Special Insert in this Issue

DLA 50th Anniversary Timeline Poster

Helping Hands

LOGLINES

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY MAY – JUNE 2012
DIRECTOR

T his is my third Loglines message. 

The first two emphasized DLA’s 

key role in meeting current 

operational logistics challenges, our 

commitment to reduce costs even as we 

continue to improve performance, and 

DLA’s enduring partnerships within and 

external to the Defense Department as a 

critical part of this country’s “Log Nation” 

team that supports our forces worldwide. 

As I write this third Loglines message, 

we are committed to doing everything 

possible to enhance that support while 

reducing its cost. 

This time I want to address the great 

significance of the aid we provide our 

Navy Vice Adm. Mark D. Harnitchek, SC, USN

Director, Defense Logistics Agency

from the

fellow citizens and allies when responding 

to humanitarian assistance issues. Our 

long-standing involvement with so many 

elements of DoD and other federal, state 

and local agencies in such situations is 

quite remarkable. 

Whether sending blankets and bottled 

water to fellow Americans displaced by 

deadly hurricanes and tornadoes, or food 

and fuel to Haitian and Japanese citizens 

devastated by earthquakes and tsunamis, 

the support we provide in large-scale 

humanitarian assistance and disaster 

relief efforts makes a huge difference for 

the recipients and further highlights the 

value of strong logistics capabilities. 

But we also reach out in smaller ways 

helping communities in need. Across the 

agency, entire organizations — as well as 

small groups and individual employees 

— team up with local communities to 

bring DLA’s resources and capabilities 

to bear where they’re needed most. 

For example, our Law Enforcement 

Support Office and Firefighter Excess 

Property programs enable America’s first 

responders to get vital equipment and 

supplies to help perform their missions. 

We provide medical support items to the 

U.S. Naval Ship Comfort, enabling its crew 

to administer health care to citizens in 

Latin America and the Caribbean that also 

builds goodwill with our neighbors. DLA 

Disposition Services’ reach has extended 

to working with the Alaska Army National 

Guard to distribute excess heating oil to 

local residents during an especially harsh 

winter. Several articles in this issue discuss 

these and other examples. 

As I have said before, no one knows 

logistics like we do. This applies to our 

critical warfighter and maintainer support 

missions, and it applies when we lean 

forward quickly to team with others helping 

countries, communities and individuals 

cope with challenging humanitarian relief 

issues and community support needs. 

We can all take pride in what we do. And 

working together, we will keep improving 

our ability to provide America’s warfighters, 

maintainers, neighbors and partners 

with the best possible support at the least 

possible cost. 

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dodlogisticsagency

Headquarters, Defense Logistics Agency

Office of Strategic Communications

8725 John J. Kingman Road

Suite 2545

Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6221

703-767-6200

E-mail: loglines@dla.mil

DLA Director

Navy Vice Adm. Mark D. Harnitchek

DLA Vice Director

Ted Case 

Chief of Staff

Frederick M. Baillie

Director, Strategic Communications

Douglas Ide

Deputy Director, Strategic Communications

Jack Hooper

Loglines Staff

Managing Editor Kathleen T. Rhem

Editor Jacob Boyer

Writer Beth Reece

Writer Jonathan Stack

Writer Sara Moore

Layout/Design Paul Henry Crank

Design Assistant Joy Brunk

Loglines is the authorized publication for the 

Defense Logistics Agency’s workforce of federal 

civilians, active-duty military and Joint Reserve 

Force augmentees at agency activities worldwide 

and industry customers of DLA. Contents of this 

publication are not necessarily the official views of, or 

endorsed by, the U.S. government, the Department 

of Defense or the Defense Logistics Agency. 

Loglines is prepared electronically, using desktop 

publishing applications; no commercial typesetting costs are involved. Photos not credited are 

courtesy of agency sources. Submissions and correspondence may be sent to the following address:

Official Flagship Publication of the Defense Logistics Agency

LOGLINES
Loglines l May - June 2012 1

CONTENTS May - June 2012

pg 2

pg 12

pg 30

pg 14

Agents of Comfort 2

When the Navy’s hospital ships urgently need lifesaving supplies, DLA 

Troop Support makes sure they get what they need when they need it.

Free for Firefighters 7

DLA Disposition Services helps state and local fire departments get gear 

through the Defense Department’s Firefighter Property Program.

Giving Warmth 10

DLA Troop Support Clothing and Textiles helps get blankets to those 

in need through the federal Homeless Support Program. 

Humanitarian Aid 12

DLA Disposition Services Europe helps get usable excess supplies to 

the State Department and charities throughout the continent.

Project: G.I.V.E. 14

A group of DLA Troop Support employees in Philadelphia helps tutor 

and mentor students at a local elementary school.

Courtroom to Conference Room 16

Alternative dispute resolution helps bridge the gap between people 

when problems arise in the workplace. 

President’s Printer 18

A small DLA Document Services office in Washington serves the 

president and White House staff.

Double Time 30

Service members in DLA’s Joint Reserve Force help give the agency 

the manpower it needs to maintain its forward presence.

A Conversation with ... 20

We are DLA 23

NewsWire 26

Money Matters 28

I am DLA Back Cover

DEPARTMENTS

HELPING HANDS
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elping Hands

Agents of Comfort

Story by Sara Moore

hen disaster struck Haiti in 

January 2010, the Navy hospital 

ship USNS Comfort deployed 

from its home port in Baltimore 

as part of the U.S. military’s 

relief response. Because of the scope of 

the destruction – hundreds of thousands 

of people were killed or injured in the 

magnitude 7.0 earthquake – time was of 

the essence. As the huge ship prepared 

to depart and then make its way down to 

Haiti, the Defense Logistics Agency used the 

unique contracting system it has in place for 

these types of contingencies to fully stock 

the ship with the lifesaving medical supplies 

it would need and keep it supplied as the 

doctors and nurses aboard worked to save 

hundreds of lives.

The Comfort and its sister ship, the 

USNS Mercy, are 1,000-bed hospital ships 

that deploy worldwide to provide medical 

and surgical support to military forces 

serving on land and at sea and to support 

humanitarian relief operations. DLA serves 

as a major provider of medical supplies for 

both ships, and the agency has established 

a unique system that ensures they have 

W

The USNS Comfort anchors off the coast of 

Tumaco, Colombia, during Continuing Promise 

2011. DLA is the sole supplier of medical supplies 

and equipment to the Comfort and its sister ship, 

the USNS Mercy, which provide medical support to U.S. forces worldwide and humanitarian 

assistance missions.

— Photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathen E. Davis
Loglines l May - June 2012 3

Civilian and military personnel assigned to 

Continuing Promise 2011 gather on the flight 

deck of the USNS Comfort during a drill in 

the Pacific Ocean. DLA uses contingency 

contracts to keep the Comfort fully stocked 

for its normal support missions like this and 

natural disasters.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Alesia Goosic
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elping Hands

contingency medical sustainment 

requirements by purchasing and stocking 

materials, said Mike Medora, chief of 

the Contingency Contracting Team in 

DLA Troop Support Medical. Customer 

feedback and lessons learned made it 

apparent that the material stored in 

depots was not always up to date with 

what the military services used in current 

procedures or was not always available 

in the quantities needed to support 

contingencies, he said. Consequently, 

DLA Troop Support developed a new 

acquisition approach for medical material 

to support the services’ contingency 

material requirements and keep pace 

“We have, over the years, tried to 

automate as much as possible the support 

to the hospital ships, but when it comes 

down to it there is much manual intervention, not only in the planning to support them, but when the flag goes up and 

they receive an order to sail to support a 

mission,” said Jackie Basquill, supervisor of the Operational Customer Facing 

Division in DLA Troop Support Medical. 

In the past, DLA supported 

A child poses for a photograph aboard 

the Military Sealift Command hospital ship 

USNS Comfort before surgery to repair her 

cleft lip during Continuing Promise 2011 

in Manta, Ecuador. DLA ensures surgeons 

aboard the ship have what they need to 

perform such operations.

exactly what they need no matter where 

they operate. 

Both hospital ships are normally 

covered under DLA’s Fleet Prime Vendor 

program, but their missions can change 

rapidly and involve unpredictable 

circumstances, so they are also covered 

by contingency contracts or other DLA 

Troop Support medical supply chain 

sources that give the agency flexibility in 

fulfilling their requirements. 

Air Force Staff Sgt. Alesia Goosic

A Navy hospital corpsman rolls surgical tools for sterilization aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort. Medical and surgical items are among the 

supplies DLA provides to the Comfort and its sister ship, the USNS Mercy, which are often called up at a moment’s notice to support U.S. forces 

or humanitarian assistance missions.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Courtney Richardson
Loglines l May - June 2012 5

with the technological advancements 

inherent in today’s medical practices. 

DLA Troop Support envisioned, 

designed and implemented an array 

of mutually supporting contracts that 

produced a “virtual depot,” Medora said. 

This depot guarantees government access 

to vast stores of modern medical materials 

but only requires the government to take 

ownership if supplies are needed to support contingency operations, he said. For 

a fee, commercial vendors resource and 

earmark a specific portion of their commercial stocks, rotate those stocks as part 

of their commercial business operations, 

and provide the stocks to the government 

within a guaranteed time frame.

This approach saves hundreds of millions of dollars annually in procurement, 

storage, disposal and replacement costs, 

Medora said. More importantly, he said, 

it ensures the services have timely access 

to the massive amounts of the stocks they 

need to respond to a crisis, such as the 

earthquake in Haiti. 

