Leaders from Army Contracting Command-Rock Island and ACC-Redstone Arsenal attended the Army Contracting Command Pre-Command Course in Huntsville, Alabama, June 3-7.
ACC-RI branch chiefs Mark Martinez, Marcia Larssen, Christine Berry and James Doran, along with five leaders from Redstone – Chrishana Hunt-Granger, Haleigh Dobbs, Dr. Terrance Vickerstaff, Yvette Krasts and Raven Nall – were the first civilian leaders invited to attend the Pre-Command Course, a branch-specific course designed to fill the needs of lieutenants colonel and colonels who have been selected for command positions.
The civilians in current leadership roles were able to provide real life examples of leadership situations and ask questions based on their experiences, enabling all attendees to gain insights for the commanders’ careers and expanding the breadth of content to the course.
During the course, these leaders learned about management of manpower; labor relations and human resources; public affairs relationships, DoD financial management and funding systems; contract administration at the installation, service and DoD levels; morale, welfare and recreation programs; and analytical techniques used in decision-making processes.
Overall, these leaders said the course provided excellent overview of ACC’s structure and priorities as well the greater acquisition profession.
“The course allowed leaders to gain guidance directly from senior leaders in Army Contracting Command and to learn the concerns and insight from ACC’s future battalion commanders,” said Martinez.
Megan Dake, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Procurement (DASA(P)), talked about the roles DASA(P) engages to help work with acquisition leadership, and expanded on the new Talent Management Career Mapping (TMCM) tool and the new Army contracting writing system (ACWS).
When talking about leadership, Maj. Gen, Douglas Lowery, ACC commanding general, emphasized the need to build a positive culture.
“As leaders, we should be building a culture where your team is able to talk to you and can give feedback,” said Larssen. “His expectations for leaders at ACC are to be proactive, solve problems, be positive, promote a professional culture, make internal and external connections, own your piece of the pie, and delegate meetings you don’t need to attend.”
Joseph Guinta, executive director, ACC-Redstone, had similar messages when talking about leadership that included building partnerships and relationships up, down, and across; being a good teammate by picking up the call, reading emails and “responding to the ugly”; and owning 51% of the problem and the associated need to act on those problems immediately.
“The ACC Pre-Command course provided a great opportunity to learn from and build relationships with senior leaders presenting, military leaders and other civilian leaders,” said Larssen.
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