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DLA director visits Tinker Air Force Base

  • Published
  • By Marti D. Ribeiro
  • ICF International
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE --  Army Lt. Gen. Robert Dail, Defense Logistics Agency director, spoke with 76th Maintenance Wing personnel and new DLA employees during a recent visit March 21 to DLA Oklahoma City and Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center. During the general's visit to Tinker, he spoke at the DLA Oklahoma City town hall meeting. 
   On Feb. 3, more than 300 Air Force employees transferred from the 776th Maintenance Support Squadron, part of the 76th Maintenance Wing at Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, to DLA as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission's decision to realign the supply, storage and distribution process at all depot-level maintenance facilities. Lt. Col. Kelly Larson is the commander of DLA Oklahoma City. 
   Air Force Brig. Gen. Andy Busch, commander of Defense Supply Center Richmond, kicked off the town hall meeting by reiterating DLA's priorities. 
   "We're here to support the warfighter, whether it's getting fuel into Afghanistan or distributing materials worldwide, (and) we are going to respond to the same metrics in DLA that you did as a member of the (Air Force Materiel Command)," he said.
According to Busch, the second priority is BRAC implementation. In addition to DLA Oklahoma City, DLA Warner Robins activated Oct. 15, and was the first site to transfer to DLA under the BRAC 2005 SS&D decisions. DLA Ogden will have an activation ceremony April 11 at Hill AFB, Utah.
   The 90-minute town hall meeting covered a multitude of topics, including the contract procurement process, retirement incentives, education assistance, backorders of parts, training, personnel and the effect the transition has had on production workers.
In addition to the depot's SS&D functions transferring as a result of BRAC, depot level reparable procurement management consolidation will also transfer to DLA. DLRs are items that can be repaired and reutilized, but are not considered consumable. DLR parts can be repaired a certain number of times before it has to be replaced with a new item. The new spares are called reparable items because they can be repaired in future instances. Those new depot level reparables are transferring to DLA. 
   Busch said DLA has transitioned its procurement processes to a new information technology-based enterprise business system that soon all eight supply chains in the Department of Defense will be using. 
   "A significant backlog of (contracts) built up due to our people learning to use the new system," said Busch. "Our focus is to increase our (contract) award rates by 10 to 15 percent during this fiscal year to help clear out the backlog," he said. He went on to explain that they have an additional goal to decrease the backlogged contracts from 250,000 to 200,000 by the end of this fiscal year. 
   The DLA director also spoke with the workforce about their role in supporting warfighters. Dail said DLA is committed to helping transitioning employees. 
   "My goal is for you to understand that DLA is a good employer and that we take care of our people," he said. "We're going to grow to become something better than we were before by investing in our people and maintaining productivity." 
   The DLA director ended the town hall by asking new employees to examine operations and look for ways of making improvements. 
   Dail also held an impromptu awards ceremony presenting Jerry Liles, depot supply division chief, with the Superior Civilian Service Award for his role in the transformation effort at Tinker. 
   Dail awarded DLA coins to Vera Meyers, aircraft support division chief, Rick Bishop, engine support division chief and Dave Fleming, commodities support division chief, for their hard work during the transformation process.