In the case of the humanitarian 

relief to Haiti, this process was literally 

a lifesaver. When the earthquake hit, the 

USNS Comfort was alerted for a deployment to assist in relief efforts. Berthed 

in Baltimore, it was only partially loaded 

with supplies. DLA Troop Support alerted 

its medical industry partners of an 

emergency requirement for medical supplies and sent two supply experts to join 

the Comfort’s ranks and serve as direct 

links between the agency and the doctors 

and nurses onboard. Using contingency 

contracts, DLA Troop Support was able to 

load the Comfort with additional supplies 

in Baltimore and then continue to provide 

supplies as the ship sailed into other ports 

en route to Haiti. 

This flexibility in delivery is another 

benefit of contingency contracts, Medora 

said. The Comfort deployed for Haiti in 

three days, which was not enough time to 

get all the material to Baltimore. Instead, 

DLA Troop Support shipped supplies to 

ports of call along the ship’s voyage south. 

The supplies were waiting for the Comfort 

when the ship arrived. Medora said 

vendors usually go above and beyond the 

requirements, especially when the hospital 

ships are involved. 

Contingency contracts also allow 

DLA to be flexible in the type of supplies 

it provides to the hospital ships. Medical 

workers on the ships often don’t know 

what specific injuries they will face when 

they get to a location, so it’s difficult to 

plan what items they will need, Basquill 

said. During the Haiti relief mission, for 

instance, a majority of the injuries were 

orthopedic in nature, so DLA had to work 

quickly to supply the Comfort with large 

quantities of supplies for orthopedic 

surgeries, like bone screws and operating 

tools, she said. 

“The kinds of missions that the 

Comfort and Mercy go on require items 

that are outside of the normal day-today requirements that a medical facility 

would use,” she said. 

When it comes to a large contingency 

with a lot of variations, like the Haiti 

relief mission, even more manual 

intervention is required, said Linda 

Grugan, contracting officer for the 

pharmaceutical fleet prime vendor 

program in DLA Troop Support. She 

Air Force Staff Sgt. Alesia Goosic

Two Sailors open boxes of medication in the pharmacy aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort in 

the Pacific Ocean. Pharmaceutical supplies for the Comfort are included as part of DLA’s regular 

prime vendor program, but DLA Troop Support also has contingency contracts in place to cover 

unexpected missions or changing requirements.
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elping Hands

noted that prime vendors provide DLA 

with 24/7 access to their key personnel 

and a dedicated inventory manager to 

help keep requirements up to date and 

identify lower-cost substitutions for 

pharmaceutical products. Also, because 

the ships often use items that are 

outside the norm, DLA Troop Support 

personnel sometimes have to engage with 

manufacturers to get excess products 

released and ensure the items 

received are correct, she said. 

“With the Mercy and 

Comfort, it’s a little more 

out of the box because the 

quantities are so large with 

such a quick turnaround that 

we have to kind of get more 

involved with making sure 

that they’re getting the right 

products,” she said. 

Getting the right products is vital when it comes 

to medical material, and 

contingency contracts allow 

DLA to do that, Medora said. 

The medical personnel who 

staff hospital ships are used 

to working with different 

kinds of supplies and equipment, so it 

takes extra work to make sure they get 

what they need, he said. 

“In most cases, doctors want the 

same equipment they have been trained 

on, and that’s what the contingency 

contracts allow for,” he said. “Also, flexibility is built into the contracts to allow 

for technology changes and new product 

lines. Very rarely do we turn vendors 

away from participating in the program. 

When the services pass us their readiness requirements, we look to source 

them with as many different vendors as 

we can. Obviously it keeps the industrial 

base warm, but also gives our customers 

access to a wide range of products that 

support their clinical needs.

 DLA has been supplying the hospital 

ships since 2001, and in those years, the 

agency has built strong relationships with 

the Navy and the commands responsible 

for the ships. DLA Troop Support personnel meet regularly with leaders from both 

ships and the Navy to keep requirements 

up to date and stay in tune with their 

needs. These relationships, along with 

partnerships with industry, have enabled 

the agency to keep the hospital ships supplied and ready for their crucial missions 

around the world.

“Whenever anything happens, it’s 

usually teamwork between [our people] 

here, the prime vendor, our customer 

support folks and the people onboard the 

hospital ships,” Grugan said. “We all work 

as a team.”

Basquill agreed, noting the importance 

of the missions the hospital ships perform.

“We’re all doing our best here, there’s 

no doubt about it, but I think you step more 

up to the plate because the missions the 

hospital ships support are so visible out 

there to the media and to the world,” she 

said. “We have a lot of important customers 

here that we support, but the two hospital 

ships, because they rely almost exclusively 

on us for support, we’re going the extra mile 

to make sure they have it.” 

DLA has been supplying the hospital ships Mercy 

and Comfort since 2001, and in those years, the 

agency has built strong relationships with the 

Navy and the commands responsible for them.

Sailors aboard hospital ship USNS Comfort help 

patients off the ship during Continuing Promise 

2011 in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. DLA has contigency contracts in place to ensure medical 

materials can reach the ship any time, anywhere.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Alesia Goosic
Loglines l May - June 2012 7

FREE FOR 

FIREFIGHTERS

olunteer firefighters in Floyd, 

Iowa, needed a new fire truck, 

but what they got was a tanker 

truck that was totaled in a 

rollover accident. Fire Chief 

Ben Chatfield found the vehicle for sale 

on a website run by Defense Logistics 

Agency Disposition Services. The truck 

was free except for the cost of moving it 

to his location, and Chatfield thought it 

had potential. 

More than 3,000 hours of labor and 

$40,000 in spare parts later, the Floyd 

Fire Department now has the shiny 

new fire truck it wanted at a much 

lower price than the $500,000 a truck 

V

Story by Beth Reece
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elping Hands

fresh from an assembly line would cost. 

Chatfield’s fire department is like 

those of most rural areas: poorly funded 

and desperate for proper equipment. 

For firefighters who find themselves 

rebuilding old equipment to offset the 

high costs of new material, the Defense 

Department’s Firefighter Property 

Program – or FFP – is a valued resource. 

“It’s a godsend. There are fire 

departments that, if they had to give up 

the property they’ve received through this 

program, wouldn’t have anything at all to 

fight fires with,” said Melissa Frey, national 

FFP manager for the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture’s Forest Service. 

Frey works with state officials 

and K-marie Logan, chief of DLA 

Disposition’s Reutilization, Transfer 

and Donation Branch, to help ensure 

smooth transfers of excess DoD property 

from DLA Disposition Services to fire 

departments in more than 30 states. 

FFP was created in 2004 under Title 

10 of the United States Code, section 

2576, in which Congress authorized DoD 

to transfer excess property suitable for 

fire protection and emergency services to 

firefighting activities. 

More than $122 million worth of DoD 

property was issued to firefighters in fiscal 

2011, Logan said, adding that fire trucks 

and other types of emergency or rescue 

vehicles made up the majority of the 

equipment. Other material transferred 

includes vehicle spare parts, tools, 

generators, safety goggles and breathing 

apparatuses. Equipment transferred 

through the FFP is free, though fire 

departments do have to pay the cost of 

transporting it to their locations. 

In February, a volunteer fire department in Montana City, Mont., received a 

ladder truck. A new truck would have cost 

the department more than $1 million to 

purchase if not for the FFP, Frey said. 

And when firefighters in Putnam 

County, Fla., began responding to daily 

brush fires in June, they relied on a 

Humvee the Tennessee Army National 

Guard turned in as excess property to 

the DLA Disposition Services site at Fort 

Campbell, Ky. 

Fire Chief Quin Romay wrote to 

Members of North Carolina’s South Edgecombe Rural Fire Department built the above fire truck 

by combining an existing fire truck with a 5-ton Army truck the department received from DLA 

Disposition Services. Volunteers spent nearly 700 hours outfitting the truck with 125 hose and 

pipe fittings, 350 feet of wire, 75 light bulbs and nine gallons of paint. Images to the left show 

various stages of construction.

Courtesy Photos
Loglines l May - June 2012 9

DLA Disposition’s Pat Rafanowicz 

to say the vehicle helped firefighters 

protect citizens’ lives and property 

during a wildfire season so active it left 

departments throughout northeastern 

Florida strapped for resources. 

“I am attaching a couple of pictures 

of the Hummer on the front lines. I 

responded to a brush fire the other day, 

and it was one of the first units on scene 

and saved a home,” Romay wrote. “I want 

to say thank you for all that you have 

done for us in Putnam County, Fla. You 

have made a difference.”

In early 2011, fire departments 

throughout Minnesota also received 39 

pump assemblies worth nearly half a 

million dollars. The pumps are being used 

to draw water from surrounding lakes, a 

practice often used in rural areas where 

there are no fire hydrants, Frey said.

Material available through the FFP 

is first offered to military customers. 

Sharing the unneeded items with fire 

departments prevents DLA from having 

to pay to dispose of them and saves 

taxpayers’ money, Logan said.

“Firefighter agencies are part of our 

state and local government system, so 

from that perspective, our customers are 

able to save taxpayers’ dollars because 

they’re not spending hundreds of 

thousands of dollars on a brand new fire 

truck,” she said. 

Forest Service officials agree, Frey 

added. “You can’t go wrong. There’s no 

downside to FFP.” 

A Putnam County, Fla., firefighter reaches 

into the cab of a Humvee brush fire truck. 

The vehicle was turned in to DLA Disposition 

Services by the Tennessee Army National 

Guard and then issued to firefighters in Florida.

Fire Chief Quin Romay
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elping Hands

T

here are an estimated 3 million 

homeless people across the United 

States, and each year Defense 

Logistics Agency Troop Support 

gets blankets to organizations that 

help them.

