17 nations, including the United States, are taking part in simulated training scena... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

Members of the 410th Contracting Support Brigade and the 916th Contingency Contracting Battalion provided operational contract support to the U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Army South's annual capstone exercise, PANAMAX 14, at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, Aug. 8-14.

Col. Daryl "Rick" Harger, 410th CSB commander, served as the senior contracting official. The unit participated in ARSOUTH's crisis action planning leading up to the event to include assisting with the formulation of the Multi-National Forces-South Annex W, operational contract support.

During the exercise, the 916th CCBn provided 51C contracting noncommissioned officers to serve as the contracting support operations team in the ARSOUTH forward command post also on Fort Sam Houston, said Maj. Jose Crespo, operations chief, 410th CSB. At the same time, another 51C from the 410th served in the main command post in the ARSOUTH headquarters' building on Fort Sam Houston.

Crespo said the 410th CSB also conducted a contracting readiness exercise concentrating on operational contract support planning and execution within the PANAMAX training scenario. The 916th CCBn trained on individual and collective tasks while also proofing each contingence contracting team's deployment kit. The brigade then issued an exercise deployment order triggering the battalion to incorporate the military decision making process and issue an operation order establishing a regional contracting center and the deployment of four contract ready teams in support of the MNF-S.

Crespo said the exercise concluded with two days of 51C Soldiers performing contingency contracting operations at a simulated deployed location.

"The big win was the 916th CCBn's strategy to incorporate existing, real-world, day-to-day contract workload as part of the exercise to stress the contract ready teams but at the same time not lose any ground toward completing the end-of-year workload," Harger said.

The scenario consisted of an operation where ARSOUTH was tasked by SOUTHCOM to lead and deploy a Multi-National Forces-South Command to secure the Panama Canal and protect avenues of approach against a violent extremist organization.