Strengthening our sustainment warfighting profession is the central task of our time, and at its core this endeavor is about people. It is about cultivating a generation of sustainers and maintainers who are masters of their craft: innovators, problem-solvers, and leaders who thrive on excellence. But excellence is not an accident. It is cultivated through deliberate effort, visionary leadership, and a culture that recognizes, rewards, and replicates success through formal sustainment and maintenance awards. These programs do more than honor individual and unit achievements; they institutionalize the standards of our craft. It starts with leaders who set the bar, and it is validated in the units that pursue these honors, proving that maintenance and supply excellence is the bedrock of our warfighting readiness.
The Pinnacle of Leadership: The LTG (Retired) Arthur J. Gregg Award
It is fitting to begin any discussion of excellence with the Lieutenant General (Retired) Arthur J. Gregg Sustainment Leadership Award. The Gregg Award establishes foundational leadership as the prerequisite for all other logistical and maintenance successes. This is not a unit award; it is a recognition of an individual whose exceptional and lasting contributions have shaped the very fabric of Army logistics.
Named for a true pioneer, the award honors LTG Gregg’s legacy of transformative leadership and visionary thinking. His career is a testament to the power of innovation and efficiency in driving the Army’s sustainment mission forward. Since its inception in 2015, this award has recognized senior leaders who embody that same spirit — leaders who have not only achieved operational success but have fundamentally advanced the practice of logistics for the entire Army. Recognizing these individuals sends a clear message: leadership is the foundation upon which all logistical success is built. They are the architects of the culture of excellence we seek to build across the force.
To ensure a broader spectrum of contributions could be celebrated, the award categories were expanded in 2022 to reflect the interconnected nature of Army sustainment:
- Military (all components): Recognizing exceptional leadership and achievements by military personnel across all components, including Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard.
- Civilian (Department of War or Department of the Army): Honoring the dedicated civilian professionals who play critical roles in supporting and improving Army sustainment.
- Legacy (retired civilian or veteran): Acknowledging the lasting impact of retired civilians and veterans who have shaped and influenced Army sustainment practices throughout their careers.
While the Gregg Award recognizes the pinnacle of individual achievement, that standard of excellence must ultimately translate into unit readiness. Our premier unit awards shift the focus from the individual to the entire formation. These programs provide the framework through which we define what right looks like, challenging our units to test their systems, validate their training, and push the boundaries of organizational performance.
Defining the Standard: A Closer Look at Our Premier Sustainment Awards
Too often, our logistics awards programs are viewed simply as competitions — an opportunity to win a trophy or a streamer. But they are far more than that. They are powerful mechanisms for professional development, diagnostic tools for readiness, and catalysts for innovation. From the unit to the individual level, these programs provide a comprehensive framework for excellence.
To institutionalize excellence, we must first clearly define it. The Army’s sustainment awards programs provide this definition, creating a comprehensive framework that spans from the individual Soldier to the strategic enterprise. The consolidated guidelines for the fiscal year (FY) 2026 Logistics Excellence Awards (LEA) programs provide clear direction for units in the active-duty Army, Army National Guard, and U.S. Army Reserve to compete. These are not separate, competing efforts; they are an interconnected framework designed to cultivate and recognize success across the full spectrum of our profession.
At the unit level, the LEA serve as the bedrock of this ecosystem. The LEA are an umbrella that encompass three of the most critical warfighting functions, each with its own dedicated award program designed to test and validate the core competencies of a sustainment formation:
- The first of these essential elements is the Army Award for Maintenance Excellence (AAME). Governed by Army Regulation (AR) 750-1, Maintenance of Supplies and Equipment: Army Materiel Maintenance Policy, the AAME is the ultimate validation of a unit’s command maintenance discipline program and goes to the heart of combat power generation. The AAME challenges competing units to achieve a level of proficiency that far exceeds simple pass/fail inspections. A unit competing for the AAME demonstrates its mastery of the internal processes and procedures that helps them drive readiness and showcases their entire maintenance posture. They are the engine of readiness, and the very best go on to represent the Army in the prestigious Secretary of War Maintenance Awards Program.
- Another crucial component, the Supply Excellence Award (SEA), reinforces the very foundation of our logistical system: accountability. In an era of fiscal constraints and contested supply lines, flawless stewardship of government property is a fiduciary and operational imperative. As outlined in AR 710-2, Inventory Management: Secondary Item Policy and Retail Level Management, the SEA is the ultimate validation of a unit’s command supply discipline program.
- The third critical aspect of the LEA is the Deployment Excellence Award (DEA), which recognizes our ability to project power at speed and scale — the hallmark of strategic readiness. If a unit cannot deploy efficiently into a theater of operations, it is strategically irrelevant. The FY26 DEA program evaluates units conducting deployments between October 2025 and April 2026, testing a unit’s entire deployment process from its initial alert through port operations and onward movement.