Last year, DLA Troop Support issued 

more than 593,000 blankets worth more 

than $3 million, said Renee Fromberg, 

DLA Troop Support Clothing and Textiles 

program manager. 

“The blankets go to individuals 

Story by Jonathan Stack

Giving Warmth

and families that have been displaced 

from their homes due to a variety of 

circumstances, [including] natural 

disasters,” she said.

Congress usually approves between 

$3 million and $3.7 million each year 

People in areas ravaged by natural disasters 

like tornadoes benefit from blankets provided 

by DLA Troop Support through the Defense 

Department Homeless Support Program. Many 

organizations that aid or assist the homeless 

use the program to provide necessities in times 

of need. 

So far in 

fiscal 2012, 

DLA Troop 

Support has 

issued more 

than $2.5 

million worth 

of blankets to 

organizations 

across the 

United States 

that help those 

in need.

T

Army Spc. David Bolton
Loglines l May - June 2012 11

for the Defense 

Department 

Homeless Support 

Program. To date, 

DLA Troop Support 

has issued more than 

$2.5 million worth of 

blankets to organizations 

that help those in need in 

fiscal 2012.

“To help those displaced 

due to the recent tornados 

in our nation’s Midwest, DLA 

Troop Support issued blankets 

valued at $520,000 to Gleaning for the 

World,” Fromberg said.

Any nonprofit organization within the 

United States that aids or assists with the 

homeless population can participate in 

the program, she said.

“They can be an organization as large 

as Gleaning for the World or something 

as small as a little storefront church,” 

said Mina Bland, DLA Troop Support 

customer account specialist and program 

administrator. 

Requests are submitted to the DLA 

Troop Support Clothing and Textiles 

program manager, who validates them 

before forwarding them to the program 

administrator for processing.

Delivery of the blankets is coordinated between DLA Troop Support, the 

carrier and customer, Fromberg said.

“The program administrator completes the logistical process, including 

following up with the customer once 

delivery has been made,” she said. 

DLA Troop Support involvement 

with the Homeless Support Program was 

implemented by the McKinney-Vento 

Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. The 

act provides federal money for homeless 

shelter programs. 

The assistance act has created 

programs that save lives and help 

hundreds of thousands of Americans to 

regain stability, according to a National 

Coalition for the Homeless fact sheet.

“It gives us a chance to help 

individuals who have nothing,” Bland 

said. “All of the people we help are 

homeless or in some sort of transitional 

program where they have nothing.” 

When people think of DLA, they 

generally think of the agency’s combat 

support, but never really think of it helping the homeless people, Bland said. This 

program shows the humanitarian side of 

the agency. 

Mina Bland, DLA Troop Support customer 

account specialist and program administrator, 

shows off a blanket like those being provided 

to organizations helping the needy across 

the country. 

Organizations

REQUESTING BLANKETS

Should Submit the Following:

– A request letter including the desired 

quantity on the organization’s letterhead.

– A letter of endorsement signed by a local, 

state or federal official stating the agency 

supports the homeless.

– A signed and dated statement of 

understanding of the program’s terms.

– A confirmation form to ensure proper delivery.

– A disclaimer stating the organization will not 

sell or trade the blankets and that they will be 

used to help the homeless.

— Photo by Michael Tuttle
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elping Hands

ictures of other people’s children 

and families adorn Linda 

Wagner’s desk. In one, four 

smiling orphans pose around an 

armoire, thumbs up in approval of 

their new closet. In another, a father and 

his two sons sit on top of a mattress that 

will enable his family of five to sleep on two 

mattresses rather than one. The 

images are mementos of a job 

Wagner loves. 

Story by Beth Reece

Humanitarian Aid

“People depend on me,” said the 

Humanitarian Assistance Program 

coordinator for Defense Logistics Agency 

Disposition Services Europe. 

Nearly $12 million worth of 

supplies were reutilized through HAP 

in fiscal 2011, said Ben Waller, area 

manager for DLA Disposition Services 

in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The 

program provides material 

to international 

charities such 

as Mission Without Borders and Child’s 

Life, as well as the State Department 

and its embassies, which in turn give 

it to hospitals, orphanages, schools 

and other facilities in need throughout 

Eastern Europe. 

Most of the material ranges from 

bed frames and book cases to medical 

supplies and kitchen appliances, all of it 

in good condition but considered excess 

by military customers. Almost 50 percent 

of the material is from Department of 

Defense schools that are either getting 

new equipment or are shutting down 

because of a reduction of forces in 

Europe, Wagner added.

“A lot of this stuff would end up 

going through a 42-day screening cycle. 

At the end of the cycle, if nobody picks 

it up, one of two things would happen. 

It would either get sold to a contractor, 

or we’d break it down and recycle the 

scraps,” said Jeff Livingston, property 

disposal specialist. 

In March, Wagner arranged to have 

11 40-foot shipping containers full of 

desks, drawers and book cases sent to a 

school in the Republic of Georgia. She 

has built such a rapport with organizations providing humanitarian aid that 

DLA Disposition Services Europe recently 

donated armoires to an orphanage in Moldova 

through the Humanitarian Assistance Program.

P

Courtesy Photo
Loglines l May - June 2012 13

she typically knows exactly who to call 

when new excess property is available. 

When officials at Spangdahlem Air 

Base inquired about turning in 220 new 

electric ranges that didn’t meet the base’s 

needs, for example, Wagner coordinated 

their removal and subsequent transportation to Mission Without Borders, a 

humanitarian organization for impoverished people with projects in Albania, 

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Moldova, 

Romania, Ukraine and China.

“Many of the recipients would never 

be able to afford something like this in 

their entire life,” Livingston said, adding 

that many of the recipients are accustomed to cooking their meals over a fire.

Property disposal specialists in 

Turkey are also providing humanitarian 

support. In summer 2011, they supplied 

about $91,000 worth of furniture for 

an outpatient clinic in the Republic of 

Georgia and a school in Azerbaijan, 

said Steven Herb, supervisor of DLA 

Disposition Services in Turkey. 

“Part of our job is to reutilize property 

as best as possible. Through HAP, we 

take it one step forward by providing 

material to agencies that help those in 

need,” he said.

Agencies such as the U.S. State 

Department and humanitarian organizations do pay for the property, he added, 

“but it’s free to whoever they’re giving it to.” 

And most recipients are grateful. “Due 

to your kindness, I can now offer better 

sleeping conditions to my children. ... It 

was a dream that you made real. I never 

imagined being able to get a better bed,” 

wrote a single mother who received a new 

bed frame for her three children. Their old 

bed was broken and supported by bricks. 

The director of a boarding school in 

Moldova that recently received furniture 

had similar sentiments: “Now we will 

have [a] place to put our clothing. We are 

very grateful to you for all [the] good you 

have done for us,” he wrote. 

Waller said property disposal specialists 

who support the program feel like they’re 

making a difference in people’s lives.

“We’re doing everything we can 

here to make sure everything we have 

finds a home,” he said. “If it goes to 

humanitarian assistance, it’s going 

to a worthy cause.” 

Boys at an orphanage in Moldova check out the new sleeping bags they received with the help 

of DLA Disposition Services and the Humanitarian Assistance Program.

Air Force volunteers prepare furniture for 

shipment in the DLA Disposition Services 

warehouse at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. The 

furniture was issued to the State Department 

to be donated to an outpatient clinic in the 

Republic of Georgia and a school in Azerbaijan.

Air Force Airman 1st Class Clayton Lenhardt

Courtesy Photo
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elping Hands

nce every two weeks, about 20 

Defense Logistics Agency Troop 

Support employees sacrifice their 

lunch breaks to support children at 

Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin 

Elementary School. Those employees are 

tutors for Project G.I.V.E., which stands for 

Government and Industry Volunteers for 

Education, DLA Troop Support’s longest 

running community outreach program.

The impact Defense Logistics 

Agency Troop Support employees have 

on the students at the school is not just 

educational, it’s personal, the school’s 

principal said.

Roslynn Sample-Green said DLA 

Troop Support employees have given 

consistent, reliable support to students at 

Franklin through Project G.I.V.E. 

“It’s always refreshing to see [DLA] 

folks come in the door,” Sample-Green 

said. “Our kids get excited.”

For more than 25 years, employees 

have been donating time to tutor students 

at neighboring schools in northeastern 

Philadelphia.

Since 1999, employees have 

volunteered biweekly, spending an 

hour assisting third-grade students 

at Franklin with reading and math 

comprehension. The DLA Troop Support 

Office of Corporate Communications 

runs this and all community relations 

programs for the command. 

“This partnership with the Ben 

Franklin Elementary School shows our 

commitment to the future,” DLA Troop 

Support Commander Navy Rear Adm. 

David Baucom said. “Today’s students are 

tomorrow’s workforce.”

Sample-Green said she is very 

happy with the impact the program has 

on the students.

“It’s wonderful, to say the least,” 

she said. “I am pleased to have such a 

wealth of knowledge come in and assist 

our students.”

Ryan McLeod, a demand planner in 

the construction and equipment supply 

chain and the Project G.I.V.E. program 

manager, has been tutoring students at 

Franklin for more than five years.

“It is very rewarding to work with 

the students and to see them grow and 

improve their reading and math skills 

over the year,” he said.

There has been a huge improvement 

in the test scores of the children who are 

in Project G.I.V.E., Sample-Green said.

“Teachers have raved over the years 

about the progress participating students 

have shown,” she said.

McLeod said he believes the sessions 

not only have an impact on the students, 

but on the tutors as well.

