Army Aviation's Top Logistician Turns In White Boards For Retirement

By Ms. Kari Hawkins (AMCOM)January 4, 2016

LEAVING WHITE BOARDS IN RETIREMENT
John Jensen will be giving up his white boards filled with new ideas for Army aviation logistics when he retires this month. A retirement open house in his honor will be Jan. 7, 2015, from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Executive Dining Room of the Sparkman Cent... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- Throughout his civilian days with the Army, John Jensen's career compass has been anchored in the Navy.

A seven-year active duty Navy veteran, Jensen routinely measured his civilian success by comparing it to the progression of a Naval officer. It's safe to say his career as an Army civilian always stacked up well in the comparison.

"I would have been happy with whatever progress I made," he said. "But, I was happy to eventually get in a supervisory position, and I do believe I am at the same level of responsibility today that I possibly would have been at if I had stayed on active duty in the Navy."

These days, Jensen is happy to say he is in retirement mode. As director of the Aviation Directorate in the Aviation and Missile Command's Logistics Center, Jensen oversees about 400 employees who are responsible for the sustainment of Army aviation systems. That role will come to an end on Jan. 7, when he will bring his 38-year career to a close during a retirement open house from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Executive Dining Room of the Sparkman Center's building 5302.

As he retires, Jensen, 60, will take with him many accolades received through the years, including two Ernest A. Young Logistics Achievement Awards -- one awarded in 2002 when Jensen was in the professional/technical category and the other the management/executive award won in late 2015.

"A panel of logisticians review the nominees. The panel is made up of people you've worked with over the years. It's an honor that they recognize you," he said. "I'm the first to win this award twice. But there were a lot of good candidates. Any one of them who would have gotten this award would have been a good choice."

Jensen and the employees of the Aviation Directorate coordinate both sustainment and acquisition logistics to maintain readiness for the Army's aviation fleet.

"It's incredible the variety of things you can get involved in," he said. "We work at figuring out what needs to be done and then developing a strategy for accomplishing it. I like to cover up white boards with ideas. I like to challenge my employees to come up with ideas that can make a difference in sustainment for our aviation community. You can't depend on someone else to come up with the good ideas."

Although Jensen is not an engineer by education, he has gained an understanding of engineering challenges through a series of career experiences.

"No matter where you work, you should always try to become a technical expert in the area where you are assigned," he said. "It doesn't matter if it's not where you want to be. Everything you learn along the way will help you in the long run. Through the years, I've gained an overall understanding of logistics, procurement and what it takes to keep aircraft flying."

All employees who work in aviation should have an understanding of how their job is important in sustaining the aviation fleet, he said. For instance, aviation item managers should understand how their parts impact helicopters.

"They are not just managing numbers. They should know their items, what they do, why they are important. They should know the function of each item they are managing and they should know what that item does for a helicopter," Jensen said.

A St. Louis, Mo., native, Jensen attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo., on a Navy ROTC scholarship.

"I got two ROTC post cards in the mail -- one for the Navy and the other for the Army," Jensen recalled. "I was looking for scholarship opportunities. I asked my dad which one he thought was best and he said, 'Apply for the Navy. They get to take showers.'"

In 1977, he graduated with a degree in Biological Science and commissioned into the Navy Supply Corps, enduring two years as "Ensign Jensen." After graduating from the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens, Ga., he served as an assistant to the supply officer aboard the USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16), home-ported in La Maddalena, Sardinia, Italy, where its crew supported the fast attack submarine fleet in the Mediterranean. He also served in assignments as the food service officer for the Whiting Field Naval Air Station in Milton, Fla., and then returned to La Maddalena as the supply officer of the Navy Support Office. He resigned his active duty commission in 1984 and moved back to St. Louis. He affiliated with the Naval Reserves and retired as a commander in 1995.

In March 1985, he was hired by the Troop Support Command as a supply systems analyst. He worked in various assignments, including budget execution and budget development, and was involved in the conversion of the Army Stock Fund into the Defense Business Operating Fund, which eventually became the Army Working Capital Fund. During this time, he worked on his master's degree in Public Policy Administration at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

In 1992, he accepted an assignment at the Joint Logistics Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he worked as a project manager and as the Depot Maintenance Systems test and evaluation manager.

"Our command was tasked to develop a Department of Defense standard system for inventory management and depot maintenance management. It was to be a joint system for all services to use, but it failed," he said. "It required standardized processes, and nobody wanted to change their existing processes, and the technology just wasn't where it is today. I learned a lot from that experience.

"While I was there, an Air Force colonel worked with us and he told us, 'Never fall in love with your program. You never know when it's going to be killed. You have to remain objective.'"

Then, in 1997, he joined the AMCOM team, and moved with his wife and two daughters to Decatur, Ala., a city about 30 miles from Redstone Arsenal. He was assigned to the Business Management Directorate and soon moved to the OH-58D (Kiowa Warrior) Division as the team leader of the Airframe and Engine Team. He co-chaired the Integrated Product Team that developed the Rolls Royce C30R/3 Engine Power by the Hour contract. For his efforts, Jensen was the recipient of the 2002 Ernest A. Young Logistics Achievement Award.

He then went on to serve as chief of the Aviation Support Division, division chief in the Utility Directorate and director of the Scout/Observation Directorate, where he managed the transition of the sustainment responsibilities to the Soldier Focused Logistics organization under the new PM Armed Scout Helicopter.

In 2009, he was assigned as the AMCOM Logistics Center Utility director and Logistics Management Division chief for the Utility Helicopter Project Office, which led to his promotion, in 2012, to director of ALC's Aviation Directorate.

During his time with AMCOM, Jensen has seen how the ebb and flow of funding has affected Army aviation.

"In the late 1990s, we streamlined the acquisition process and moved away from buying data. That forced us into many sole source relationships. Now, we believe we need to go back to buying some amount of data to give the Army more control over what we are buying and for how much," he said. "At that time, there was also a big push to reduce inventory and we got rid of a lot of high dollar value, long-lead time equipment.

"And then 9/11 happened. We had to support a major contingency and we were dead in the water for years because it takes so long to recover inventory. We were flooded with requests we couldn't meet because it takes years for the aviation supply chain to ramp back up. Once you let sources dry up, you have to go through the whole process of developing new sources."

Today, as the Army once again pushes for more downsizing due to budget constraints, Jensen said the right decisions need to be made to ensure the availability of equipment for the sustainment of aviation for any future contingency. The large amount of required materials, the complexity of the systems and the narrow selection of suppliers all affect the length of time needed to reach optempo, he said.

"When I was in the Navy Supply Corps our motto was 'Ready for Sea.' In Army logistics, we should have a similar motto, such as 'Ready To Fight.' We have to maintain readiness to fight. Our job is to support aviation pilots so they can train and so they can fight," Jensen said.

As he closes out his government civilian career, Jensen remembers the lessons of his early Navy days, when, as a 22-year-old, he was responsible for the work of 80 sailors charged with providing supplies for the USS Howard W. Gilmore.

"The lessons I learned then on how to treat people and how to focus on the mission and how to achieve success helped to shape my entire career," he said.