LOGLINES

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER 2016

SUPPLYING

THE ENDS

OF THE EARTH
Lt. Gen. Andy Busch, USAF

Director, Defense Logistics Agency

DLA Director

Air Force Lt. Gen. Andy Busch

DLA Vice Director

Ted Case 

Chief of Staff

Renee L. Roman

Director, Public Affairs

Joseph M. Yoswa

Deputy Director, Public Affairs

Patrick H. Mackin

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

Official Flagship Publication

of the Defense Logistics Agency

LOGLINES STAFF

Managing Editor: Phil Prater

Senior Editor: John R. Bell

Writers: Beth Reece

Chris Erbe

Dianne Ryder

Layout/Design: Paul Henry Crank

Headquar ters, Defense Logistics Agency, Office of Public Affairs 

8725 John J. Kingman Road, Suite 2545, Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6221

Phone: 703-767-6200 E-mail: loglines@dla.mil

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 address below:

I am continually amazed at the 

incredible range of activities the 

DLA workforce engages in every day 

in support of our warfighters. From 

planning to acquisition to distribution to 

disposition, and many other areas, I am 

proud of our more than 25,000 employees 

who so ably uphold DLA’s reputation 

as the Department of Defense’s combat 

logistics support agency. Our workforce 

brings together many disciplines, 

comprising more than 220 occupational 

series, as we provide the logistics, 

acquisition and technical solutions our 

customers deserve and expect.

While my role is to focus on the big 

picture much of the time, I enjoy delving 

deeper into the agency and learning about 

the many activities our people engage in 

to support the warfighter. There are many 

great stories to tell. 

As I travel, I appreciate meeting 

DLA employees, seeing their workspaces 

and hearing about their contributions. 

The enthusiasm I see among them as 

they go about their duties inspires me, 

but since I can’t meet everyone or be 

everywhere, reading is the next best 

alternative. And that brings us to this 

edition of Loglines magazine.

In this issue, we continue highlighting interesting DLA projects and initiatives. And in the process, we get to 

know some of our people a little better. 

For example, did you know the DLA 

Distribution team at Port Hueneme in 

California every year resupplies the 

National Science Foundation research 

facility in Antarctica? It’s just one example 

of DLA’s global reach in providing goods 

and services to our federal customers.

You may not have known that DLA 

is involved in retail activities, directly 

serving end users at our military’s 

industrial sites. DLA recently held a retail 

summit at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard 

in Kittery, Maine, where participants 

witnessed how DLA supports the 

maintenance, repair and modernization of 

the Navy’s nuclear submarine force. 

And speaking of direct service to 

customers, we highlight DLA employees 

at the Customer Interaction Center as 

they facilitate thousands of orders daily 

over the phone. Operators bring a human 

touch 24/7 while providing needed items 

to customers all over the world. 

We also spotlight DLA’s support for 

Anakonda-16, a real-world exercise that 

brought together 12,000 U.S. troops and 

13,000 coalition forces from more than 

20 countries. The exercise highlighted the 

importance of DLA’s strategic readiness 

and ability to meet customers’ needs.

Finally, we offer a glimpse into how 

employees stay resilient in the face of 

lifelong disabilities and sudden, serious 

injuries — an inspiration to all of us as 

we deal with life’s challenges.

Many disciplines, many activities, 

many inspiring stories — one organization. 

It is your work as DLA employees that 

earn us our reputation, and I appreciate 

your integrity and dedication as we all 

go about keeping our promises to our 

important customers. 

DIRECTOR

FROM THE
Loglines l September - October 2016 1

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

A Conversation with ... 26

Raymond Zingaretti

DLA NewsWire 31

DLA Strategic Plan Poster Series 37

Strategic Engagement

I am DLA Back Cover

Ada Catherine Torres Vega

DEPARTMENTS

2

10

21

28

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

34

DLA ON www.dla.mil www.facebook.com/dla.mil www.twitter.com/dlamil www.youtube.com/dodlogisticsagency

THE WEB

More Than a Help Desk 2

DLA’s Customer Interaction Center at Battle Creek, Michigan, 

takes up to 1,600 calls a day to help customers place orders, check 

delivery status and more.

Crushing It in Europe 6

A multinational exercise in Poland hones DLA logisticians’ 

skills while working with other agencies and allied nations 

under high pressure. 

Battle Ready in Battle Creek and Beyond 10

DLA’s quick-reaction teams not only help set up port openings 

and obtain needed supplies for contingencies. They also do 

expeditionary disposition.

Saving Big on Drugs 15

A team from DLA Troop Support has helped save hundreds of 

millions of dollars through contracts to buy generic drugs.

Road to Recovery 18

An employee injured while on duty suffers life-threatening 

injuries but returns in just 10 months to his job at DLA’s Office 

of the Inspector General. 

Workplace Injuries — Now What? 21

When an employee sustains an injury at work, time is of the 

essence for submitting the proper forms. Fortunately, the process 

is easy, and there are people who can help.

Attracting Talent 23

DLA uses programs such as the Workforce Recruitment Program 

and DoD’s Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program to 

attract and keep people with disabilities.

Supplying the Ends of the Earth 28

The heat of the summer is the perfect time to learn how DLA 

supports scientific research at the coldest place on earth.

STARs of Retail 34

DLA not only supplies warehouses and distribution centers; 

it now provides items directly to the customer at sites around 

the nation.

CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2016
2 www.dla.mil
Loglines l September - October 2016 3

ichaele Mathews answers 

on the first ring, thanking 

her caller for dialing into 

the Defense Logistics 

Agency Customer 

Interaction Center. Within 30 seconds, 

she gets the first and last name, unit and 

contact information of the Air Force staff 

sergeant calling from Joint Base LangleyEustis in Virginia. He needs a repair part 

for a grounded aircraft.