“One of the most gratifying moments 

for me was last year,” he said. “A student 

came up to me, thanked me for working 

with him, and told me I was like a dad to 

him. We only work with [the students] 

once every two weeks, and to know we 

have that kind of impact reminded me of 

the importance of the job we do.”

Beatrice Ross, a customer support 

liaison in the DLA Troop Support 

Customer Operations Office, said she 

A Benjamin Franklin Elementary School student 

reads a handmade thank you card to Beatrice 

Ross, a DLA Troop Support supervisory 

customer support liaison, at a Project G.I.V.E. 

closing program. Ross has been a Project 

G.I.V.E. tutor for more than 25 years.

Janeen Poulson is a writer-editor for DLA Troop Support 

Public Affairs.

Story and Photos by G.I.V.E. Janeen Poulson

PROJECT

O
Loglines l May - June 2012 15

agrees that volunteering with Project 

G.I.V.E. is beneficial to her. Ross has 

served as a volunteer tutor for DLA Troop 

Support for more than 25 years.

“I love helping any child, ... doing 

what I can to inspire them to dream and 

take a step towards reaching their goals,” 

she said.

Project G.I.V.E. also gives the tutors 

an opportunity to educate students on the 

mission of DLA Troop Support.

“The kids often ask us about our 

job,” Kevin Gleaton, an analyst in the 

Continuous Process Improvement Office 

and tutor for four years, said. “They know 

about Soldiers and are impressed to know 

we supply all their needs.”

While the tutoring partnership is 

ongoing during the school year, DLA 

Troop Support also celebrates the winter 

holidays with Franklin students.

For the past three years, the 

organization has invited the school to 

participate in the annual DLA Troop 

Support children’s holiday party, which is 

one of its biggest outreach programs. The 

children are invited to a day of fun, food 

and a visit from Santa Claus.

About 150 children attended the 2011 

event. Each child received a minimum 

four gifts, which employees donated, 

organized and wrapped individually. 

Employees also assist on the day of 

the party, acting as elves, playing games 

with the children, painting their faces and 

serving lunch.

“I look forward to the children’s 

holiday party every year,” Donna White, 

an inventory management specialist in 

the clothing and textiles supply chain, 

said. “It is an opportunity for us as 

employees to do our part in making 

the holidays brighter for the children 

in our community.” White has been an 

employee volunteer for numerous DLA 

Troop Support outreach programs for 

more than 20 years.

Through collaboration with the 

Philadelphia Phillies, the city’s Major 

League Baseball team, students, teachers 

and chaperones who attend the party also 

receive Phillies giveaways and often a 

visit from the team’s mascot, the Phillie 

Phanatic.

“It’s an honor to be a part of such a 

special occasion and see the happy faces 

when Santa walks in,” White said.

The benefit of this community 

outreach partnership is twofold for DLA 

Troop Support.

“Having our employees volunteer 

at Franklin allows us to not only have 

an impact on the students, but it gives a 

face to the organization for the teachers, 

administration and parents as well,” 

Baucom said.

Activities like this are a way for 

employees to give their time, even 

when they can’t give money to a cause, 

Ross said.

“We may not have money to help 

people, but there is always time,” he said. 

“We can always be there for someone, 

and that’s the importance of volunteering 

to me.” 

Sample-Green said she is looking 

forward to the future of this partnership.

“In these financial times, programs 

to our schools are being cut,” she said. 

“I am excited that [Project G.I.V.E.] will 

continue.” 

Ryan McLeod, a DLA Troop Support demand 

planner and Project G.I.V.E. program manager, 

tutors third-grade students at Benjamin 

Franklin Elementary School during a Project 

G.I.V.E. session. Project G.I.V.E. is DLA 

Troop Support’s longest-running community 

outreach program. 
16 www.dla.mil

Courtroom to

Conference Room

With a little help, most disputes can 

be settled face to face

awsuits, complaints to the Office 

of the Inspector General and 

anonymous hotline calls don’t 

have to be employees’ first option 

to handle workplace disputes 

and complaints. Since 1998, the Defense 

Logistics Agency has used alternative 

dispute resolution, a structured process in 

which disputing parties use a mediator to 

help resolve their issues and concerns. 

Of the 18 different ADR processes, 

mediation is favored within DLA, said 

Beth Lagana, a DLA associate general 

counsel for dispute resolution. 

Mediation has many benefits, said 

Lynne Enfield, a DLA mediator in San 

Joaquin, Calif. It is nonadversarial, 

quick, free to those involved, private, and 

allows for creative solutions and for those 

involved to be in control of the outcome. 

“ADR allows employees to restore 

their working relationships, resolve 

their disputes and eliminate the need for 

costly, time-consuming lawsuits,” Enfield 

said.

Mediators do not have any decisionmaking authority and do not impose 

resolutions, Lagana said. Instead, they 

assist those involved in disputes with 

their negotiations, helping to keep 

Story by Jonathan Stack

“People who engage in the 

mediation process develop a 

better understanding of each 

other’s interests and are able 

to resolve issues that arise 

between them in the future.”

— Stephanie Credle

discussions moving. Depending on 

the circumstances, mediation can be 

conducted face to face, over the phone, 

or by video teleconference. Statistically, 

parties reach resolution 70 to 80 percent 

of the time, Lagana said, and if that 

doesn’t happen, the parties do not lose 

their formal rights. 

“The DLA policy is to use ADR to the 

maximum extent possible,” Lagana said. 

“Consequently, a management decision 

not to use ADR can only be made after its 

possible use has been fully evaluated and 

discussed. At a minimum, discussions 

need to take place between the deciding 

official and the activity ADR specialist. 

ADR specialists are located in each of the 

field activities’ legal offices. A decision 

not to use ADR must be documented in 

writing by an official within the activity 

who is at least one level above the 

deciding official.”

DLA’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office tries to use ADR in most of its 

cases. Stephanie Credle, DLA EEO director, and the DLA EEO staff use ADR for 

all types of disputes. 

“There are some situations that don’t 

lend themselves to ADR, but for the most 

part, we feel 95 percent of the complaints 

we see could be resolved using ADR,” 

Credle said. “Our philosophy is that a 

lot of times workplace disputes happen 

because of lack of communication. 

Mediation provides a means to do that. 

We want to be able to see ADR used 

extensively in the EEO process.” 

When EEO personnel started moving 

toward alternate methods to resolve 

disputes, they instituted mediation as the 

primary method for doing so. 

“Individuals who come to EEO have 

the option of whether to elect traditional 

counseling, or they can choose to have 

their issues addressed using ADR,” Credle 

said. “We find [ADR] much quicker than 

L
Loglines l May - June 2012 17

using the traditional counseling process.”

In September, EEO achieved its goal 

of offering ADR in 90 percent of its EEO 

complaints. 

“We saw a tremendous result from 

doing that,” Credle said.

From fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2010, 

Credle said, her office saw a steady 

increase in personnel contacting EEO 

with informal complaints, and in fiscal 2011 there was a decrease in formal 

complaint filings. 

“We attribute that to our marketing and use of ADR,” she said. “More 

complaints were resolved during the 

informal stage, and we are very excited 

about that.”

Credle said she wants DLA employees 

to know ADR does work, and it is an 

effective way to resolve complaints much 

more quickly.

“Our goal is to resolve concerns 

before they escalate,” she said. “So if 

there is a workplace concern, then certainly there is a viable means to address 

those concerns and get them resolved.”

ADR is helpful because it can resolve 

matters brought to EEO and help build 

relationships, she said.

“People who engage in the mediation 

process develop a better understanding 

of each other’s interests and are able to 

resolve issues that arise between them in 

the future,” Credle said. 

ADR allows the involved parties to 

get the workplace back to an environment where people can have meaningful 

relationships and DLA’s overall mission 

can be achieved, she said.

DLA initially used ADR in EEO 

complaints, and that evolved into including workplace disputes and any other 

kind of dispute between employees, 

between managers and employees, and 

even those between managers. DLA also 

uses ADR processes to address disputes 

between the government and contractors, disputes between different offices or 

sections, labor and management issues, 

and environmental concerns. The agency 

has about 60 trained “neutrals” who help 

facilitate the ADR process, Lagana said. 

Enfield, the mediator from San 

Joaquin, said she is an impartial facilitator of conversations between employees. 

She said she gets involved parties to 

explain what their disputes are and tries 

to get them to engage in honest and open 

discussions to identify issues, clarify their 

needs and try to resolve them.

“I don’t have a say in what the settlement is going to be, but I help them craft 

the settlement,” she said. 

Enfield, who has been involved in 

hundreds of mediations, said mediators 

draw up settlement paperwork, which is 

reviewed and signed by involved parties. Following that, the EEO complaint, 

workplace grievance or other complaint is 

considered resolved. 

“I get with the people beforehand and 

talk to them on the telephone, ... figure 

out what the issues are and send them 

some premediation guidance,” she said. “I 

ask them before we get into mediation to 

jot down their important issues and think 

about their ideal resolution.”

Employees also need to think about 

the resolution they would be willing 

to accept, because they’re not always 

granted everything they want, Enfield 

said. She encourages them to be future 

oriented, put the past behind them, come 

in with an open mind, and be prepared 

to solve problems by trying to reach 

resolutions everyone can live with. 

“I would encourage people to give 

ADR a try,” she said. “There are a lot of 

people who want to right away call their 

congressman or hotline, but it’s always 

best to start at the lowest possible level 

and bring a third party in to talk about 

your problems.”

Enfield said people often just need an 

opportunity to talk to managers and tell 

them how they are feeling. 

ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

The Defense Logistics Agency has adopted the use of alternative dispute 

resolution, a structured process in which disputing parties use a mediator to 

help resolve their issues and concerns. Of the 18 different ADR processes, 

mediation is favored within DLA.

within the Defense Logistics Agency

2008

2009

2010

2011

187 Cases

139 Cases

140 Cases

198 Cases
18 www.dla.mil

changes, the organization is still known 

as the President’s Printer and provides a 

full range of services to the nation’s chief 

executive and his staff. The White House 

production facility is the main source of 

this support to the president, but DLA 

Document Services locations around the 

U.S. and overseas also support him and 

his staff when he is travelling. 

The staff at the White House 

production facility, which consists of 

Rager, David Canada, Isayas Alignay 

and Donald Bilbrey, also 

supports other Defense 

Department customers 

on a daily basis. The 

shop supports local 

military installations, 

like Joint Base Andrews 

and Aberdeen Proving 

Ground, Md., and is also 

one of the sole providers 

of lamination and wideformat printing in the area, 

Rager said. Naturally, any 

outside work grinds to a 

halt when a high-priority job from the 

president comes in, but employees, who 

work in staggered shifts from 5 a.m. to 

9 p.m., always manage to balance the 

workload, he said.

“My employees are great,” said Rager, 

ocument production may not 

seem like a high-pressure mission, but when the customer is 

the most powerful man in the 

country and urgent orders can 

come at any moment, it can seem almost 

like working in a fire station.

That’s the case for the DLA Document 

Services White House production facility, 

which has functioned as the “President’s 

Printer” for more than 30 years. The 

small staff located in the Eisenhower 

Executive Office Building 

next to the White House 

works long hours producing 

all documents the president 

and his staff need, including 

everything from daily forms 

and reports to proclamations, 

badges and nameplates.

“Most of the jobs we get 

are not things that can be 

planned in advance for,” said 

Louis Rager, manager of the 

White House production 

facility. “We use the firehouse 

analogy: We never know when the fire 

alarm will sound but when it does, we are 

on it like it’s three alarms.” 

A 1979 executive order from 

President Jimmy Carter assigned the 

Navy Publishing and Printing Service, 

what DLA Document Services was 

known as then, to provide printing 

and duplication services to the Office 

of Administration at the White House. 

Through 30 years and several name 

Story by Sara Moore

President’s 

Printer

who has managed the facility for six 

years. “I don’t need to tell them what to 

do; they already know what to do. And 

with the equipment we have and the 

man hours that we do every day, we can 

usually handle it that way.”

Because it is supporting the president, 

the work that DLA Document Services 

does is often highly visible. The White 

House production facility routinely prints 

copies of the State of the Union address, 

which are given to everyone who attends 

the annual joint session of Congress. 

The president often signs copies of it as 

President Barack Obama speaks to service 

members in Denver in January. The DLA 

Document Services White House production 

facility acts as the “President’s Printer,” producing the documents the White House staff 

needs to function.

D

Air Force Senior Airman Marcy Glass

“After six years, I 

still walk up to the 

building with a smile 

on my face, thinking, 

‘This is the coolest 

job I’ve ever had.’” 

— Louis Rager
Normally, Rager and his staff handle 

all the work themselves. The only exceptions are when the White House sends 

interns or staff members to help with hand 

folding trip books or other documents. 

To keep the work flowing efficiently, 

Rager maintains a close relationship 

with the White House staff. While most 

projects do not come with advance notice, 

having a relationship with the staff allows 

for quick communication and coordination when projects come up, he said. 

“We all know each other well enough 

that they just say, ‘Hey we have this 

he leaves. The shop also prints copies of 

major speeches, like the February 2009 

speech President Barack Obama gave to 

a joint session of Congress. In that case, 

the White House production facility 

received a digital copy of the speech at 

5 p.m., four hours before the speech’s 9 

p.m. start time. The file was loaded into 

the production equipment, and hundreds 

of copies were produced, folded, stapled 

and trimmed. The pamphlets were ready 

by 6:35 p.m., when they were loaded into 

a van and taken by White House staff 

members to Capitol Hill. 

Loglines l May - June 2012 19

coming,’ and we know what needs to be 

done,” Rager said. 

While it is a fast-paced mission that 

can be stressful, the importance of the 

work and the customer make the job 

not just worthwhile, but exciting and 

fulfilling, Rager said. 

“After six years, I still walk up to the 

building with a smile on my face, thinking, ‘This is the coolest job I’ve ever had,’” 

he said. “I’m very proud to have the job, 

and I’m proud of my employees for the 

great work they do to represent DLA as 

the President’s Printer.” 
A Conversation with . . .

20 www.dla.mil

You recently assumed new 

responsibilities as DLA’s vice 

director. What do you see as your 

role in the agency? 

I see myself in several roles. 

Most important is that I am 

second in command and DLA 

Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark 

Harnitchek’s alter ego. The 

director has many demands 

on his time. Whenever he is 

unavailable due to travel or 

other commitments, I follow 

through on direction he has 

given, provide guidance on 

what I believe is or would be his 

position on emerging issues, 

and coordinate agency actions 

in his absence. I also link with 

my peers at key customer or 

partner organizations on issues 

of mutual interest. Second, 

as the senior civilian in the 

agency, I have a major role in 

ensuring the health and posture 

of our most valuable asset: the 

workforce. Third, I see myself 

as something of a historian 

for the DLA enterprise, since I 

have been here nearly 20 years 

and have been an increasingly 

significant part of its evolution 

to the forward-serving, 

warfighter-focused agency it is 

today. Thus I can help address 

new issues in terms of the culture 

and capabilities of the agency. 

Ted Case

DLA’s Vice Director Talks About How He Sees His New Role

You’re the second civilian vice 

director. What added value does a 

civilian vice director bring to the 

agency? 

The biggest value I see is 

continuity for the workforce 

and a deep background in all 

aspects of DLA’s mission. Our 

directors are usually appointed 

for two- or three-year 

tours. Some have prior DLA 

experience and some don’t. All 

come in with great ideas and a 

mandate for change, since each 

meets new logistics support 

challenges and opportunities 

and strives to make a good 

agency even better. A civilian 

vice director provides the 

director with additional 

perspective on the capabilities 

of DLA’s workforce and a reach 

back into DLA’s culture and 

history in assisting the director 

to accomplish what he or she 

desires. This helps ensure a 

committed team across DLA to 

execute the director’s goals and 

visions.

You and Vice Adm. Harnitchek 

came into your current roles within 

months of each other. How have 

the two of you worked together to 

get a handle on all of DLA’s diverse 

worldwide operations? 

First some background on 

both of us. I will have been in 

Ted Case

Defense Logistics Agency Photo
DLA Strategic Communications 

Loglines l May - June 2012 21

DLA 20 years this June, so I 

have had a chance to see most 

facets of DLA up close and 

personal. The director has been 

a customer of DLA many times, 

has had multiple Navy inventory 

control point tours, and served 

in several joint billets, including 

working closely with DLA 

during his last tour at U.S. 

Transportation Command. He 

has a strong grasp of most facets 

of logistics and acquisition 

and, equally important, a quick 

mind. And since his arrival in 

mid-November he has traveled 

extensively to see DLA’s operations literally across the globe 

Now to your question: I 

have followed the lead of my 

predecessor, Mae DeVincentis, 

whom I worked for over the 

past 11 years. She was the 

first civilian vice director for 

Admiral Harnitchek and his 

predecessor, Navy Vice Adm. 

Alan Thompson. She and I 

both believed the onus was on 

us to make the relationship 

work and use our experience to 

offer the best possible counsel 

and support to the director, 

the director’s leadership team 

and the whole workforce. So 

as Admiral Harnitchek reaches 

conclusions about ways to 

enhance DLA’s ability to, as he 

puts it, “significantly improve 

performance for the warfighter 

while dramatically reducing 

costs,” I have to keep up, help 

fill in any gaps from a workforce 

and historical perspective, 

provide the best advice I can, 

and ultimately help ensure his 

decisions are appropriately 

documented and well executed.

Coming from an information 

technology background, how 

crucial is the Enterprise Business 

System and its further refinement 

to both delivering efficient 

warfighter support and furthering 

the agency’s goals? 

I’ll answer you, but first a 

little more history on me, for 

while IT was and remains a 

key element of DLA’s overall 

logistics support capability, I 

have had many backgrounds 

besides IT. I started in the Navy 

Supply Corps in 1974, and yes, 

there was IT back then! I was 

supply officer of the USS Robert 

E. Lee, where I was on three 

back-to-back patrols. We did 

a refueling overhaul at Mare 

Island Naval Shipyard, Calif., 

where I learned maintenance 

planning and operations. Next, 

I was control division and 

contracting officer at Sub Base 

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which 

involved inventory management, 

requisition processing, 

procurement, warehouse 

management and disposal. 

Then I was assistant supply 

officer, which added more 

financial and human resources 

management background. 

From there, I had several 

assignments where I developed, 

deployed and operated various 

modernized supply chainrelated IT systems. I then came 

with Navy Vice Adm. Edward 

Straw to DLA in June 1992 

and for over nine years worked 

numerous technology, resource 

management and program 

manager projects, ultimately 

as the deputy chief information 

officer. I retired from the Navy 

in 2001 as a captain and initially 

became the J6 civilian chief of 

staff. I then served over 10 years 

in the Senior Executive Service, 

first as the deputy J6/chief 

technology officer and then as 

CIO for the past two years. 

I share the above just to 

outline that I have background 

in essentially all aspects of 

DLA’s mission. And for every 

one of those aspects, I am 

convinced the Enterprise 

Business System is absolutely 

critical to achieving the agency’s 

goals. EBS is our backbone 

for supply-chain management 

in support of warfighters and 

maintainers and will be soon 

for our procurement function 

as well. EBS will assist us in 

auditability and executing 
A Conversation with . . .

