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38th CONS plays large role in 24th Air Force

  • Published
  • By David Hines
  • 38th Contracting Squadron Director
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Military or civilian, we all work for the Air Force. And while the chain of command prescribes one boss on paper, we often find in the course of doing our jobs that we all have multiple bosses, and, in many cases, multiple customers.

The 38th Contracting Squadron is the only contracting squadron dedicated to the 24th Air Force. The squadron is a specialized contracting office, as opposed to an operational CONS that supports a local base.

While the 38th CONS is located here, it does not do base support contracts for Tinker. The 38th CONS belongs to the 38th Cyberspace Engineering Installation Group and supports a much broader customer -- pretty much every unit in 24th AF, including the numbered Air Force itself, two wings, six groups and 20 squadrons.  That's a lot of customers ... and a lot of bosses!  Oh, but wait, that's only the Cyber Services Flight within the 38th CONS.  There are still three other flights.

The Engineering and Installation  Services Flight has its roots in the installation of communications infrastructure, the backbone of the AF's cyberspace infrastructure.  These E&I projects are generated AF-wide and are then prioritized via the Air Force Work Plan. In addition to these AFWP projects, the individual Cyberspace Systems Integrators assigned to every base can bring base funded E&I projects in for the 38th CONS. This flight also supports the 24th AF cyber mission by purchasing commercial, off-the-shelf cyber equipment for both the 688th CW and 67th CW. Finally, this flight administers some of the cyber services contracts that the Cyber Services Flight awards.

Did I mention the AFWP was Air Force-wide? So in addition to our customers across 24th AF, we have customers at almost every base communications squadron and every major command in the Air Force.

The Telecommunications Services Flight within the 38th CONS provides contractual authority for local telephone service. That's the service that gives your telephone a "dial tone." These are provided via a contract vehicle called Communication Service Authorizations. These contracts are with all the big name telephone providers that you've heard of as well as many little ones that you likely have not. This flight awards and administers approximately 470 CSAs in support of all continental United States active duty Air Force bases (including Thule, Greenland, Guam and Puerto Rico),  Air National Guard bases, units and recruiting stations, and all U.S. Air Force Reserve recruiters. Yes, that's every AF base, ANG base, and AF recruiter (active duty, ANG and Reserve) across the U.S. (so if your desk phone makes a "brrrr" sound when you pick it up ... you're welcome).

Lastly, the Acquisition Development and Support Flight provides all the support to the three buying flights to make these contracts happen.  J

ust to name a few of the important things they do for us (and you):  maintaining and administering the contract writing system, and the dedicated servers to run it; Management Internal Control Toolset system; Quality Assurance Program Coordinator; contract review and clearance; Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting Systems; Status of Reports Training System; Acquisition Professional Development Program; training  and travel coordination; data collections and analysis for competition advocate; Annual Execution Report; and all 24th Air Force Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests when sending money to organizations outside the 38th CONS.

This flight is the Contracting Policy office ensuring the buying flights have the latest contracting policy updates and contract clauses. In addition to all the above, this flight also maintains and tracks the contracting officer warrants. These are issued by the Air Force Installation Contracting Agency, which is an Air Force Materiel Command organization with Operating Locations at every MAJCOM.

By design, the contracting officers warrant authority comes from a MAJCOM outside the chain of command to avoid undue influence. So, in addition to all the other "bosses" interested in what we do, we also get our authority, and approvals, from AFICA/KS ... yet another "boss."

So, when you say you have multiple bosses, or multiple customers, I can sympathize.  At the same time, it's a wonderful feeling knowing that, as a support organization, we in the 38th CONS do so much and enable so many.  You may not know much about the 38th CONS, but I can assure you we have enabled your mission in some way.