# Annual live Leader-led Ethics Training offers a scenario-based approach

/ Published Nov. 2, 2023
COLUMBUS, Ohio, 
Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime’s Legal Office took what is often thought as a dry, boring subject and livened it up a little during the Annual Leader-Led Ethics Training Oct. 18 in the Operations Center Auditorium on Defense Supply Center Columbus.

The panel consisted of DLA Land and Maritime Commander Army Brig. Gen. Gail Atkins, Deputy Commander Kenneth Watson, Acting Acquisition Executive Doug Nevins, Maritime Supplier Operations Director Navy Capt. Dale Haney, Land Supplier Operations Director Army Lt. Col. Sue Styer and Director of Operations Todd Lewis.

“We do this a little bit differently than the rest of the agency in that we make this interactive,” Watson said. “We are here to take the hot seat and go through some of these common ethical dilemmas providing some tools for dealing with these situations when they arise.”

Each leader offered up real-world and hypothetical scenarios followed by an interactive discussion with the large audience moderated by Christine Roark and Shy Wang, DLA Land and Maritime ethics counselors.

“It can be the simple stuff, like improperly filled out timesheets that can get someone in trouble. It’s not always the big things,” Watson said.

Nevins stole the show and garnered many laughs by using a ‘soft and warm’ chocolate chip cookie as a visual aid in his discussion of gifts from outside sources drawn from a situation early in his career.  

The cookie came in to play when he discussed the outside gift in the form of a working lunch spread offered for free by a contractor he was visiting. He didn’t want to take a lunch for free as that would be a gift from an outside source so as the only contracting officer in the room, he overpaid for the lunch to keep within ethical guidelines.

Other areas addressed were gifts from inside sources, non-federal entity support, post government employment, stipulations of the Hatch Act, conflicts of interest, safe harbor and outside employment.

Haney posed a hypothetical question to the audience about whether an employee can have a fundraiser for a local charity in a public area on DSCC and received a resounding no from the audience.

But the answer was actually yes. And Roark explained charitable fundraising campaigns are permitted with command approval.

Ethical dilemmas are often not straight forward and happen on the spur of the moment without the person involved realizing it and often begs the question of ‘should you do it,’ rather than ‘can you do it’ because of the potential appearance of doing it.

Lewis shared a time during a previous DLA Land and Maritime role when he recused himself in making a business decision involving a contractor because a good friend worked for them. He weighed the pros and cons and ultimately handed the decision off to his deputy because of what the appearance of making that decision could look like to the public.

“The thing about appearance of impropriety is that it is a public trust issue,” said Mike Meehan, supervisory attorney with DLA Land and Maritime. “All they know is that friend works at Caterpillar for example, not the division he is in or what work he does.”

Atkins acknowledged how complex ethical rules are and that there are a lot of gray areas.

“A lot of what we talk about with ethics, it’s easy to just say the answer is always no. If we feel like there could be an ethical consideration then it’s no, don’t do it,” Atkins said.

But it doesn’t need to be that way she said, emphasizing that there are many tools at everyone’s disposal to help with ethical decision making.

With the greatest tool being to utilize the expertise of DLA Land and Maritime’s legal office.

“If you are unsure, you should always seek advice from counsel. There’s no doubt about it,” she said.

She also said to exercise patience when faced with ethical dilemmas and weigh the pros and cons of the situation.

“Slow down and think about what you are doing and then make the right decision. Understand the environment you are in, when you are doing it and how you are doing it,” she advised.

The training is not meant to be a stand-alone product but to serve as a jumping off point for further exploration and conversations surrounding ethics throughout daily operations.

“I’m asking you to share some of the advice and education you received today and continue to remember that we take the moral high ground and it’s really important that the American public trusts what it is that we do and that’s what today’s training was about.”

The annual training is required for all OGE-450 filers, but all DLA Land and Maritime associates are encouraged to attend. The OGE-450, or Confidential Financial Disclosure Report, is required to be filed annually by employees in certain positions.

The live training was recorded and is available for employees who were unable to attend at this CAC-enabled link: https://dlaio.gcds.disa.mil/index.html?id=COL210182023

To receive credit for training attendance, email the ethics inbox at mailto:DSCC.Ethics.Training@dla.mil with the code word provided at the end of the recording. Associates have until Nov. 30 to complete the annual requirement.

For more information and answers to other ethics questions, employees and contractors can visit  DLA’s Ethics Page or contact Roark or Wang.