What we learned

In the past decade, it has been an honor and a privilege for me to serve alongside great acquisition professionals who deployed time and time again to two vastly different theaters. Their deployments were a call to arms--not with weapons, but with pens and two books we fondly refer to as our contracting bibles, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Defense FAR Supplement (DFARS).

I must thank our sons and daughters in the acquisition workforce, both civilian and military, who deployed to support our warfighters. I also need to thank our acquisition workforce families for the sacrifices they endured at home, supporting our civilian and military acquisition workforce on long and short tours overseas. Across the Army, we've learned that deployment doesn't just define those in theater; it also includes loved ones who remain at home providing stability and support to our men and women who deploy. And finally, I'd like to thank the entire acquisition workforce for taking on the extra work at home when their co-workers deployed.

Over the past 13 years, the Army contracting enterprise has learned many valuable lessons that will help us shape and train our acquisition workforce for future conflicts. Thirteen years of contracting in two unique theaters wasn't easy. As the Iraq campaign began, our acquisition workforce experienced some challenges, but certainly nothing prepared them for the urgencies of contracting in support of contingency operations.

From my foxhole, the most valuable acquisition lesson we've learned is the need for strategic patience. We learned you can't rush to failure; you can't execute contracts without a strategic plan; and you have to answer the strategic questions: Will we need to rely on local vendors? Who are the subcontractors? Do we need to worry that someone along the contracting chain is supporting the enemy? Have we executed the right contract? Do we have the right oversight? Do we have a plan to close the contract? Did we follow the rules in accordance with the FAR and the DFARS? Can we honestly say that we're good stewards of taxpayer dollars?

FROM PAST TO FUTURE

More than a decade ago, contracting for war requirements was new to our acquisition workforce. We quickly realized the importance of ensuring that our contracting professionals deploy with the right contracting skills to meet the challenges of contingency contracting. Combat is not a training ground. In contingency operations, it is vital that our contracting professionals be great business advisers and know how to successfully execute any type of contracting action, as well as how to determine which actions are right for the requirement at hand.

We learned that our contracting leaders need to better understand the operational environment so that they can provide the operational commanders the best contracting advice. In contingency operations, the battlefield often dictates split-second decisions, but in contracting, lack of strategic planning results in mistakes that are often very costly. By understanding the plan, contracting leaders can provide numerous options for the operational commander to satisfy the requirement, in many cases at significant cost savings. Now, looking back, I can see how often a contracting action could be executed without considering all phases of the plan.

One area of interest is part "lessons learned" and part "reminder" for future contingencies. That is the importance of proper contract oversight. For more than a decade, contracting was the subject of numerous reports and investigations that were very critical of the oversight processes. We learned a great deal from these reports and have worked hard to ensure that we do not repeat our mistakes or waste taxpayers' dollars.

It all boils down to training. In theater, contracting officer's representatives (CORs) are the contracting officers' eyes and ears on the front lines. When we first hit the ground, proper contract oversight was lacking. As operations continued, we stepped up our game by providing much better pre-deployment training. Previous years saw COR responsibilities being added as an additional duty for Soldiers. Later, operational commanders recognized the COR's role and the importance of contract oversight, and supported the process by providing dedicated CORs to oversee their contracts.

'SPOT' ON ACCOUNTABILITY

We also made tremendous improvements in contractor accountability. Contractors are part of the total force--we depend on them for all of our life support requirements. We must account for them in all phases of the operation and communicate with them so they are made aware of changes in the operation and adjust accordingly.

In the early years of the wars, contractor accountability was sporadic--almost nonexistent, one could say. The Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT) helped us get a much better handle on our contractor population. SPOT, a Web-based system, is the central data repository for contractors deploying with the force; it holds contract capability information for use by federal contractors, government agencies and the military. It and other tools allow us to verify a person's identity in theater, track the person's movements and provide theater commanders up-to-date visibility into contractor assets and capabilities. We also put new policies in place to look for prime contractors and subcontractors who might be engaging in human trafficking or aiding our enemies.

After three deployments, two in Iraq and a final deployment in Afghanistan, where I served as commander of U.S. Central Command's Joint Theater Support Contracting Command (C-JTSCC), l can proudly say that the acquisition workforce emerged as a leaner, more qualified, better-trained, more efficient and more valued workforce than when we headed into these conflicts more than a decade earlier. We learned that our personnel must have the proper contracting skills and that contractor oversight must not be an afterthought.

During my year in Afghanistan, I saw many of our processes and policies put to work as we began the drawdown. Our deployed acquisition personnel had the tools in their rucksack to execute high-quality contract actions in support of the warfighter. We developed our acquisition workforce into a highly professional, skilled cadre of men and women, both civilian and military, who understand contingency contracting.

CONCLUSION

We must continue to improve because our future contingencies may take place in different environments under different conditions. For example, in the summer of 2014, we deployed a contracting support brigade to establish secure and disease-free troop life support areas and construct Ebola treatment centers in support of Operation United Assistance. Our support to the Ebola crisis in West Africa demonstrated the improved flexibility of our highly trained workforce.

Today, Army contracting is well-?positioned to support operations worldwide. A strong, well-trained and highly qualified Army contracting enterprise is essential to managing the risk associated with these strategic requirements. Ours is a force of military and civilian personnel deploying together on missions in support of our warfighters. With continued strategic patience, we will not rush to failure but will proceed to success shoulder-to-?shoulder with our warfighters.

For more information on contingency contracting, go to the Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy Contingency Contracting website at http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/pacc/cc/index.html.

Related Links:

U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center

Army AL&T Magazine

Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy Contingency Contracting