Mathews, who’s helped DLA customers 

order parts and check on delivery status 

for more than nine years, recognizes the 

sergeant’s voice and guesses correctly that 

the part will go to Tinker Air Force Base, 

Oklahoma. She gets the stock number, 

quantity needed, priority code and other 

details needed to complete a service ticket.

“Ok, let me look up the information 

and see where we can get it from,” Mathews 

says, scanning logistics systems on the 

two computer screens before her while 

asking the sergeant about his plans for the 

upcoming holiday weekend. She completes 

M

MORE THAN A

HELP 

DESK

the order as he talks about taking his family 

to an amusement park. 

“Our agents are multitaskers who like 

working with people. They have excellent 

computer, research and communication 

skills, and the ability to stay calm and 

collected, even on difficult calls,” said CIC 

Chief Penny Young. 

Located at Battle Creek, Michigan, the 

CIC is DLA’s “one-call resolution center.” 

About 80 percent of the 1,200 to 1,600 

contacts that come in daily are related 

to supply and transportation. One caller 

may need to place an order; another 

may need help using the Department 

of Defense’s electronic procurement 

site, known as DoD EMALL. The rest 

include inquiries about excess equipment 

managed by DLA Disposition Services 

or questions from vendors wanting to do 

business with the government. 

For many customers, the CIC — at 

1-877-DLA-CALL — is a fast way to reach 

a human operator and avoid being routed 

through an automated system with numerous and often frustrating prompts. Agents 

answer calls in less than 30 seconds, and 

call-handle time rarely exceeds 13 minutes. 

“We’re very proud of the fact that 

about 70 percent of our calls are resolved 

Story and Photos by Beth Reece

Customer Interaction Center agents like 

Amanda Duckworth help DLA customers 

get answers to questions on supply and 

transportation issues ranging from online 

ordering to delivery statuses.
4 www.dla.mil

“I was helping a gentleman a few years back when, all of a 

sudden, I heard mortar rounds going off. You could hear the 

desperation in his voice, but he had to stay on the phone to get 

his order in and make sure his unit got the necessary parts.”

— Matthew Badger

East saying unkind things and tying up 

the lines so customers couldn’t call in and 

get support. In a way, the war came to us,” 

Pratt said, adding that CIC officials quickly 

found a way to block such calls.

While most calls are from service members in the supply field, agents occasionally 

hear from callers with odd requests. One 

recent caller asked to be issued an uparmored vehicle because he was going to 

run for president. It sounded like a prank 

call, but the agent calmly explained that 

DLA doesn’t issue up-armored vehicles to 

the general population. 

“DLA Disposition Services does, 

however, make excess equipment available 

to other federal agencies and some 

equipment like Humvees available to the 

public through commercial ventures like 

govplanet.com. There are other agencies 

that will handle these types of questions, 

and we actually go out of our way to find 

somewhere to direct callers,” said Darrin 

Costello, a customer support team lead. 

The call could have also posed a 

security threat, depending on the 

caller’s intentions. 

“You have to take all threats seriously 

and report them to the appropriate 

New agents at the Customer Interaction 

Center spend five to six weeks learning DLA’s 

business portfolio, as well as requisition types, 

and the automated systems needed to place 

and track orders. After training, they spend 

about three months taking calls alongside a 

seasoned agent such as Sara Gorham.

immediately,” said Raymond Zingaretti, 

director of DLA Information Operations’ 

Logistics Information Services Division, 

which oversees the CIC. Calls about more 

complex matters like contractual issues 

and backlogs are escalated to DLA field 

activities, and a response describing how 

they’re being processed is sent to customers within 24 hours.

Matthew Badger, research specialist, 

is one of about 110 agents at the CIC. He 

considers it more of a help desk than a call 

center and said agents avoid saying “I can’t” 

or “I don’t know.” 

Calls from troops in Iraq and 

Afghanistan have proved to Badger the 

importance of placing customers’ orders 

correctly and quickly. He’s heard bombs 

explode and sirens wail while looking up 

information about critical repair parts 

needed on the battlefield.

“I was helping a gentleman a few 

years back when, all of a sudden, I heard 

mortar rounds going off. You could hear 

the desperation in his voice, but he had 

to stay on the phone to get his order in 

and make sure his unit got the necessary 

parts,” Badger said.

The CIC is a consolidation of what was 

once several help centers with different 

phone numbers operated by each of DLA’s 

supply chains. It became a 24/7 operation 

the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

Shamon Pratt remembers the phone lines 

being eerily quiet for a couple of days; 

then they rang nonstop, and management 

hired more agents to the handle the influx 

of calls. The staff understood that troops 

needed supplies fast as they readied for 

deployment, Pratt said. Troops weren’t the 

only ones calling.

“We got calls from people in the Middle 
Loglines l September - October 2016 5

April Turnock is one of about 110 agents at the 

Customer Interaction Center, which receives 

1,200-1,600 contacts a day from military and 

federal customers around the world.

agencies. In those situations, we capture the 

information the caller provides, try to end 

the call as quickly as possible and turn the 

issue over to security,” Costello said.

All calls are recorded to protect 

agents from false accusations. Some, 

like Sara Gorham, also serve as 

examples for handling difficult callers. 

Although she and other agents admit 

to being nervous about taking their 

first calls, Gorham said agent training, 

which lasts five to six weeks, prepared 

her well. The training familiarizes new 

agents with DLA’s business portfolio, 

as well as requisition types, and the 

automated systems needed to place and 

track orders.

After training, new agents spend 

about three months taking calls alongside 

a seasoned agent. Gorham assisted callers 

with such authority and speed in her first 

weeks working solo that her supervisor 

asked her to join the mentoring team. 

While not working alongside new agents, 

she takes about 20-30 calls on busy days 

and eight on holidays. 

Gorham recognizes the effects good 

customer service can have on DLA’s 

reputation and service members’ success. 