22 www.dla.mil

retail operations at the services’ 

industrial sites. It’s the core of 

the future IT system supporting 

DLA Disposition Services. 

It’s our planning and asset 

visibility tool. EBS will allow 

DLA Energy to modernize its 

operations. EBS links closely 

with our Distribution Standard 

System. I could go on and on. 

But it’s not just the technology 

and the force-level multiplier 

that good IT provides, it’s the 

re-engineered business rules 

that we have incorporated and 

documented in EBS that make it 

so critical to delivering efficient 

support and furthering the 

agency’s goals.

What do you see as the agency’s 

biggest strengths? 

Thanks for the softball 

question. There is one 

resounding response: Our 

biggest strength is our 

workforce. We have a superb 

and diverse workforce 

that has unlimited energy, 

robust capabilities and a 

demonstrated can-do, patriotic 

attitude that I have seen no 

one exceed in the Defense 

Department. Tie that to our 

strong business practices and 

supporting IT systems, and 

I think DLA is ready for any 

challenges and opportunities 

that come our way.

What are some of the immediate 

challenges the agency is facing? 

The director often talks 

about “self speak.” What he 

means is it matters how you 

approach and talk about 

change. If you talk about 

challenges when faced with 

change, you will create and have 

to address challenges. He and I 

discuss opportunities. They may 

be tough and demanding, but 

they are opportunities since we 

have the ability and tenacity to 

succeed at just about anything 

at DLA. And while we believe 

we are viewed favorably overall 

by our customers, partners and 

overseers, we have numerous 

immediate opportunities 

to improve. These include 

sustaining our food, fuel, spare 

parts and disposal support 

under difficult circumstances 

in Afghanistan and other 

forward locations, enhancing 

our support posture at the 

services’ industrial sites, and 

meeting current cost-constraint 

targets during the next 12 to 

18 months. We are also rolling 

out complex upgrades to our IT 

systems and initiating actions 

to meet Secretary of Defense 

Leon Panetta’s requirements for 

audit readiness in fiscal 2014. 

What about longer-term 

challenges? 

Again, not challenges: 

opportunities. We will 

support the drawdown from 

Afghanistan and any emergent 

warfighter needs anywhere in 

the world. We will continue 

to optimize our distribution 

support network. And we 

are just initiating an array of 

actions under our “10 in 5” 

effort to improve customer 

satisfaction while reducing the 

costs of DLA’s material and 

services by a cumulative $10.3 

billion for the five years ending 

with fiscal 2018. We will make 

major changes to better support 

our customers and help them 

survive the fiscal constraints 

facing DoD in the years ahead.

Is there anything you’d like to add? 

Just how honored I am to 

be DLA’s vice director and my 

commitment to all of DLA and 

to our many stakeholders that 

I will serve and support you as 

best I possibly can.
We are DLA

DLA Troop Support:

Michael Tuttle is a writer for DLA Troop Support Public Affairs.

hiladelphia has been a key 

national defense supply location 

since 1800, when gunpowder 

and other supplies were stored 

at southern Philadelphia’s 

Schuylkill Arsenal. From there, the long 

history of supply support in Philadelphia 

weaves through several name and 

location changes during peace and war: 

equipping the Lewis and Clark Expedition 

in 1803, 10,000 local seamstresses 

making uniforms for Union troops during 

the Civil War, outfitting 600,000 men in 

the Civilian Conservation Corps during 

the New Deal, and producing more than 

2,000 desert camouflage uniforms a day 

for Operation Desert Storm. 

P The logistical support mission 

continues to thrive. Defense Logistics 

Agency Troop Support accrued $14.5 

billion in sales in 2011 while supplying 

boots, bolts, medicine, meals, bulldozers 

and more to the U.S. military and other 

federal agencies around the world.

DLA Troop Support is now colocated 

in northeastern Philadelphia with 

one of DLA Document Services’ 

largest offices. Providing a full 

portfolio of document services 

to the Defense Department, the 

former Navy Publication and 

Printing Service and Defense 

Printing Service migrated to DLA 

in 1996.

DLA Document Services and DLA 

Troop Support share a common denominator in their customer-driven missions: 

supporting American warfighters. 

DLA Troop Support

DLA Troop Support provides supply 

solutions to warfighters and other 

customers in their global missions. The 

primary-level field activity also supports 

humanitarian relief efforts for natural 

disasters. It does all this through four 

supply chains: subsistence, medical, 

clothing and textiles, and construction 

and equipment.

“DLA Troop Support is a highperforming, customer-focused, global 

enterprise that is well postured to provide 

even greater support to our military 

An artistic rendering of DLA Troop Support 

Headquarters in northeastern Philadelphia. 

DLA Strategic Communications

Loglines l May - June 2012 23

Philadelphia

Story by Michael Tuttle

23
services and to our nation’s warfighters,” 

said Navy Rear Adm. David Baucom, 

DLA Troop Support commander.

The subsistence supply chain ensures 

service members around the world can 

have three square meals per day. 

In the continental United States, 

subsistence supply chain employees 

manage contracts to ensure commercial 

food delivery to dining facilities for all 

four military services as well as some 

Coast Guard and non-DoD customers. 

Dining facilities outside the continental 

U.S. are also supported, including at 

forward operating bases in Afghanistan 

and aboard ships. The subsistence supply 

chain also provides individual and group 

rations to troops in the field, including 

ready-to-eat meals.

The medical supply chain provides 

pharmaceuticals and medical and surgical 

products, equipment and readiness 

support to warfighters. Having integrated 

commercial best practices from the health 

care industry, team members provide 

products and services to military medical 

facilities in peacetime and support the 

sustainment of operational field medical 

logistics around the world. Medical 

supply chain personnel arranged for the 

delivery of more than 4.3 million doses of 

flu vaccine to service members and their 

dependents worldwide in 2011.

More than 31,000 different items 

are managed in the clothing and textiles 

supply chain, from uniforms and field 

gear to tents and personal protective 

items. C&T personnel are involved with 

every aspect of the uniform life-cycle 

management process. One of their 

primary missions is outfitting all new 

military recruits at training centers located 

around the country, including fitting for 

140 different sizes of combat boots.

The construction and equipment 

supply chain consists of a diverse 

group of products in more than 300 

different stock classes. C&E acquires 

force protection items such as barriers, 

concertina wire and sandbags, energyefficient lighting, heavy equipment 

like bulldozers, and lumber for the 

construction of forward operating 

bases around the globe. C&E manages 

the Fire and Emergency Services 

Program, which includes a wide range 

of equipment, incidental services 

and training for first-responder and 

domestic-preparedness units.

A new directorate, hardware, was 

added to DLA Troop Support’s lineup of 

Maria Martins, a fabric worker at DLA Troop 

Support, hand embroiders a flag in the primarylevel field activity’s flag room, the only government 

hand-embroidering operation in the United States. 

DLA Troop Support’s 

predecessor organization 

moved into the Philadelphia 

Quartermaster Depot in 1926.

Michael Tuttle

24 www.dla.mil

We are DLA
supply managers in October. Hardware 

manages industrial items including screws, 

bolts, studs, nails and fastening devices.

DLA Document Services

Documents are a common denominator 

and key enabler to any business, including 

DoD. At the DLA Document Services office 

in Philadelphia and in other locations, DLA 

team members are fighting the perception of 

just being a printer. 

“For more than 20 years we’ve 

been at the forefront in digital output, 

conversion and storage,” said Brett 

Hutchins, deputy director. “We’ve been 

evolving with technology faster and 

more successfully than we’ve been able 

to change perceptions of who we are and 

what we do.”

DLA Document Services in Philadelphia 

not only provides copying and binding, but 

a full range of document services. What 

distinguishes Philadelphia from most other 

locations, according to Hutchins, is its 

emphasis on document automation.

The automated programs managed 

from Philadelphia account for the majority 

of all document automation initiatives 

within DLA Document Services, Hutchins 

said. And the programs managed 

there impact other locations within the 

organization. Those locations continue to 

contribute much to their success.

“DLA customers worldwide utilize 

our Electronic Document Management 

Solution because of the support we give 

to [DLA Distribution],” Hutchins said. 

“EDMS works because of the cooperation 

Philadelphia receives from 19 DLA 

Document Services locations. So while 

there are clear geographic distinctions 

among our locations, most initiatives 

require support from many corners.”

As printing budgets decrease, 

document automation may become a 

more attractive option for DLA Document 

Services customers.

“The challenge for us is getting the 

customer to communicate and share 

resources internally,” Hutchins said. 

“Customers have to consider how certain 

initiatives benefit end users and combine 

budgetary resources from [information 

technology], printing and other 

traditionally separate entities.

“We are no longer just the print 

shop,” Hutchins continued. “We are 

document managers capable of providing 

a much broader range of services.” 

Kemberly Groue

Electronic duplication specialist Deborah Johnson uses a hole-punching machine to prepare 

a packet of papers. DLA Document Services in Philadelphia provides a full range of services, 

including copying and binding.

DLA Strategic Communications

Loglines l May - June 2012 25
New ‘Direct Channel’ Blog Connects 

DLA Director, Employees

A new blog available to Defense 

Logistics Agency employees inside the 

agency’s firewall gives them a direct 

connection to the agency’s director.

DLA Director Vice Adm. Mark 

Harnitchek uses “Direct Channel: 

Straight from the Boss to You” to write 

about everything from what’s happening 

across DLA activities and developments 

in logistics to topics that interest him 

personally.

