JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas -- (Jan. 22, 2015) A Mission and Installation Contracting Command member who played an instrumental role helping shape Army contracting to what it is today is retiring from federal service after more than 35 years of service.
Bruce Trimble, the MICC deputy chief of staff for resource management at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, concludes his career at the end of the month with the command he helped stand up six years ago.
As the deputy chief of staff for resource management, he is responsible for the direction and program oversight of the command's resource management program to include programming, budget, finance, accounting, manpower and force development.
Trimble began his federal service by enlisting in the Army in 1979 as a military police officer. After serving three years on active duty, he transitioned to the Army Reserve for another nine years where he completed tours as a drill instructor and Basic Noncommissioned Officers Course instructor.
While in the Reserve, he began his civil service career in 1983 with the U.S. Army Materiel Command headquarters, holding a variety of positions to include management analyst and program integration specialist. It wasn't until he departed AMC that Trimble's assignment track led him toward Army contracting. After a stint as a program integration specialist at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, he accepted a position as an IT specialist with the Contract Support Agency at Falls Church, Virginia. There he was responsible for the Army Standard Procurement System planning, programming and budget execution.
The Lawton, Oklahoma, native subsequently took on the role as resource manager when the Contract Support Agency became the Army Contracting Agency in October 2002. That experience proved instrumental as a key member of the transition team responsible for coordinating and negotiating resource requirements including manpower and dollar and equipment assets from multiple major Army commands to form the new agency.
While still a fledgling agency, Trimble found himself wearing many hats. He was responsible for the human resource management program encompassing a civilian and uniformed workforce of approximately 2,100; led the $200 million resource management program; oversaw the Army Government Purchase Card Program of 4.4 million transactions valued at $3.6 billion in annual purchases; and served as the headquarters IT officer.
"It was not really that bad, busy, but not bad," he said. "By the time we were creating ACA, I had already been in three career programs -- resource management, manpower and force development and information management. I did expand my core competencies a great deal in some of the other functions such as human resources, logistics and security. It did help in understanding the functional interaction and necessity of a much more complete operation. It further helped from an efficiency standpoint and the ability to assist others in a day-to-day operational environment."
Following an Army secretary decision to align the Army Contracting Agency to the Army Materiel Command in 2008, Trimble served on the transition team that established the Army Contracting Command and believes the evolution of the contracting function is headed in the right direction.
"Any major transition of a functional area is intended to create a higher level of efficiency, but in the initial stages causes a valley of lull. The intent of the Army Contracting Agency was to bring contracting under a single hat except for specialty commands," he said. "As contracting moved in and out of conflict and war, it became more evident that we needed warfighters with a contracting ability. This led to establish ACC and bring systems, installation and expeditionary contracting under a single hat."
He believes there's much more work ahead in a continued need for evolution. "It is difficult to learn under fire, but the Army has been doing it for years and doing a good job of it."
It was the transition from ACA to ACC that Trimble assumed the position as the deputy chief of staff for resource management at the MICC. At the command since its inception, he's seen his share of challenges with such issues as sequestration and decreased budgets during an austere fiscal environment. He said those challenges will remain and only through sufficient planning can they be successfully met.
"Funding is a tool, a critical one, like any tool to meet mission needs. If you take it away or reduce it, you are simply going to hamper an organization's ability to execute timely," Trimble said. "I am not saying we should not trim the fat. The Army has a good programming system in place, but there is only so much funding and everyone's specific mission is important to them. We need to become better at planning and justifying our requirements for the out-years or we will find ourselves reshaping to try to find savings. Savings do not equate to efficiencies, efficiencies equate to savings."
As his career comes to an end, Trimble insists he's "had a great run and enjoyed it."
"I will miss the people. You learn a lot from them if you just listen, and when you have been together for a considerable time, they grow on you."
His plans for retirement include continued audit and tax work for a company in northern Virginia, spending more time with his wife, Leanna, their two sons and two granddaughters and "make the rest up as I go."
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