During a recent call from a Marine 

corporal asking for the whereabouts of his 

order, Gorham scanned several logistics 

systems but couldn’t find the answer. 

She knew the corporal would have to 

wait at least 24 hours for a response if 

she forwarded the service ticket to DLA 

Distribution for resolution. Instead, she 

gave him the shipper’s name and phone 

number and a bill of lading number, 

indicating the particular vehicle the goods 

were placed on. 

“If you don’t get an answer from 

the carrier, call us right back and we’ll 

escalate your ticket to DLA Distribution. 

But I think you’ll have some luck and 

probably get a faster response by calling 

the shipper directly,” she said. 

Data collected during calls is also 

analyzed by Logistics Information 

Services’ Customer Outreach Branch to 

identify areas where customers may need 

informal or hands-on training, such as 

when DLA assumed logistics support for 

the Forest Service in 2014.

“We had to teach them to know what 

information was needed on EMALL 

and in what format. We also created a 

spreadsheet that matches the data they 

use for their supply system with the 

information we need,” said Tracy Nance, 

a lead customer support specialist. CIC 

personnel continue teaching firefighters 

how to use EMALL and will train them, or 

any customer, via phone, she added.

The war in Iraq is over and fewer 

troops are deployed to Afghanistan, but 

the CIC continues 24/7 operations with 

agents split among three shifts. 

“We have folks all over the world who 

need assistance, so we can’t just check out at 

5 p.m. What time is it in Korea or Germany? 

Even when it’s Thanksgiving or New Year’s, 

there’s still somebody in harm’s way who 

might need us,” Costello said. 

And customers value the service, 

according to automated surveys. 

Satisfaction rates are at 90-100 percent, 

with agents’ knowledge and willingness to 

go out of their way to help being among the 

most complimented features of the CIC.

Young, who’s worked at the center 

since 1998, said she heads to the office 

each morning confident that she and 

those who work for her play a meaningful 

role in supporting America’s military and 

other federal customers. Even Gorham, 

with just one year on the job, said she 

can’t imagine working anywhere else. 

She takes calls with a wide smile callers 

can’t see, but the warmth in her voice can 

be heard. Most of her calls end with the 

customer saying “Thank you.”

 “You’re welcome; it’s my pleasure,” 

she always replies. 

DOD EMALL 

TO GET A 

MAKEOVER

FedMall, a new web-based e-commerce site where Defense Logistics Agency 

customers can order goods, will replace the 

Department of Defense EMALL in October. 

FedMall is an easy-to-navigate 

platform that has the look and feel of 

a commercial website. Users will have 

access to the same functionality in DoD 

EMALL but with an updated interface.

“We understand the eager anticipation for FedMall and share the feelings. 

A seamless transition from DoD EMALL 

to FedMall is our goal, and we appreciate 

your participation and input into this 

process,” said Phil Deboe, program 

manager for DoD EMALL and FedMall.

Once the new integrated master 

schedule has been completed, DLA 

Information Operations will update 

registered users on testing dates and 

the launch of FedMall. 

— Information Operations
6 www.dla.mil

ost military exercises 

operate in simulated 

environments and 

use hypothetical 

requirements to test and 

sustain operational readiness. But for 10 

days in June, a multinational exercise 

that encompassed 16 training locations 

throughout Poland tested the mettle 

of thousands of DLA personnel, both 

military and civilian.

M

ANAKONDA-16

Anakonda-16, a real-world exercise 

that ran June 7-17, brought together 

12,000 U.S. troops and 13,000 coalition 

forces from more than 20 countries. 

It ran concurrently with two other 

significant regional exercises, Swift 

Response 16 and Saber Strike 16. 

These exercises were the largest 

U.S. military mobilization of forces in 

Europe since the Return of Forces to 

Germany, or Reforger, exercises ceased 

in the early ‘90s, said Air Force Lt. Col. 

Jeffrey Lingens, acting chief of the Joint 

Logistics Operations Center’s DLA 

Europe & Africa. 

Army, active National Guard and 

Reserve forces were used to demonstrate speed of assembly and freedom 

of movement. 

Lingens said DLA employed various 

supply classes in providing extensive 

customer support: rations; petroleum, 

CRUSHING IT

in europe

Part of the 1,484 pallet shipment of 

water vendors delivered to Torun, 

Poland, during the exercise.

Story by Dianne Ryder

Karin Jensen
Loglines l September - October 2016 7

oil and lubricants; and to a lesser degree, 

repair parts and construction materials. 

“DLA Disposition Services assisted 

with the drawdown of Anakonda-16 and 

requirements were gathered throughout 

the planning process,” he said.

“Anakonda-16 is a throwback to the 

Reforger exercises the U.S. Army Europe 

conducted to exercise and demonstrate to 

allies and adversaries our ability to deploy 

forces to Germany, if and when needed,” 

said Dimitrus Lowe, a property disposal 

specialist in DLA Disposition Services. 

(L-R) Operations officer Air Force Capt. Kristen 

Wolverton, Quality Assurance Representative 

Curtis Stough and DLA Energy Europe & Africa 

liaison officer to USAREUR Mark Knapp stand in 

front of a 50,000-gallon bag of JP-8, or aviation 

grade fuel, at the fuel system supply point in 

Torun, Poland. The DLA Energy team provided 

subject matter expertise in an advisory role to 

the USAREUR site.

Air Force Capt. Kristen Wolverton
8 www.dla.mil

Lowe explained how the exercise 

attempted to make the current 30,000 

troops in Europe function like the 

300,000 troop presence during the time 

of Reforger.

“Disposition Services’ primary part in 

the exercise was the removal of hazardous 

waste such as used oils and contaminated 

fuel left behind in Poland as U.S.-based 

forces redeployed to their home stations,” 

Lowe said.

The exercise highlighted the importance of DLA’s strategic readiness and 

ability to meet the customer’s needs, 

said David James, a DLA Europe & 

Africa planner.