“Vice Adm. Harnitchek is a strong 

believer in two-way communication. 

He likes to give DLA employees his 

unvarnished opinion and thoughts 

on our mission and the activities 

associated with it. But, he is equally 

interested in hearing from the men and 

women who work for and with DLA. 

That’s where the blog comes in,” said 

Deborah Parker, chief of DLA Strategic 

Communications’ New Media, Plans and 

Analysis Division.

Readers can leave comments, but 

blog moderators will remove or edit 

remarks that violate certain tenets of 

behavior, such as obscenity, hate speech 

or spamming, Parker added. 

The blog will also feature occasional 

guest bloggers who bring new perspectives.

“We think this is a good idea and will 

help keep the blog fresh and interesting 

to readers,” Parker said. 

— By Beth Reece

Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support 

Europe & Africa personnel in Afghanistan 

are helping improve food and beverage 

delivery and quality for warfighters 

while saving taxpayers millions in 

transportation costs, a DLA food service 

supervisor said.

Todd Lutz said locating the new 

Helmand Regional Distribution Center 

in Helmand province reduced perishable 

food transportation time by two to four 

days for each of the more than 3,700 

average monthly shipments. 

The HRDC, the second such center to 

be located in the province, also helped the 

vendor shift its transportation methods 

from air to road. Shorter trips to U.S. 

bases and the lower cost-per-mile of 

ground transportation have dropped 

transportation costs by about $28 million 

a year, Lutz said.

The food distribution center in Kabul, 

Afghanistan’s capital, is about 350 miles 

from the HRDC and was previously the 

only one in eastern Afghanistan, he said. 

HRDC serves about 37 percent of warfighter locations in Afghanistan. 

Tim Schmidt, a DLA Troop Support 

Europe & Africa lead contracting officer 

representative at the Kabul food storage 

facility, said DLA Troop Support Europe 

& Africa’s efforts are helping to develop 

sustainable, desirable Afghan businesses 

that support U.S. warfighters.

The prime vendor contracts for 

locally bottled water and canned soda 

have employed hundreds of Afghans who 

produce and transport the products. Lutz 

said this contract supports the mission of the 

International Security and Assistance Force. 

“(The vendor) understands and 

supports the political and economic 

imperative of ISAF to develop sovereign 

capability,” Lutz stated.

Schmidt agreed.

“Security doesn’t always come in the 

form of [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected 

vehicles] or Humvees, sometimes it comes 

from the loyalty of 

individuals to whom 

you’ve provided the 

means to provide for 

their families,” he said. 

Indirect benefits for warfighters 

include improving the climate between 

Afghans and Americans, Schmidt said. 

“It’s been my experience that treating 

Afghans well, in part by giving them 

employment opportunities to deliver food 

and water under our [vendor’s] contracts, 

is reciprocated by them in kind,” he said.

DLA Brings 

Fresher Food to 

U.S. Warfighters 

in Afghanistan

Marines of the 4th Light 

Armored Reconnaissance 

Battalion receive their 

first salad delivery while 

stationed at an austere 

location in Afghanistan. 

The vegetables were 

supplied through DLA 

Troop Support Europe & 

Africa contracting and 

logistical efforts. 

— By Larry Levine

DLA Troop Support

Courtesy Photo

NewsWire

26 www.dla.mil
Law enforcement organizations in 

Puerto Rico are taking a keen interest 

in procuring excess military equipment 

from Defense Logistics Agency 

Disposition Services.

Puerto Rico sits about midway 

between the major cartels in South 

America and the lucrative U.S. drug 

markets to the north. The island’s natural 

draw for drug runners is long established, 

and the influence of the criminal element 

there seems to be growing. According 

to published studies, the U.S. territory’s 

narcotics trade-related income is now 

estimated to be $9 billion, or potentially 

a fifth of the commonwealth’s gross 

domestic product.

Against this backdrop, Disposal 

Support Directorate East’s Denise 

Ribot, Law Enforcement Support Office 

representative Dan Arnold, and others 

within DLA secured agreements to 

share the resources of DLA Disposition 

Services and LESO with Puerto Rico’s law 

enforcement community for the first time 

in summer 2011. In the short time since 

those agreements were signed, interest 

in DLA’s used and excess equipment 

inventory in Puerto Rico has exploded.

“Word is spreading like wildfire,” disposal services representative David Morgan 

said, adding that he’s hearing from several 

potential new customers each week. 

What started as four or five law 

enforcement customers has quickly 

become more than 40, he said.

Morgan has issued more than $12 

million in property to law enforcement 

customers on the island since September, 

with $3 million in equipment requisitioned 

just in February. He said he attributes 

the demand to the high quality of the 

property available.

Demand for Excess Military Equipment 

Increasing in Puerto Rico

— By Jake Joy

DLA Disposition Services

“[We’ve sold] brand-new toolsets 

worth $78,000, brand new generators 

with four hours’ use, Humvees with seven 

miles on them,” Morgan said. 

Humvees, popular with law enforcement offices throughout the U.S., have 

already been licensed and put into service 

in Puerto Rico, allowing police to keep an 

eye out for suspicious watercraft while 

conducting beach patrols and penetrate 

jungle environments where narcotics 

operatives stay hidden.

“Any police department on the island 

that wants (Humvees) is going to get 

them,” Morgan said.

The seeming glut of high-quality 

equipment and vehicles is not an 

indication of U.S. wastefulness, but 

rather a byproduct of several force 

adjustments – the re-designation of units 

in the Virgin Islands, the elimination of 

local Air National Guard units, and the 

determination that certain equipment 

and technologies have become obsolete 

– that have created a perfect storm 

of unneeded equipment and a great 

opportunity for qualifying customers on 

the island, Morgan said.

“There’s lots and lots of work down 

here,” he said. “There’s lots and lots of 

property being turned in. It definitely 

keeps me busy. I think it will go on like 

this for a long time.”

While Morgan said he figures the pace 

to remain hectic, it’s worth it. He added 

that he hopes that the services DLA is 

providing in Puerto Rico will positively 

impact the island’s ability to fight back 

against the powerful criminal groups at 

work there.

“To think that I’m helping those 

efforts in some way, that part makes me 

very happy,” Morgan said.

Officers in the Isabela, Puerto Rico, Police Department use this Humvee for beach patrols and 

to visit hard-to-reach jungle sites where illegal narcotics operations thrive. 

Courtesy Photo

DLA Strategic Communications 

Loglines l May - June 2012 27
Money Matters

28 www.dla.mil

he Defense Logistics Agency’s 

quest to achieve audit readiness 

is not a new one. Officials have 

been working for the past five 

years to improve the agency’s 

financial practices and make its business 

processes ready for audit. But a new 

push from the secretary of defense 

has increased interest throughout the 

Defense Department on audit readiness, 

and DLA now finds itself with more 

support as it faces a crucial juncture in 

this process. 

An Oct. 13 memo from Secretary of 

Defense Leon Panetta to senior DoD 

leaders emphasized the importance of 

audit readiness and set deadlines for 

certain areas to be audit-ready by 2014, in 

advance of the department’s deadline of 

2017 to achieve full audit readiness. The 

secretary’s interest in this topic brought it 

to the attention of the leaders below him 

and members of Congress, noted Tony 

Poleo, director of DLA Finance. This 

interest has increased pressure on all 

DoD agencies to get themselves ready for 

audit, but for DLA, this pressure is really 

a benefit, Poleo said. 

DLA has already made progress 

toward audit readiness, Poleo said, but 

Story By Sara Moore and Jacob Boyer

having direct interest from leaders in 

DoD and Congress when it comes to 

changing policies or coordinating with 

the military services will help move the 

process along more quickly. 

Audit readiness will help the agency 

achieve four goals, said Simone Reba, 

deputy director of DLA Finance and 

program manager for audit readiness.

“Audit readiness helps us stretch the 

budget, make more informed decisions, 

increase confidence and public trust, 

and it’s just good business,” said Reba, 

who took charge of the agency’s audit 

readiness efforts in March. 

Being able to look deeper into DLA’s 

financial data and ensure it is correct is 

a best practice that is crucial to private 

firms, she said.

“We want to make sure the 

numbers we’re reflecting in our 

financials are accurate,” Reba 

said. “In the private sector, if 

you don’t do this, you go out of 

business, because investors lose 

confidence in the company. 

What’s the difference between 

us and the private sector in that 

regard? Don’t we owe it to the 

taxpayers to give them that 

same level of confidence?” 

T

GETTING

IT RIGHT
DLA Strategic Communications

Loglines l May - June 2012 29

DLA’s level of auditability goes 

beyond ensuring the agency’s financial 

data is correct, she said. 

“We must also prove that we have 

good controls in place to mitigate risk 

and to ensure our data cannot be easily 

manipulated,” Reba said. “Financial data 

can often be used as a key indicator to 

determine whether something is amiss in 

our processes.”

Reba used DLA Distribution as 

an example. If inventory losses there 

increase sharply in a given month, DLA 

management will be able to prove why 

the losses occurred, know whether 

inventory quantities are accurate, and 

better understand what can be done to 

ensure those losses do not recur, she said.

“A lot of people think audit readiness 

is just a financial exercise, but it’s not,” 

Reba said. “It’s about understanding 

the health of the business.” 

Audit readiness will also 

help DLA’s leaders make better 

decisions as looming budget 

constraints compel the agency 

to do more with less, Reba said. 

“When agency leaders 

understand how much the 

agency’s processes cost, they 

can make more informed 

decisions on what costs can be eliminated 

without sacrificing mission performance,” 

she said.

