Huntsville Center's Information Technology Services branch growing

By Mr. William Scott Farrow (USACE)April 16, 2015

ITS branch grows
Technicians install information technology equipment at the new U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Western Processing Center in Hillsboro, Oregon. Due to weight limitations at the Western Processing Center's original location, all equipment had to be moved... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

What began as a one-person-deep special projects program capturing unusual requests from customers seeking to purchase information technology, Huntsville Center's Information Technology Service branch is one of the fastest growing branches within Huntsville Center.

Prior to November 2012, various Huntsville Center branches were seeing a surge of IT projects surface as customers were seeking technological solutions.

Customers now have a centralized place where they can get their support, said Terry Patton, ITS chief and the initial member of ITS.

"Our branch has grown rapidly thanks to the support of management; every time we've requested to add additional members to our branch, we've been given approval. We've justified our growth by our rapidly expanding customer base and in two and a half years we've been able to expand from one person to a staff of 21 people," Patton said.

ITS was established in November 2012 when Patton left the Engineering Directorate to stand up ITS as a branch under the Installation Support and Programs Management Directorate.

Initially, ITS was solely supporting the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program, started by DOD to modernize its supercomputer infrastructure.

"During the branch's initial phase, we were supporting mostly acquisition requests from ERDC (U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center) in Vicksburg (Mississippi). We're still supporting ERDC, but now we have four programs and business is great. Our FY13 obligations were $117 million, FY14 obligations were $305 million, and our FY15 projected obligations are more than $500 million," Patton said.

The four distinct programs under the ITS fold are: High Performance Computing program (supporting the DOD HPC modernization program; ACE-IT program (supporting U.S. Army Corps of Engineers IT requirements), MED-IT (supporting the medical community's IT needs) and GEN-IT (supporting various DOD organizations general IT requests).

"Scott Barnhart, the GEN-IT program manager, was the first member to join our team and Tracy Phillips, ACE-IT program manager, and Edward Nixon, MED-IT program manager, joined the branch in the spring of 2013. Alonzo Andrews, HPC program manager, later joined the branch in the summer of 2013. We've grown from that initial team to where we are now approximately two years later," Patton said.

What led to ITS' fast growth is the program's composition of project delivery teams well versed in IT criteria, regulations and requirements.

"We all know IT," Phillips said. "We all have IT backgrounds -- we're dedicated to IT acquisition and therefore our customer relationship is focused on program and project management and technical expertise. Our customized services are scalable and available when and where customers need them. It is so much easier for a customer to get what they want when we know what it is they are specifically requesting."

Patton said the ITS branch offers IT acquisition services in three primary areas: technical services, software and hardware commodities. In technical services, customers may require contractor support in order to fulfill obligations on a short or long-term basis or use contractors to provide helpdesk manpower, business analysis, research and development, and other duties that require capabilities the government may choose to acquire through contract support.

In the software area exists ideas and concepts for customers requiring software updates or renewals that can represent a one-time buy or reoccurring renewals to meet the customers' dynamic software requirements.

The hardware commodity area includes the durable equipment customers require for all electronic communications such as laptops, mobile computing devices, network routers, servers and other physical forms of technology.

However, Patton is quick to point out that ITS provides more than just those three service areas.

Patton said ITS can scope reviews and modifications or develop and execute scope, schedules and budgets (from task orders to multiple award task order contracts) as well as assist customers with planning in areas related to future IT requirements.

"We coordinate and communicate with the necessary resources to lead an integrated project team to support customers' requirements," Patton said.

In all, Patton said if customers have IT requirements, ITS is suited to provide all of their IT solutions.

"I think our growth over the past two years speaks for itself," Patton said. "Our customers come back to us, and new customers are asking for our assistance."