“The U.S. Army is working to 

strengthen partnerships and improve 

interoperability in Europe with our 

NATO partners and allied nations,” he 

said. “DLA has to be ready meet these 

increasing requirements.” 

James, who participated as part of the 

agency’s rotation program, was tasked 

with gathering information for DLA 

Europe & Africa and recommending a 

support plan for Anakonda-16. 

“The drivers from the logistics 

company only spoke Polish – 

they didn’t have any drivers 

who spoke English.”

— Karin Jensen

Army Sgt. 1st Class Ulysses Acheampong, 

Spc. Brenton Taylor and Spc. Jerome Payne 

used the 8-liter bottles from a secondary 

vendor for cooking and washing dishes during 

Anakonda-16. All soldiers are assigned to the 

66th Transportation Company, 16 Sustainment 

Brigade, Kaiserslautern, Germany.

Karin Jensen

“In most cases, the [DLA primary-level 

field activities] were heavily engaged as 

well – [DLA] Troop Support and DLA 

Distribution worked closely with the Army 

on a plan for subsistence and successfully 

delivered over $1.2 million in rations in 

support of the exercise,” James said. “DLA 

Energy liaison officers were involved in the 

planning process from the very beginning 

and deployed in support of the exercise.”

DLA Europe & Africa warfighter 

support representatives assisted with 

building up stocks of repair parts as the 

units prepared to deploy in support of the 

exercise and Disposition Services played 

a critical role assisting the Army with 

cleanup, James said. 

“There was a lot of great work done 

across DLA,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed seeing 

it all come together.” 

James said he observed nothing 

that jeopardized DLA support but he 

reiterated that the exercise highlighted 

the importance of customer engagement 

during planning and logistics execution. 

“No matter how good a plan is, things 

will change during execution,” he said. 

“Having people embedded at the key 

logistics hubs allowed us to respond and 

make adjustments as needed.” 

Anakonda-16 was an exercise of 

unprecedented size and provided a unique 

opportunity to integrate U.S. forces and 

coalition forces, said DLA Energy Europe 

& Africa operations officer Air Force Capt. 

Kristen Wolverton.

 “We were able to form relationships 

with logistics professionals through 

the European theater that will prove 

invaluable as the theater continues to 

evolve,” she said. “Getting the chance to 

see how the Allied and partner nations 

work in this type of exercise was a new 

opportunity for me.”

In addition, Wolverton said the 

experience expanded her understanding 

of how other services plan and execute 

their operations. 

“It’s something I’ll carry with me as a 

member of DLA and beyond.” 

DLA Energy’s role in the exercise was 

not only to provide fuel to the warfighter, 

but also to hone their ability to more 

effectively plan and execute fuel support, 

Wolverton said. 

“We always have a host of methods 

to choose from when it comes to 
Loglines l September - October 2016 9

Army 1st Lt. Julie McCabe

providing fuel and we were able to 

prove multiple methods of fuel support 

in the exercise theater,” she said. 

“Analyzing how well that fuel support 

worked will help us develop as an 

organization and ultimately better 

serve the warfighter.”

Karin Jensen, a contract specialist and 

local national with DLA Troop Support in 

Germany, said her organization’s primary 

responsibility was to provide bottled water. 

“Anakonda was quite a challenge,” 

she said. “It was the first time we had to 

deal with so many soldiers – about 31,000 

soldiers and 24 NATO countries.” 

Jensen’s planning began in April 

when she established a blanket purchase 

agreement with a vendor in Poland.

“I thought it was easier to get 

somebody right there in Poland, plus it 

was the only vet-approved source in the 

Poland area,” she said. 

Two weeks later, Jensen said the 

vendor started making their first deliveries 

in preparation for the troops’ arrival.

“They delivered 12-15 truckloads a 

week,” she said. “They were running constantly, day and night. They had to produce 

so much water for this exercise – it was 

quite a challenge on them as well as on us.”

Lessons learned came in the early 

phases of the operation, Jensen said. 

“The drivers from the logistics company 

only spoke Polish – they didn’t have any 

drivers who spoke English,” she said.

Because of the language barrier, 

Jensen said the trucks were delayed in 

their deliveries and she made many calls 

to coordinate with the vendor and the 

customers so there were no supply failures.

“After a while it got worked out,” she 

said. “They finally got a hold of some Polish 

soldiers who spoke the language, but the 

first couple of weeks were difficult.” 

Another difficulty proved to be 

the terrain where Anakonda was held, 

Jensen said.

“At the beginning, the customers 

expected these trucks to drive in the 

woods where the exercise took place – 

and these were bumpy roads,” she said. 

“Sometimes the vendor didn’t have the 

correct address and had to drive an 

additional 15-30 miles,” she said. 

But the trucks were re-routed and the 

deliveries made at no additional expense.

“The company handled it pretty well, 

I think,” Jensen said. “Most of these 

problems were solved quickly.”

When the request for final deliveries 

came in, the requirement was for larger 

containers of water. So Jensen had to 

contract with a vendor in Italy.

“Because the vendor in Poland does 

not produce these large bottles,” she said. 

“The customer requested 8-liter bottles for 

cooking purposes and washing dishes.”

In the end, the vendor delivered 1,484 

pallets of water, or 747,936 1.5-liter bottles, 

along with numerous 8-liter bottles, in 

support of Anakonda.

“That’s quite a lot,” she said. “Everything worked out well with the contracts, 

and the customer received what they 

asked for — which is good.” 

Army Spc. Daniel Ofier loads pallets of water 

onto a trailer system for delivery to the logistics 

support area in Drawsko Pomorskie Training 

Area during exercise Anakonda-16.
10 www.dla.mil

Story by Jake Joy

DLA Disposition Services

BATTLE 

IN BATTLE CREEK AND BEYOND

READY

ince the mid-2000s, defense 

strategists have argued that future 

security gains will require lean, 

malleable fighting assets able 

to quickly respond to localized 

disasters and contingencies, rather than 

a continued reliance on the sprawling 

battlefield apparatuses historically 

required for protracted land wars against 

sovereign nations.

