Ammo management civilians finish training pilot program

McALESTER, Okla. -- Eleven civilian employees working in ammunition management at McAlester Army Ammunition Plant completed a training pilot program offered at Kiamichi Technology Center here, May 11.

Joint Munitions Command's Ammunition Management Career Program Office offered the 30-hour pilot program in Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook for wage-system employees to help them with their computer skills. Wage-system civilians perform the hands-on work with ammunition.

"They learned to use computers and became more proficient at it, which is going to save them time on the job because they will be able to produce reports and correspondence a lot quicker than they could before," said Shelley Linehan, chief of the Ammunition Management Career Program Office for the Joint Munitions Command at MCAAP.

At MCAAP, 415 wage-system employees belong to the Ammunition Management Career Program, or CP-33. There are 2,391 CP-33 employees throughout the Army, including 1,362 wage-system personnel.

With the exception of work leaders and supervisors, wage-system employees don't have as much experience with computers as their general-schedule counterparts, who work primarily in management, technical or administrative positions.

Linehan said Army career programs were initially designed for general-schedule civilians before wage-system employees were added in fiscal year 2012.

"That's why this is a pilot and our initial jump into providing training for wage-system personnel," she said. "This is going to lead to more training and different types of training we'll be able to offer."

Linehan said her office has been talking to MCAAP leaders and wage-system employees to determine what kind of training they need.

"They requested this training because it would help current careerists who are using computers to be more proficient, so it's improving their skills and developing new skills for careerists who have limited experience," she said.

Linehan said the newfound skills also should make the employees more competitive for promotions.

Billy Hamilton, a munitions destroyer work leader who attended the course, agreed it would provide a competitive edge. He's happy in his current position and was pleased to learn new features in Outlook and Excel.

"The class was great," he said. "The instructor was very knowledgeable. The class was small and he was able to help us all out. It was a good learning environment."

McAlester Army Ammunition Plant is the Department of Defense's premier bomb- and warhead-loading facility. It is vital to ammunition stockpile management and delivery to the Joint Warfighter for training and combat operations. MCAAP is one of 14 installations of the Joint Munitions Command and one of 23 organic industrial bases under the U.S. Army Materiel Command, which include arsenals, depots, activities and ammunition plants.