Reba pointed out that DLA often provides its customers with similar services 

using unique business processes. Each 

process has enduring costs associated 

with its uniqueness, including training, 

information technology and auditability. 

“As we are able to streamline and 

standardize our processes, auditability 

will become more achievable and overall 

costs will be reduced,” she said. 

To meet the 2014 deadline for 

the selected areas, DLA leaders and 

employees will put in a lot of work in the 

near term, Poleo said. While the effort 

will be new to many employees and may 

seem intimidating, Poleo stressed that 

the goal is to ensure business processes 

are being performed consistently and that 

DLA’s documentation reflects what the 

agency is actually doing.

“This is not about trying to catch 

employees doing the wrong thing,” 

he said. “It’s really about finding 

issues, servicing them and fixing 

them, and putting employees in a 

position to succeed. And then the 

agency will succeed.”

Ensuring all these areas are auditready by 2014 will be a challenge, 

especially since the majority of DLA’s 

work will have to be done in the next year 

or so to allow for review by auditors and 

evaluation by DoD senior leaders, Poleo 

said, but the amount of work the agency 

has already put in will be a big benefit. 
30 www.dla.mil

DOUBLE 

TIME

www.dla.mil
hile many Defense Logistics Agency team members 

come in Friday looking to wrap up the week’s work 

before enjoying a weekend off, John Dreska comes 

in some of those Fridays just starting work that will 

carry his team through the weekend.

Dreska, the acting deputy director of land customer 

operations at DLA Land and Maritime, pulls double duty as a 

member of DLA’s Joint Reserve Force, where the army lieutenant 

colonel serves as the deputy joint team leader at the primary-level 

field activity.

“On the Army side, we drill Friday through Sunday so we can 

be with our active-duty counterparts and civilians to get missions 

on Fridays that we work through on Saturday and Sunday,” 

Dreska said. “Some of the other services do it a bit differently.”

About 750 reservists spread across the agency make up the 

JRF, said Navy Rear Adm. Patricia Wolfe, JRF director. On 

any given day, she said, a little more than 10 percent of those 

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are on active-duty orders 

worldwide, with about 60 of those serving on deployed teams in 

Afghanistan and Kuwait. Over the past 10 years, more than 860 

DLA reservists have served 1,100 tours of six months or longer to 

support the agency’s mission.

“The JRF gives us that surge capability that is so important 

to DLA accomplishing its forward-deployed mission,” Wolfe said. 

“There are more military personnel in the Joint Reserve Force 

than there are in DLA proper, and without those reservists, we 

would not be able to put forward the DLA support teams that we 

have without asking people to do yearlong deployments. DLA 

could not do that mission without the reserve component.”

DLA reservists serve a variety of roles while deployed, Wolfe 

said. About one-third of the agency’s DST personnel and nearly all of 

its expeditionary disposal remediation team personnel are reservists. 

W

Loglines l May - June 2012 31

Story by Jacob Boyer

Photos by Air Force Capt. Bryan Lewis 

Service members with the DLA Joint Reserve Force 

maneuver an ammunition box across an obstacle as 

part of the leadership reaction course during the Joint 

Reserve Training Readiness Exercise at Fort Eustis, Va., 

in 2011. About 750 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marine 

reservists make up the JRF.

•	 About 40 percent of DLA’s workforce in the

U.S. Central Command area of operations is

made up of reservists.

•	 From Sept. 11, 2001, to September 2011,

more than $47 million in costs were

avoided through deploying DLA reservists

instead of civilians.

•	 In fiscal 2011, the military services paid

$17 million in pay and allowances to DLA

reservists, about 60 percent of which went

to direct operational support.

Source: DLA Joint Reserve Force

Personnel

DLA’s Joint Reserve Force

AT A GLANCE

Enlisted

Officers

Army

Marines

Navy

Air Force

Services

34%

66%

54%

26%

18%

2%
They and others typically serve six-month 

tours, she said.

Those who deploy reap a great benefit 

to their reserve careers, said Navy Chief 

Petty Officer Charles Nellist, head of 

the operations department for the DLA 

Logistics Team at DLA Aviation. His three 

deployments with his fellow reservists gave 

them all experience and opportunities for 

mentoring they don’t get when they aren’t 

on active duty.

“Admiral Wolfe came down here, 

and one great thing about deployments I 

explained to her was great mentoring and 

professional development for Sailors,” said 

Nellist, who works at DLA Aviation as the 

weapons system support manager for F/A18 avionics when he’s not in uniform. “I 

was able to spend a lot of time with these 

folks instead of two days a month. Most 

of the folks I was with came from my unit. 

Just the experience they gained on that six 

month deployment is more than they’ll get 

in six years of drilling.”

Dreska, who has deployed twice as a 

member of the JRF, said his experience 

on those deployments has been 

invaluable to him in his civilian role.

“My deployments and experiences 

on the reserve side have helped me 

many times over,” he said. “They allowed 

me to gain the experience to function 

better within DLA and know more about 

what we do in supporting the director’s 

requirements for warfighter support. 

It’s been phenomenal to get that type of 

experience.”

Although many DLA reservists do 

active-duty tours in Afghanistan and 

Kuwait that can take them away from 

home for up to nine months – including 

training before the six-month deployment 

and leave after they return – plenty 

of them support missions for the field 

activity they answer to.

“Whatever’s important to the 

commander, we can translate it and put 

certain reservists against it,” Dreska 

said. “For example, DLA Land and 

32 www.dla.mil

DLA Joint Reserve Force Sailors work together 

to maneuver a barrel over an obstacle at a leadership reaction course at the 2011 Joint Reserve 

Training Exercise at Fort Eustis, Va. The annual 

exercise give JRF members a chance to hone 

the skills they need in a deployed environment 

and learn how to better function as a joint team.
It’s to make sure we have reservists who are 

prepared and ready to go on contingency 

operations like Haiti. I don’t want to put 

a reservist out in an austere environment 

where they don’t have the proper skill sets 

and training to support themselves.”

Wearing two hats has its challenges 

and benefits. Dreska, who is taking classes 

through the U.S. Army War College, said 

finding enough time to commit to both his 

careers while not saving some for his family 

is a challenge, but that it’s worth it to those 

who take pride in wearing the uniform.

“That’s the one thing I haven’t 

mastered completely,” he said. “It’s not 

one weekend a month and two weeks a 

year. I do five to 10 hours a week beyond 

that. You have to really love that uniform 

to do that stuff. Any reservist can attest to 

that. It’s a matter of pride for most of us. 

We all want to be here.”

Nellist said periodic separations from 

his wife and two children are tough, but 

his love of service makes it worthwhile.

“To be in the reserves nowadays, you 

really have to love it, because it’s a trial,” 

he said “There’s a lot of hard work and 

separation from your family. I think the 

level of dedication of a reservist is pretty 

impressive.” 

a year and performing up to a month 

of active-duty time, many of the JRF’s 

personnel attend a yearly Joint Reserve 

Training Exercise at Fort Eustis, Va., 

Wolfe said. In April, more than 230 JRF 

team members spent a week there honing 

their combat skills, conducting their 

services’ versions of physical training, and 

learning to better work as a joint team.

“My predecessors started it up in 

response to realizing that as some of 

our DLA reservists deployed, they had 

no experience with some of the combat 

training skills,” she said. “It’s developed 

as a means to make ready our reservists. 

From my perspective, it’s not just about 

mobilization and wartime deployments. 

Maritime has a lot of our Navy enlisted 

folks working on back orders. Well, 

material orders and availability are key 

to [DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark 

Harnitchek] right now. We have our Navy 

reserve enlisted folks working back order 

reports and expediting things as best 

they can. They’re making some terrific 

progress chasing down those things that 

are important to the commander and the 

DLA director.”

Having service members who may 

do something different in their civilian 

lives has benefits for the agency, Wolfe 

said. Their dual careers offer a breadth 

and depth of experience that goes beyond 

their uniformed careers.

“In my own experience, you may have 

a petty officer first class logistics specialist 

who in his civilian life is a graphic artist. 

You’re able to take advantage of that skill,” 

she said. “In 99 percent of those cases, 

they’re thrilled to be able to do that for 

you. As I talk to component commanders 

who have these Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen 

and Marines working for them, they will 

often bring up that extra skill set those 

people brought with them as part of the 

value of what they’ve seen our DLA Joint 

Reserve Force give them.”

In addition to attending 24 drill days 

Sailors from the DLA Joint Reserve Force maneuver a barrel over an obstacle as part of a leadership reaction course during the 2011 Joint Reserve Training Readiness Exercise at Fort Eustis, Va. 

Loglines l May - June 2012 33

Members of the DLA Joint Reserve Force fire 

their weapons on a range at Fort Belvoir, Va. 

Twenty-seven members from the Army, Air 

Force and Navy participated in the training, 

which also involved a simulated weapontraining program.
I AM

Melleny Cotton

My name is: 

Army Staff Sgt. Melleny D. Cotton

I am: 

The training noncommissioned officer for DLA Energy 

Headquarters.

Describe your job in a sentence:

I ensure DLA Energy members meet their training and professional 

development requirements.

How long have you worked for DLA?

Two and a half years.

What is your favorite thing about working for DLA?

I love the joint environment. I’ve developed a deep understanding, 

appreciation and respect for our sister services and 

Department of Defense civilians.

What is your best memory of working here?

Hands down, my best memory was definitely my 

deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan, with a DLA support 

team. It felt great to be a part of such a widely 

recognized and respected team.

How do you make a difference to warfighters?

I make a difference to warfighters by working in an 

organization that ensures they have everything they need to be 

successful on and off the battlefield.