S

Defense Logistics Agency Disposition 

Services personnel put this philosophy 

into place in a three-year effort to prepare 

quick-reaction property disposal teams 

for getting ever closer to the action, 

wherever it might come next.

The adoption of an expeditionary 

mindset partly demanded the 

development of a “train as you fight” 

atmosphere, combining the agency’s 

civilian disposition expertise with the 

operational flexibility of its Reserve 

military force. The subsequent training 

evolutions have drawn uniformly positive 

reviews from participants, who roundly 

proclaim thankfulness for the opportunity 

to develop rapport before being thrown 

into a deployment together. 

“Sometimes, when deployed, 

[civilians] weren’t sure of what the 

[military logisticians] were capable 

of doing. And they didn’t know what 

expertise we had. It was like two teams 

working on one site,” said Victor Ambegia, 

site manager for DLA Disposition Services 

at Little Rock, Arkansas, during the first 
Loglines l September - October 2016 11

combined personnel expeditionary skills 

testing event in 2014. “Here, civilians 

are learning the [military] structure, and 

they are seeing our expertise. We’re both 

learning things. It’s great. We should train 

together as much as possible.” 

Navy Logistics Spec. 3rd Class Adam 

Klosterman said the combined training 

prepared him to handle a “wide variety of 

different tasks.”

Expeditionary civilians “are very 

knowledgeable — eager to show you 

and train you in other parts of the job. 

The relationship works really well,” 

Klosterman said. “It’s good training and 

a good learning experience. We did a few 

things wrong, but we learned why it’s 

wrong and how to fix it.”

That kind of positive feedback led to 

increased standardization of combined 

training efforts. Now, after more than two 

dozen course deliveries and 500 training 

seat fills, these fully integrated military 

and civilian disposition units, with their 

toolboxes full of crunching, cutting 

and shredding tools, have been tested, 

retested and proclaimed ready to go.

“We’re leaps and bounds ahead of 

where we were, as far as working jointly,” 

said Craig Barrett, the DLA Disposition 

Services Expeditionary Site Support 

program manager, who played a key role 

in the development of the integrated 

deployment teams. “They’re training 

together in multiple events prior to 

deploying downrange, and we’ve already 

seen significant increases in efficiency, 

reductions in operational mishaps, and 

the [deployer] individual skill sets have 

improved significantly.” 

DLA Disposition Services already 

was the primary deployment arm of the 

agency in terms of boots on the ground. 

Disposition deployments constituted 

more than the rest of DLA’s personnel 

deployments combined in the past 

decade, which simply illustrates the 

nature of reverse logistics work. If a 

vehicle or bulky piece of equipment 

becomes unusable or obsolete, it would 

hardly make sense to try and ship it back 

to the U.S. to auction or destroy it, Barrett 

noted. Disposition personnel have to go 

and do many of their chores where the 

chores need to be done. The expanded 

training curriculum has helped ensure 

An Expeditionary Disposal Removal Team 

member consolidates excess metal scrap from 

base closure operations at Forward Operating 

Base Walton in Afghanistan. DLA Disposition 

Services and its expeditionary workforce have 

removed well over 1 billion pounds of scrap 

there, with sales continuing each week. 

— Photo by Army Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston
12 www.dla.mil

Jeff Landenberger

Jake Joy

that everyone sent forward is truly a do-itall deployer, he explained.

“Our expeditionary [trainees] can 

perform all of the missions normally 

performed in a [continental United States 

or outside the continental U.S.] fixed site. 

In fact, we give them more capability than 

normal,” Barrett said. “They can receive 

property. They can process it. They can 

interact with customers that want to 

reuse property. They can donate, they 

can potentially sell property under scrap 

contracts and they can also demilitarize 

property on site. They can shred it, they 

can cut it, they can mutilate it, they 

can crush it. They are capable of all the 

DEMIL functions we normally rely on. 

... Overseas, every disposition location is 

basically a demilitarization center, unlike 

in the U.S. Downrange, we don’t want to 

have to move property multiple times. It 

puts the warfighter on the road, which is 

a problem.” 

In Afghanistan, insurgent fighters 

relied heavily on roadside improvised 

explosive devices as a primary attack 

method in lieu of direct combat. DLA 

Disposition Services helped warfighters 

minimize convoys by tweaking its service 

structure and sending specialists all the 

way out to remote forward operating 

bases where they could assess needs and 

authorize local contractors to remove scrap. 

This expeditionary mindset meant 

soldiers and Marines no longer had to 

haul scrap back along dangerous roads 

to rid their units of broken refrigerators 

and worn-out vehicles. Disposition 

personnel have now scrapped well 

over 1 billion pounds of material there. 

Deployed military personnel meticulously 

evaluate heaps of shredded wire and 

metal to ensure the raw materials for 

bomb-making don’t end up in the hands 

of enemies.

“Get out your hammer, bang it 

and throw it back in,” Environmental 

Protection Specialist Luis Guzman told 

fellow trainees during a combined testing 

evolution where he snagged an electronic 

resistor out of a bin of computers they 

had just mulched. “If our adversaries 

snagged a load of this stuff, they would 

pay locals to comb through it and try to 

find anything they could use. Even a little 

resistor like that, I don’t take a chance 

to release into theater. If they know 

the capacity of that, they can create an 

[improvised explosive device].”

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jennifer Allen 

and Army Sgt. Christopher Tennant pull a roof 

over a shelter with fellow trainees during DLA 

Disposition Services Overseas Contingency 

Operations Readiness Training in Battle Creek, 

Michigan. The two-week capstone training allows 

DLA-assigned military reservists to strengthen 

their demilitarization, disposition and disposal 

skills alongside DLA civilians while preparing for 

possible expeditionary assignments. 

