# DLA director hosts Town Hall at DSCR

/ Published Feb. 9, 2016
RICHMOND, Va., 
Defense Logistics Agency Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Andy Busch returned to his old command at DLA Aviation on Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia, Feb. 5 meeting with senior leaders in the morning and the center’s workforce in the afternoon.

Employees from DLA Aviation and other DLA Activities on DSCR packed the Frank B. Lotts Conference Center, while DLA Aviation employees located at sites across the country dialed in to listen or watched via web streaming as the director hosted a Town Hall discussing the agency’s strategic plan goals and accomplishments. 

Busch shared with employees that he has been the director for about 14 months now and said, “There have been bad moments, but I haven’t had a bad day yet.”

Warfighter First remains the agency’s number one strategic goal and one employees strive to succeed at every day. 

DLA Army Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Tobin also spoke briefly at the Town Hall, sharing with employees that the agency’s Warfighter First ethos is very personal to him as his son is an Army UH-60 helicopter pilot. 

The agency’s other four strategic goals are people and culture, strategic engagement; financial stewardship, and process excellence.

Busch told employees that the agency is on target with its goals and he had just finished an off-site earlier in the week with senior leaders to review implementation plans for the rest of the year.

Busch stressed the impact DLA has in the logistics community, telling employees that leaders at the highest levels turn to DLA for logistics solutions. “Work you do is getting attention on the national level,” he said, speaking about recent agency support to the nuclear enterprise.

He spoke about the value of each DLA team member and strengthening employee resiliency to ensure employees are ready to face professional and personal challenges.

Busch has set a goal to have all agency employees trained in resiliency by September 2016 and, reviewed DLA Aviation Commander Air Force Brig. Gen. Allan Day’s and Deputy Commander Charlies Lilli’s resiliency plan for the activity during the annual operating plan review, which took place earlier that morning.

“Your resiliency program looks great.  I support it and look forward to seeing how it progresses,” Busch said. 

DLA Aviation kicked off its resiliency training this past December and is holding bi-monthly training sessions to equip employees with resiliency toolsets. To date, 67 employees have been trained.

As DLA Aviation’s resiliency training lead, Air Force Master Sgt. Shanon Johnson ultimately wants to reinforce the resiliency pillars which are mental, physical, social, and spiritual through the training sessions. 

Busch also spoke to employees about the agency’s use of the Denison Culture Survey as a tool to assess and improve the agency’s culture.  The last survey was in 2014, and a new survey period begins at the end of March.

“I want all of you to have the opportunity to take the survey and make comments,” he said. “I read all 19,000 comments last time and I will read all the comments this time around, too.” Busch said he takes the survey very seriously and field commanders are responsible for addressing survey results. 

The director then highlighted, through examples, successes the agency has had in the areas of strategic engagement and financial stewardship by focusing on teaming for better outcomes, affordable solutions, and continued accountability.

Busch stressed the importance of competing for opportunities to support new, upcoming weapon systems. 

“The days of assuming we will automatically get support work for weapon systems have passed,” he said. “We don’t have a ‘birth right’ to support new systems.  We need to be able to compete and we need to focus on building relationships and engaging with our customers and industry, with program offices and original equipment manufacturers.” 

Lastly, the director spoke about the need for process excellence through continuous process improvement.  He said we need to find smarter ways to do things, to base outcomes on performance and to find ways to incentivize support providers to help reduce cost and improve performance. 
 Busch ended the town hall by answering several employees’ questions.