ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. - In his first visit to Rock Island Arsenal as the Army Contracting Command deputy to the commanding general, Dan Gallagher spoke to the ACC-Rock Island workforce during an event in the Baylor Conference Room, Aug. 2.
Gallagher, who took over the deputy role this spring after serving the past six years as ACC-Detroit Arsenal’s executive director and senior contracting official, now helps oversee a workforce of over 6,000 military and civilian personnel worldwide. In July, Gallagher was recognized as a 2023 Presidential Rank Awardee, the most prestigious recognition afforded to civilian career executives and senior professionals.
Gallagher said it was a tough decision to leave ACC-Detroit Arsenal, but he felt the opportunity to join headquarters staff at this point in his career would benefit him and the enterprise. He said ACC has been in largely the same construct since its inception in 2008, and given projected budget constraints and the workforce’s experience status, paired with new developments such as AI, now is the time to look to see what ACC can do differently.
“We’re going to take a hard look at how we’re executing the mission today and we need to execute it tomorrow,” said Gallagher. “It’s not going to change overnight, but we’re going to look at that over the next 18 months or so, and I think we’re going to become a better organization for that.”
One way Gallagher said ACC is doing this is by working with contracting operations staff to determine how automated tools can reduce administrative burden on all staff sections. He also said headquarters will be working with leaders and staff across ACC to determine better ways to understand and communicate across the organizations.
“As we go forward, I want to make sure that we are seeing ourselves,” said Gallagher. “We’re pretty good at seeing the number of actions, the number of people we have out there and what we’re obligating each year. But do we have that collectively? Have we done the analysis between each organization? That’s what we want to do, truly see ourselves as an enterprise.”
Gallagher addressed the fact that enterprise wide, 30% of the workforce is made up of fellows – formerly known as interns – and another 20% of employees are the journeymen training them. Since the spring of 2020, this has been done all while in a complete to partial telework environment.
“We developed some pretty good silos of information within individual teams, branches and divisions who are really good with their individual work, but I didn’t see sharing of information,” said Gallagher. “Now, we’re into 2024 and 30% of our workforce has less than four years of experience, which is a big burden on the rest of our workforce trying to carry them through to gain the experience they need to execute tomorrow. If we don’t train them properly, that’s going to be tough, so I want to try to continue to develop our workforce as best we can to get us to tomorrow.”
Part of the solution, he says, is to bring people back into the office a least a couple days a week, so that employees can get to know each other face-to-face.
“Find out how they want to be talked to and treated and vice versa,” said Gallagher. “Then you become a team. But you can only do that by getting to know the people beside you on your team and in your organization.”
Gallagher answered several questions on a variety of topics, including his leadership philosophy, examining current procurement processes, and how senior leaders manage portfolios to find efficiencies. He also talked at length about the Digital Capabilities Contracting Center of Excellence DC3OE, which is invested in determining better ways to procuring IT across the DoD.
As ACC embarks on determining steps that will lead the enterprise successfully into the future, Gallagher enforced the importance of contracting.
“If we don’t succeed, the Army fails,” said Gallagher. “We have the best mission in the United States Army. Every day what we do takes care of the Soldiers somewhere in the world.”
At the end of the engagement, Gallagher presented coins to several ACC-RI employees:
- Shelly Hitt: For her support of Wideband Enterprise Satellite Systems.
- Amelia Miller: For her support of Headquarters DA DCS G6 and the Air Force bring-your-own-device efforts.
- MSG Anthony Patera: For his work as the contracting officer for private security to the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti.
- Gregg Johnson: For his work as the contracting officer for base life support to the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti.
- Jaclyn Senneff: For her work as branch chief for Radford Army Ammunition Plant and Scranton Army Ammunition Plant.
- Katie Young: For her work as branch chief for Iowa Army Ammunition Plant and medium caliber ammunition procurements.
- Danielle Gainey: For her 120-day temporary detail as ACC-RI’s Munitions Readiness Division chief.
- Whitney Zimmerman: For her pricing/cost analysis support during negotiations for the Operations Allies Welcome mission under LOGCAP.
- Julie Lawrence: For her work as a contracting officer in ACC-RI’s Contracting Development Program Division.
- Lexie Bribriesco: For her 120-day temporary detail as ACC-RI’s Contracting Development Program Division chief.
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