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Nicole Collins, 

DLA Disposition Services employee Mike 

Hambrick, Petty Officer 2nd Class Clarice 

Johnson and Petty Officer 2nd Class Tracy 

McCall discuss their plan for erecting a 

full-service disposition facility in less than 

100 hours during a pre-deployment training 

scenario in Battle Creek, Michigan, in July.
Loglines l September - October 2016 13

Jake Joy

“We’re leaps and bounds 

ahead of where we were, 

as far as working jointly,” 

— Craig Barrett 

These are the types of learned 

lessons and nuggets of wisdom shared 

and discussed during the now-standard 

combined training iterations.

While maintaining operations at 

roughly 100 sites in 16 countries, the 

activity has deployed more than 1,000 

civilian and military personnel in Iraq, 

Afghanistan and other hazardous and 

austere locations in the past decade. Those 

civilians and Reserve service members 

continue sharing their accumulated 

centuries of combined deployment 

knowledge. The policies, procedures and 

best practices now standardized were born 

of a decade of trial and error, of figuring 

things out on the fly and of field personnel 

resolving emergent issues through creative 

problem solving.

“We brought in field personnel who 

had multiple deployments, headquarters 

subject matter experts who had previously 

deployed or were at the top of their field, 

and we put them together for a weeklong 

conference to identify the individual skills 

and group tasks that site personnel would 

be expected to accomplish in theater,” 

Barrett said. 

One major result of this institutional 

knowledge download took on a physical 

shape in the form of four Expeditionary 

Site Sets. With one positioned in Guam, 

one in Kuwait and two stashed near 

DLA Disposition Services headquarters 

in Battle Creek, Michigan, the 

comprehensive equipment packages 

are ready to function as full-service 

disposition sites, potentially offering all 

the same services a soldier or airman 

could normally get by driving onto one of 

DLA’s permanent disposition locations. 

With portable shelters, 

generators, tractors and 

torches, these disposalsite-in-a-box capabilities 

were concocted to be 

shipped and then set up 

by one of six trained units 

at nearly any location in 

the world in less than 100 

hours. The sets can be scaled up or down 

as circumstances require.

Preparing disposition personnel 

to arrive at a potentially austere 

location, construct their own worksite 

and immediately begin receiving 

and processing property required 

development of a broad knowledge and 

skill base. The path to creating that 

level of self-sufficiency for every team 

member began with a decision to school 

all deployers in the proper use of the 

Petrogen Oxygen-Fuel Torch System 

for performing demilitarization. Basic 

material handling 

equipment instruction 

also became a 

requirement, and 

trainers offered an 

advanced deployment 

course for downrange 

leaders to help them 

develop working 

relationships prior to a possible sudden call 

up. Intermediate and advanced material 

handling equipment courses and more 

formalized intermediate cutting instruction 

followed to help round out the physical skills 

and knowledge sets of team members.

Navy logistics personnel search a Caiman 

Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected vehicle in 

Battle Creek, Michigan, for errant ammunition 

before destroying it in accordance with U.S. 

demilitarization policies.
14 www.dla.mil

Expeditionary capstone evaluation 

occurs in Battle Creek during the Overseas 

Contingency Operations Readiness 

Training, or OCORT, evolution held 

each summer for the past few years. 

About 60 personnel typically take part 

in building up an Expeditionary Site Set, 

demonstrating all their critical skill sets 

for observers, and dealing with the bonus 

challenges trainers like to throw their way.

It’s the contingency property disposal 

equivalent of the scenario-based mission 

rehearsal exercises that ground units have 

used for decades ahead of deployments to 

Southwest Asia and the Balkans. 

Logistics Management Specialist Tim 

Walters is directing this year’s OCORT, and 

he explained that the training scenarios, 

or “injects,” used to test participants can 

range from misplaced or faulty equipment 

to environmental mishaps, to safety 

concerns like a traumatic injury or measles 

outbreak, severe weather or journalists and 

photographers showing up at the site – all 

of which have happened at downrange 

locations in the past. 

“Some injects are aimed at leadership, 

to test their critical thinking skills,” Walters 

said. “Some are aimed at site personnel 

to see how they will respond to day-today challenges like a supply shortage. If 

equipment arrives and it is non-mission 

capable, how do you arrange equipment 

repairs? If a customer turns in a piece of 

equipment that is leaking oil, what do you 

do? We’ll bring in an environmentalist to 

instruct them on how to deal with it and 

how to report the mishap.” 

The 2016 training brought an allnew level of immersion to the exercise: 

real customers with real equipment 

turn-ins. For the very first time, 

participants performed equipment 

receipt services for nearby Army, Air 

Force and Marine Corps units hoping 

to avoid the transportation challenges 

of hauling defunct equipment to the 

nearest DLA Disposition Services 

location at Selfridge Air National Guard 

Base two hours to the east.

“[Units] were loving it. They thought 

it was fantastic that we were doing this,” 

Walters said.

Just as in the real world, exercise 

personnel have to know their disposition 

guidance and directives. One unit 

attempted to turn in a bulky parts washer 

for jet engine components, but had to be 

turned away. The reason? They could not 

certify that the equipment had been drained 

and purged of fluid, which is a requirement 

to help ensure scrap cutters don’t slice into 

something dangerous or explosive. 

Walters said the six deployment teams, 

each commanded by a Navy commander 

or an Army lieutenant colonel, have settled 

into a six-year rotation, with two years of 

training, two years of immediate deployment availability and two years of unit 

reset. The goal is to now provide sustained 

expeditionary disposition support during 

two separate contingencies, humanitarian 

or disaster response events simultaneously, 

wherever they may occur. 

DLA Disposition Services’ expeditionary capabilities

are highlighted in an agency marketing video titled 

“When You Need It, Where You Need It:

Expeditionary Disposal from DLA,”

available on the agency’s YouTube channel

or through its website.

