Fort Riley, Kansas, Logistics Readiness Center staff win Army-wide award

FORT RILEY, Kan. -- Through the hard work of the Fort Riley Logistics Readiness Center Transportation Division's personnel, they won the Chief of Staff Army Logistics Excellence Award for the continental United States.

The "Best of the Best" award has been won by smaller units and detachments in the past, but never by an installation-level organization. The staff at the LRC is the first in the Army to claim that accomplishment, said Scot Bird, LRC-Fort Riley installation transportation officer.

"It (winning the award) clearly demonstrated our installation's capabilities as a deployment platform Army wide," Bird said. "The hard work and the countless hours spent planning, finalizing and executing in support of the senior commander's guidance for deployments, that was displayed by the professionalism, commitment and dedication to deployment excellence from our civilian workforce in support of the 1st Infantry Division."

The Army Logistics awards are presented to units in the Army, National Guard and Reserve. The awards include the "Best of the Best" award and three categories, the Maintenance Excellence Award, the Deployment Excellence Award and the Supply Excellence Award. All wining units contributed to improving Army readiness.

The Fort Riley LRC won in the Deployment Excellence Award category in 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. At last year's awards ceremony, Bird went to accept the award on behalf of the Fort Riley LRC. While there, he said he joked with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno that personnel of Fort Riley's LRC would figure out how to crack the code and be the first installation to win the "Best of the Best" award.

The Deployment Excellence Award is a two-part competition. Personnel of Fort Riley's LRC submitted their packet to the selection board based on missions and deployments from Dec. 1, 2014, to Nov. 30, 2015, Bird said. The packet was reviewed and judged by the panel at Fort Lee, Virginia. The board members evaluated the standards, procedures and operations presented in each packet. Following the evaluation, two packets are selected as the top contenders and an on-site evaluation is performed. The evaluators review operating systems, procedures and overall operations. Once the evaluations are complete, the board members select the winner through a point system for each step of the review and evaluation process.

The Fort Riley LRC deployed and redeployed more than 20,000 personnel and Soldiers from Dec. 1, 2014 to Nov. 30, 2015. In doing this, a great deal of work was required to transport the personnel and equipment to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, the theater of operations and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

"This involved planning, coordinating and scheduling of more than 1,000 commercial buses, 2,000 railcars, over 100 commercial aircraft and associated military aircraft, all of which played a major role in the deployment process of personnel and equipment to and from JRTC, NTC training rotations and real-world deployments to the theater of operations," Bird said.

Bird said he was proud of the success of the staff of Fort Riley's LRC in being the first installation to win the Chief of Staff Army Logistics Excellence Award, along with the Deployment Excellence Award.

"To be part of the 1st Infantry Division's history and its proud traditions means a lot to me," Bird said. "The award presented to us by the by the Army's Chief of Transportation identifies the LRC-Riley Transportation division as the Best of the Best in deployment excellence Army wide. I am still taking it all in and I am still at a loss for words as to the way our civilian workforce continues to perform effectively and efficiently during all phases of the deployment operations."

The award aside, he said the efforts and work of the Soldiers of Fort Riley and personnel of the LRC are what counts.

"Award or not, the bottom line for the LRC-Riley is the professionalism and dedication of my personnel to accomplish the mission," Bird said. "Couple that with the professionalism and dedication of the Soldiers on Fort Riley, it has been a team effort in winning not only the Deployment Excellence Award, but also winning the Best of the Best award, as well."