Years turned into months, months turned to weeks, and weeks will soon turn into days for the CECOM Contracting Center employees moving to the Center's new facilities at Aberdeen Proving Ground in November.
"The new C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) campus gives us the ability to work together toward a common vision," said Christopher J. Newton, CECOM Contracting Center management analyst, Human Capital Group. "The C4ISR community brings cutting edge technology to the Warfighter, so it is only fitting that we operate in a campus-like atmosphere to encourage creative thinking and collaboration between functional parties. This is a very exciting time to be an Army employee as an investment like this happens only once in a lifetime."
The moves started in October and will be completed in November. The contracting center will occupy three floors of the Headquarters East Building on the C4ISR campus.
The CECOM Contracting Center's facilities are part of an approximately $$477 million construction project encompassing more than 1.5 million square feet of office, lab and administrative space
As they move into the new facilities, the center will address some familiar challenges.
"Finding qualified contracting officers is always a challenge. This is a national problem that resulted from years of sparse hiring," said Edward G. Elgart, executive director, CECOM Contracting Center. "As a result, the entire federal government competes for a very limited talent pool. Growing new contracting officers in-house to fill these positions is a four-to-10 year process. The good news is that there is tremendous talent in the pipeline that will get us back to the expertise we need."
Elgart said that years of downsizing led to more generalization in the contracting career field. As a result, pricing capability diminished.
"Reconstituting that from scratch is a major challenge. Fortunately we have been able to hire from the industry sector as well as DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency) people who possess those skills," Elgart said. "Partnering them with Army contracting individuals who volunteered to become price analysts, we are well on our way to creating a vibrant, talented pricing sector."
"Our building will also house a state-of-the art training room which will be used for our intern institute and continued workforce development. The campus offers a plethora of new dining facilities which were not previously available to the workforce at APG.
Collaborative desk spaces and close proximity to customers will provide greater synergy with the C4ISR community," Newton said.
"The CECOM Contracting Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground is a brand new state of the art facility. We have tremendous opportunity for hard charging people with great attitudes who want to be part of a world class team. This is a unique opportunity to reshape business processes and help develop the future workforce. There are tremendous challenges and great rewards in helping to provide the best C4ISR equipment and capabilities to our Warfighters," said Elgart.
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