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jeff Leet combs 

through a bin of scrap material during predeployment training in Battle Creek, Michigan.

— Photo by Jake Joy
Loglines l September - October 2016 15

he Medical supply chain’s national 

contracts team had less than four 

months to award its first contract. 

Except that there was no team. 

Not yet.

It was just starting to form when 

Alexander Quinones took charge of the 

team at the end of January 2013. Others 

came on board shortly before or after, 

from other supply chains within Defense 

Logistics Agency Troop Support. Most 

were new to the Medical supply chain and 

to writing long-term contracts.

Their goal was to buy generic drugs 

at the best possible price and ensure their 

availability for customers.

DLA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. 

Andy Busch noted soon after taking the 

helm of the agency that cost savings 

are an important part of Better Buying 

Power 3.0, the initiative led by the under 

secretary of defense for acquisition, 

technology and logistics, to reform all 

aspects of defense spending, to save 

taxpayer dollars.

“One of the things that I noticed in 

looking at the agency from the outside, 

prior to my arrival is we’re doing great 

things,” Busch said in a March 2015 

T

Story by Michael Tuttle, DLA Troop Support Public Affairs

director’s call, in which he noted the 

“fantastic” goal of saving $13.1 billion 

in six years set by his predecessor, Adm. 

Mark Harnitchek.

“But one of the things that I noticed 

that I think we need to improve on is the 

relationship between those great things 

we were doing and Better Buying Power,” 

Busch said.

“If this is an enterprise that spends 

$40 billion of the taxpayer money ... 

why is it that we can’t more clearly 

articulate our enterprise in terms of 

Better Buying Power?”

Busch’s emphasis echoed the specific 

challenge Harnitchek issued to the 

Medical supply chain three years earlier: 

to award its first national generic drug 

contract by the end of May 2013.

BUYING POWER

The national contracts team is charged 

with awarding long-term contracts for 

generic drugs. There isn’t a lot of competition when a drug first goes generic. 

Quinones’ team targets high-dollar 

or high-volume drugs for contracts when 

there are multiple vendors selling them.

“It’s easiest for us if we have 

competition to drive that price down,” 

he said.

He works with the Department of 

Veterans Affairs and the Defense Health 

Agency, which oversees medical services 

for the military branches, to determine 

the requirements for a potential drug to 

put on contract. 

“We’re leveraging the buying power 

of essentially the federal government,” 

Quinones said.

Sometimes the costs are so reduced 

that customers who were buying a similar 

drug switch, Quinones said.

“Our goal is to get really good pricing, 

but also to make sure we’re ensuring the 

availability to customers,” said Amanda 

Army Sgt. Frisco Cleary, with the 396th 

Combat Support Hospital Company, 

consolidates medications in the pharmacy 

tent during a medical readiness exercise at 

San Padro, Guatemala. 

Army Spc. Kelson Brooks

SAVES BIG 

ON DRUGS

DLA TROOP SUPPORT’S ‘DREAM TEAM’
16 www.dla.mil

The DLA Troop Support Medical supply chain’s 

“dream team”: from left to right, Alexander 

Quinones, integrated supply team chief; Denise 

Taubman, Amanda Doherty, and Danielle 

Delaney, contracting officers; Joanne Marie 

Grace, acquisition specialist; and Christopher 

Newman, intern.

Doherty, contracting officer on the national 

contracts team. “Customers know that 

they’re getting it from the same source, the 

same pills they get every month and it’s 

going to work the same way.”

The VA has been awarding contracts 

for generic drugs for 10 years. DLA and 

DHA then decided to award their own for 

Defense Department-priority pharmaceuticals. Now, if the VA purchases more of 

an item, their contracting team awards the 

contract and vice versa. If they’re buying 

the same amount, Quinones and his VA 

peers decide case-by-case. DLA and VA 

customers are mostly able to buy drugs 

from either agency’s contracts.

“We have a good working relationship 

with the VA,” said Joan Marie Grace, 

an acquisition specialist on the national 

contracts team. “They’ve been pretty 

open with us.”

WHAT’S IN IT FOR INDUSTRY?

Aside from pharmaceuticals available 

on national contracts, military treatment 

facilities primarily buy drugs from the 

VA’s Federal Supply Schedule and the 

DoD Distribution and Pricing Agreement. 

Customers looking to buy a drug go to 

the publicly listed FSS and choose among 

competing vendors offering the product 

at their respective price.

But when a vendor is awarded a national 

contract, it becomes the preferred provider 

of that drug and has the first chance at selling it, as long as it has the item in stock. And 

DLA commits to buying a minimum amount 

of the drugs over the period of the contract.

While DoD is a small percentage of 

global pharmaceutical sales, the vendor is 

guaranteed to move the product through 

these national contracts, as opposed to the 

FSS, Quinones said.

 ANTI-MALARIA DRUG SAVINGS

Production issues began with 

doxycycline hyclate, an antibiotic that can 

be used to prevent malaria, in early 2013. It 

became difficult to keep it in stock and prices 

increased, Doherty said.

Service members deploying to developing countries are provided the drug as 

part of their packing list. There were an 

estimated 214 million cases of the mosquitotransmitted disease worldwide in 2015, 

according to the World Health Organization.

“The military needed it, regardless of 

the increasing prices,” Doherty said about 

doxycycline hyclate. “This made it a good 

candidate for a national contract.”

The one-year contract with four 

option years was awarded in December 

2014 and the pricing went into effect two 

months later. It’s estimated to save $271 

million over the course of five years for all 

customers, Doherty said.

The contract is now in its first option 

year, and the savings since February 

2015 through June 2016 is $68.1 million. 

That savings is calculated against what 

DLA’s customers previously paid for the 

drug and the best available prices on the 

FSS and the Distribution and Pricing 

Agreement, Quinones said.

