DÜLMEN, Germany – When Daniel Erdmann is not at the Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 worksite in Dülmen where he serves as a maintenance planner, he can often be found visiting the German flohmarkts, or flea markets, in North Rhine-Westphalia on the weekends looking for unique, often old, and interesting items to repurpose into something else.
The logistics management specialist with Army Field Support Battalion Germany’s directorate of maintenance at Dülmen said the creative process of finding and then repurposing “weird stuff” into something else is extremely fulfilling.
Erdmann enjoys being creative, he said. In addition to repurposing, he likes to paint and work on his house during his spare time, but during the week he can be found at the APS-2 worksite tracking the maintenance of the thousands of vehicles and equipment sets, pulling reports, compiling data, and creating presentations, charts and briefings.
“My job is almost a catchall,” said Erdmann, “tracking parts and making sure we’re accurately reporting equipment and vehicles at fully mission capable or which ones are awaiting parts or in service. When these vehicles and equipment sets go out for operations or exercises like DEFENDER, they can get used and abused and sometimes they need to be fixed.”
“Our responsibility is to store them but also to maintain them and ensure they are ready when something happens and they’re needed. We make sure the Soldiers out in the field aren’t going to get a vehicle or a piece of equipment that’s going to break down,” said Erdmann.
Erdmann said AFSBn-Germany’s directorate of maintenance at Dülmen is currently three personnel with another set to fill the director position later this month. In addition, the team also includes a large, contracted workforce that’s responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of all the APS-2 vehicles and equipment pieces at Dülmen.
“It’s the best team that I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve worked with some great teams,” said Erdmann who was hired in January of 2012 as a government civilian and worked for the Marine Corps Logistics Command in Georgia and the 21st Theater Sustainment Command in Kaiserslautern, Germany, before coming to the 405th Army Field Support Brigade and the Dülmen APS-2 worksite.
“There’s no drama. We all get along well together. I can’t say enough amazing things about the Dülmen worksite team as a whole and my team at the directorate of maintenance. We have a really great thing going on here at the Dülmen worksite. It’s not like anywhere else I’ve ever worked,” said Erdmann, who in addition to his 12 years of government service also served 20 years as a reservist with the Marine Corps, 13 years culminating as a senior supply Marine and platoon commander, plus seven more in the Individual Ready Reserve.
Erdmann said he likes working at Dülmen for one other important reason – his children. The 41-year-old father has two daughters, ages 9 and 14, who live in Bavaria with his ex-wife and go to school in Hohenfels, part of the U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria community.
“It’s great being in the same country with them. They spend their summers with me, and I fly them here quite often. It’s only an hour flight, and my girls like coming to visit me. They like hopping over to Holland to go to the movies or go exploring, and they like going with me to the flohmarkts,” he said.
The Dülmen APS-2 worksite is under the mission command of AFSBn-Germany. The site helps support the 405th AFSB’s APS-2 program in Europe and is comprised of about 140,000 square feet of hardstand space and approximately 480,000 square feet of humidity-controlled warehouse space with an additional 140,000 square feet of storage in the maintenance and storage swing space areas.
The 405th AFSB’s APS-2 program enhances U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s readiness and capability to support the warfighter while simultaneously promoting stability and security in the region.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The brigade provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging U.S. Army Materiel Command’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website and the official Facebook site.
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