REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- The top military contracting officer at the Army Contracting Command-Redstone is deploying to Afghanistan in the next few weeks to assist the Army in ensuring that contractors provide warfighters with the services and equipment they need to fulfill their mission.
Col. Ellsworth "Kenny" Johnson will deploy from his job as the ACC-R military deputy to briefly serve as the director of Operational Contracting Support for the U.S. Forces Afghanistan headquartered at Bagram Airfield, providing support to both Resolute Support and Operation Freedom's Sentinel missions.
"My job will be to get a better understanding of the products and capabilities our Soldiers need, and what we can do to work more effectively and efficiently in getting them from the contractor to the Soldier," Johnson said. "I will be working with many organizations in Afghanistan and I will also try to be a voice on the ground for ACC-R and our other contracting professionals while I'm there."
The assignment will, most likely, take Johnson all across Afghanistan. Johnson was told by the USFOR-A chief of staff that contracting is their number one priority and that Johnson will most likely be focused on optimizing all the current contracts, which includes the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program administered by the Army to provide contingency support to augment the Army force structure.
"There will be meetings with stakeholders -- U.S. Central Command, Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, foreign nationals, Soldiers, civilians, Army contracting officers -- stationed throughout Afghanistan. We want to get the requirements right-sized so we can execute efficiently on the contracting side to meet the mission," Johnson said. "To do that, we have to do our best to provide equipment, goods and services in a timely manner to support real-world combat operations."
Johnson has been ACC-R's military deputy since July 2015, and will return once his deployment ends. "I will miss my wife and my two sons while I'm deployed. They have all been my biggest supporters. I will also miss teaching Sunday school and encouraging my kids during their Boy Scout, soccer, swimming and other activities," he said.
Johnson knows he carries their support with him as he takes on this new challenge during the next few months.
"I am excited to get this opportunity because this is what we do. I want to support all of the Army's missions, including the combat missions. That's what I did in Iraq and now what I'm going to do the same in Afghanistan," he said. "I've been enthusiastic about what we do here at ACC-R, and I am ready to do my part to support the mission with boots on the ground abd brinig that back here to ACC-R."
This is not Johnson's first assignment at Redstone Arsenal. He has also served three years as the product manager for Integrated Fire Control, which is a key part of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Battle Command System (IBCS) project office, Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space.
"I really wanted a chance to come back to Redstone Arsenal," he said. "I wanted to work for ACC-R and with executive director Becky Weirick. I wanted to come back to the Army contracting world to help support the Soldier. It has been amazing to see the capability we are building here at ACC-R on behalf of our Soldiers worldwide."
During the year that he's been at ACC-R, Johnson has assisted in overseeing 19,000 contract actions involving the Aviation and Missile Command; the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center, and the program executive officers for Missiles and Space, and Aviation. He has especially enjoyed the variety of contracting work -- from service contracts for Redstone and Fort Rucker to multi-million dollar contracts for the Patriot missile system, the Apache, Black Hawk and Future Vertical Lift aviation systems -- and working with the industry partners and customers that ACC-R supports.
"Col. Johnson is a key member of team ACC-R; we will miss him greatly and his deployment will create a significant hole here," Weirick said.
"However, we all appreciate that it is a Soldier's duty to deploy -- to fight and win America's wars -- and Col. Johnson has been called to duty. We know he will faithfully serve our great Army deployed just as he's done here. We all wish Col. Johnson safety and Godspeed."
Although contacting is Johnson's niche, it's not where he started out with the Army. He began his now 23-year career as an Armor officer in 1992 after graduating from the University of Virginia.
"I was a psychology major, but when they showed us the different Army branches, I really liked the M1 Abrams tank demonstration. From then on, it was Armor for me," Johnson said.
served as both a commander and staff officer in a variety of operational units, including tank platoon leader, company executive officer, battalion maintenance officer and assistant battalion S-3 for the 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment at Fort Hood; and brigade plans officer for the 3rd Armored Brigade and the company commander for C Company, 2nd Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment, both at Fort Riley, Kansas.
"When I was at Fort Hood, I had the opportunity to work with the 4th Infantry Division and with folks who were developing new equipment and tank upgrades. I worked with people who were managing systems in the big enterprise of the Army," Johnson said. "I was able to see all the fielding and testing and other activities that acquisition personnel were involved with. I thought that was pretty awesome, and I wanted to see and work in that part of the Army."
In 2000, he was selected to be an Army Acquisition Corps officer. His first acquisition assignment was as the Mounted Maneuver coordinator for the Digital Force Coordination Cell at Fort Hood, and then was assigned as a Combat Developments officer for the Requirements Integration Directorate at Fort Monroe, Va. During his assignment as the contingency contracting officer for the Fort Hood Contracting Command at Fort Hood, Johnson deployed to Iraq and served as the deputy office chief for the Baghdad Regional Contracting Center and the Effects Based contracting liaison officer for the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan.
Following his deployment, Johnson's career shifted to program management, with an assignment as the assistant project manager for the Logistics Information System Project Office at Fort Lee, Va., and the assistant project manager for the Global Combat Support System-Army Project Office in Petersburg, Va. He was next assigned as the Functional Area 51C (Contracting) proponent officer for the Army's Acquisition Support Center at Fort Belvoir, Va.
After serving as a product manager for the PEO-Missiles and Space at Redstone, he was assigned to the Pentagon as the executive officer to Gabriel Camarillo, principal deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, located at the Pentagon.
"I learned a lot in the job about what strategically the Army does, and how much ASA(ALT) and the Army staff support our Soldiers," Johnson said. "I learned how vital ASA(ALT)'s role is in working with Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Office of the Secretary of the Army, the program executive officers, the Army Contracting Command and the Army Materiel Command.
"I've been able to work as a contracting officer, a product manager and an assistant project manager. I've been blessed to have the opportunity to do many different things in my career. But this job at ACC-R has really been enjoyable because of the hardworking contracting professionals I work with who do their best for the customer and the Soldier."
Johnson has benefited from "phenomenal leaders, and great coaches and mentors" and hopes he can pass on some of what he's learned to other contracting officers and contracting specialists both in Afghanistan and here at Redstone Arsenal. He is looking forward to returning to Redstone, and assisting with a new program established in the past year that brings on 100 developmental contracting specialists to "build the bench" for future ACC-R contracting capabilities and with an 18-month leadership program that is training supervisors on leading, coaching and growing their workforce.
"ACC-R is now the largest DoD contracting center and in fiscal year 2015 we had approximately $18.3 billion obligated of the $55.2 billion ACC enterprise-wide contracting oblications," Johnson said.
"The ACC-R vision is to be the Army's model contracting center and I know we can get there because of the great agile and able contracting professionals we have on our team."
Social Sharing