Rock Island hosts CCAS training session

ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. -- Army Contracting Command personnel recently completed two-weeks of in-depth training here in support of the contingency contracting administration services mission in Southwest Asia.

According to Lt. Col. Michael Conroy, contract plans officer, Expeditionary Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, ACC, ECC and ACC's contracting centers assumed the CCAS mission from the Defense Contract Management Agency and the training was necessary

"The Army does not have that many personnel who are trained to perform the unique tasks associated with CCAS," said Conroy. "It was very important to provide some in-depth training on those tasks. This will give them the basic skills and confidence to be successful while deployed."

The training was developed as a collaborative effort between the ACC Contract Administration Division, ACC-Rock Island, and DCMA-Kuwait, according to Conroy. He said with the exception of a few civilian personnel, the battalion and teams deploying for this effort have never performed a CCAS mission.

"These teams have been trained primarily to perform theater support contracting which is mostly commercial, cradle-to-grave contracting," said Conroy. "CCAS involves many non-commercial, complex, cost type contracts. It is a very different set of tasks from what contingency contracting officers normally perform."

Lt. Col. Ryan Eckmeier, commander, 920th Contingency Contracting Battalion, Rock Island, has one team, the 620th Contingency Contracting Team, Rock Island, deploying in support of the CCAS mission. He said he knew the training would be beneficial, but he had no idea how well it would be received.

"I didn't think this was going be such a resounding success," said Eckmeier. "I knew it was going to be a success, no doubt, but the praises they sang were refreshing to hear, mostly because these folks are about to spend [a lot of time] together and away from their families."

Eckmeier said the most beneficial thing to come out of the training was the face-to-face meetings between the people who are administering the contracts overseas and the contracting professionals that will remain back at Rock Island, and the other contracting centers. Approximately 90 percent of the CCAS contracts were awarded by ACC-RI contracting professionals, so having time for individual meetings at ACC-RI was invaluable, said Eckmeier.

"We had two-and-a-half days that we reserved specifically for one-on-ones with the (procuring contracting officers) and specialists," said Eckmeier. "I believe that is absolute money in the bank and at the end of the day, the PCOs feel more comfortable and walk away feeling better about it with less apprehension about this transition."

Conroy and Eckmeier also said there was a lot of value in seeing first-hand how the teams reacted to various scenarios during the mission readiness exercise, which was held toward the end of training.

"We measure (successful training) based on the feedback from the trainees but also largely from their performance in the three-day mission readiness exercise, the capstone event of the two-week training," said Conroy. "During these three days, the battalion headquarters and subordinate teams executed the CCAS tasks they will see in theater. The battalion headquarters and its subordinated contracting teams performed exceptionally during the exercise."

One of the most refreshing, yet challenging, aspects of the training was the trainees' enthusiasm, said Eckmeier.

A lot of these military folks are not necessarily young in the Army, but young in the contracting game," said Eckmeier. "They are voracious learners and extremely intellectually curious, which is exactly how we want them to be. However, they were so interested in getting all of their questions answered right away, because they have been marinating in this information for the past eight weeks or so, we kind of had to rein them back in and tell them to wait for answers and let the process work."

Conroy said the group has already identified training aspects that can be changed or improved to make the next iteration of training better. The training group also asked members of the CCAS mission to keep records on what can be enhanced.

"The intent is for this group to assist with and participate in the classroom training piece as well as provide the scenarios for the mission readiness exercise on the next iteration," said Conroy.