While the LEA focus on the readiness of our equipment and systems, the Philip A. Connelly (PAC) Awards Program highlights the collective excellence of our culinary teammates. Recognizing unit-level proficiency in Army Food Service, this program, co-sponsored with the National Restaurant Association, ensures our dining facilities and field feeding teams are sustaining the health, morale, and lethality of the force. For the 58th iteration of the program, the focus is on field feeding operations.
The General Brehon B. Somervell Coin–Medallion of Excellence honors the career-long contributions of our most seasoned professionals. Rather than a routine longevity award, this honor requires 25 years of distinguished service and a documented history of significant, multifunctional impact across the sustainment enterprise. Through a rigorous board review and general officer endorsement, the Medallion of Excellence recognizes only the elite leaders who have fundamentally advanced the Army’s mission throughout their lifetime of service. There is no strict annual quota, but it is not an automatic time-in-service medal.
Together, from the AAME to the PAC and from the DEA to the Somervell, these programs provide clear and consistent standards of what right looks like, creating a continuous cycle of evaluation, improvement, and recognition that fosters excellence and camaraderie at every echelon.
From Competition to Capability: Elevating Your Unit’s Performance
Taking the first step in competing for an award is an opportunity to improve as an organization and to further refine your unit processes. While these programs are structured as competitions, their true value resides in the rigorous preparation and elevated standards they demand. This transformation from a simple contest into a vehicle for readiness is what makes the formation, and the Army, fundamentally better. Last year, the U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command conducted an LEA collection and analysis team and innovation forum, and several key lessons and data points emerged across various logistical areas. A primary theme was the critical need for formalized processes and consistent training at the unit level. Units must do things consistently and within regulatory guidance. For example, the AAME trend analysis revealed significant gaps in the corrosion prevention and control program, with most units lacking standard operating procedures (SOPs) and corrosion monitors being insufficiently knowledgeable about regulatory requirements. Similarly, the DEA analysis pointed to a lack of deployment training and readiness, treating deployment as a logistics function rather than a commander-led operation, and poor movement data quality due to inadequately trained personnel.
The PAC Awards Program highlighted deficiencies in both equipment setup and maintenance, noting that most units lacked the proper knowledge to set up field equipment according to regulations and failed to conduct regular preventive maintenance, with an average of four to six months passing between checks. In the supply domain, the SEA trend analysis found issues with record-keeping and inventory management. Units struggled with unstructured digital files, but best practices showed that leveraging platforms like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint for Army Records Information Management System-compliant filing significantly improved transparency and audit readiness. Furthermore, the underuse of automatic identification technology at the company level was found to reduce inventory accuracy and weaken accountability.
Going through rigorous evaluation preparation forces units to improve processes within the organization. The checklists and standards for these awards are not arbitrary; they are derived from doctrine and regulations. Preparing for an evaluation is a deep-dive self-assessment. It compels you to dust off the SOPs, validate your procedures, and find efficiencies you never knew existed.
Finally, and most importantly, it improves your craft. All the lessons learned that were highlighted resulted in making the unit better and the Army better. Becoming a proficient logistician is important, especially in our current ever-changing environment. Over the past three years alone, we have seen over 1,500 units participate in the AAME, SEA, and PAC programs. This represents thousands of Soldiers demonstrating their exceptional expertise. High-stakes competition reinforces the unit bonds and shared identity vital for success. This collective pride builds the resilience needed to remain effective in combat. A maintenance section that can win an AAME is a section that can sustain a high operational tempo in combat. A supply room that can win an SEA is a supply room that can track critical parts in a contested environment. A culinary team that can win a PAC award is a team that can sustain a battalion during an extended, austere operation.
A Call to Action: Driving Readiness from the Ground Up
I challenge every leader in the sustainment community to view these programs not as an administrative requirement, but as a core component of your professional development strategy. I encourage you to leverage them to build your teams, diagnose your weaknesses, and celebrate your successes. Empower your junior leaders to take charge of the preparation and use the rigorous evaluation criteria as a roadmap to excellence.
A unit that excels in maintenance, supply, deployment, and food service is, by definition, a combat-ready unit. By embracing these awards programs, you are taking a tangible step to build and validate combat readiness from the ground up.
This We’ll Defend!
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LTG Michelle K. Donahue serves as the Deputy Chief of Staff of U.S. Army G-4. She served as the commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command/Sustainment Center of Excellence, and as a sustainment brigade commander, support squadron commander, battalion executive officer, battalion support operations officer, battalion S-4, battalion S-2/S-3, and battalion and brigade S-1. She also served as the 56th Quartermaster General and Commandant of the U.S. Army Quartermaster School at the Sustainment Center of Excellence; Deputy Director for Readiness, Strategy and Operations for the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff/G-4; and Special Assistant to the Director, Army Staff for the 2023 Army Transition Team. A Distinguished Military Graduate, she received her commission in the Quartermaster Corps from Duke University in 1996. She also holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and National Defense University.
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This article was published in the summer 2026 edition of Army Sustainment Professional Bulletin.
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