“I’m just really glad that I was given 

Michael Tuttle
Loglines 

l September - October 2016 17

the opportunity to work on a contract for 

something so important to our troops like 

doxycycline hyclate,” Doherty said, “and to 

be able to ensure that the product would 

be available and to get them a great price.”

‘DREAM TEAM’

Quinones recalled his first thoughts 

after he took charge of the national con-

tracts team and the challenge to award its 

first contract in less than four months. 

 “Nobody awards contracts of this value 

with this level of review in three and a half 

months,” he said he remembered thinking.

The team worked quickly with 

management, lawyers and DLA Troop 

Support’s staff offices during contract 

reviews throughout the award process.

“Everything was going through 

review levels for the first time,” said 

Danielle Delaney, a contracting officer 

on the team. “Who sees what? Why 

was it written this way? There was a 

lot to getting a good version down that 

everyone was happy with.”

There were nearly a dozen versions of 

the solicitation, Grace said.

They awarded that first contract a 

week early. It was for the generic drug 

omeprazole, used to treat stomach ulcers. 

It’s estimated to save $6.9 million over 

five years. Since that first one, they’ve 

awarded 44 more contracts. 

“There’s a lot of churn,” Quinones said. 

“There’s new contract awards going and 

new options that have to be done. Our team 

does a great job balancing that work. There 

are a lot of different contracts at different 

stages that the team has to keep track of.”

As of June, the national contracts 

team has saved $246.4 million through 

the 45 contracts awarded.

“We call it the ‘dream team’ because 

we really like working with each other,” 

Grace said. “We were all here essentially 

starting from scratch. We all had a lot to 

learn from each other. We have a lot of 

skin in the game now.” 

Air Force Senior Airman Kimberly Walker, 18th 

Medical Support Squadron pharmacy technician, 

stocks medicines at Kadena Air Base, Japan. 

The DLA Troop Support’s Medical supply 

chain national contracts team has awarded 44 

contracts for generic drugs since 2013.

Nacho Anazawa
18 www.dla.mil

octors said his chances of survival 

were less than 10 percent. “Send 

for the priest,” they urged family. 

But Joe Lehman lived, stunning 

family and co-workers by returning 10 months later to his job as a criminal 

investigator at the Defense Logistics 

Agency’s Office of the Inspector General. 

On May 15, 2014, Lehman decided 

to ride his Harley-Davidson to a meeting 

with Air Force investigators at Joint 

Base Andrews, Maryland. At a four-way 

intersection only a couple of miles from 

his destination on post, a silver BMW 

coming from the opposite direction 

started to turn left in front of him. 

“But when the driver saw me, he 

stopped cold in the middle of the intersection. If he’d have stomped on the gas, he 

would’ve shot right by me. Instead, he left 

me nowhere to go, so I collided with the 

right front corner of his car,” he recalled. 

Lehman cartwheeled 13 feet over 

the hood before landing on his head, 

unconscious and seizing, on the opposite 

side of the street. Workers in a nearby 

building stared from their windows as 

paramedics rushed to open Lehman’s 

airway. Within 40 minutes, he was 

D airlifted to the trauma center at Prince 

George’s Hospital Center, where surgeons 

removed part of his skull to ease the 

pressure on his swelling brain. He spent 

the next two months in a medically 

induced coma. Total injuries: five skull 

fractures, trauma to his lungs and 

kidneys, loss of part of his left foot and a 

permanently bent pinky.

Lehman’s wife, Greta, relived the 

accident for weeks. 

“I woke up every morning at 3 a.m. 

dreaming that I saw the accident, even 

though I didn’t. After a while of living in 

the hospital and going through the Last 

Rites with the priest, I became numb. We 

almost lost him twice,” she said.

The Lehmans were never alone. 

Donna Estep, director of DLA’s Injury 

ROAD TO

RECOVERY

Story by Beth Reece

Total Injuries: 

five skull fractures, 

trauma to his lungs 

and kidneys, loss of 

part of his left foot 

and a permanently 

bent pinky.

RESILIENCY IN ACTION
Loglines l September - October 2016 19

Joseph Lehman, a criminal investigator 

for DLA’s Office of the Inspector General, 

nearly lost his life in a motorcycle 

accident in 2014, but he returned to work 

after just 10 months of recovery. 

— Courtesy Photos
20 www.dla.mil

as reasoning and logic. And practice 

improved his ability to perform daily tasks 

like bathing and shaving.

After two months of intense therapy, 

doctors sent Lehman home. He still 

couldn’t climb stairs, so Greta pushed 

furniture out of the family room to 

make space for a hospital bed and 

medical supplies and even had the 

downstairs powder room converted to a 

handicapped-accessible toilet and shower. 

She slept on the floor next to her husband, 

got up when he needed help to the 

bathroom and worked from home until he 

became more agile.

“I was his hands and legs for a long 

time. After a while, though, the best thing 

I did was get out of his way and let him 

take risks,” she said.

Greta was “absolutely opposed” to 

it when Lehman began talking about 

returning to work, and coworkers 

urged him not to rush things. Lehman’s 

supervisor, Michelle Jordon, was worried 

about overwhelming him, but happy to 

see his eagerness to rebound. 

“It meant that no matter how 

devastating his injuries were, he wasn’t 

defeated by them,” she said. 

Lehman returned in March 2015, starting with four-hour workdays and gradually 

increasing the hours until he resumed his 

Compensation Program, called Greta 

within 24 hours of the crash to assure her 

that forms for workers’ compensation 

were already being processed. DLA’s 

chaplain offered solace from Lehman’s 

bedside, and then-DLA Director Navy 

Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek called Greta 

almost every night for a week. Coworkers 

visited the couple at the hospital, bringing 

food and gift cards. 

“DLA wrapped its arms around my 

family. It truly held us up for a long time,” 

Greta said.

She made herself part of her 

husband’s medical team by researching 

brain injuries and holistic healing. After 

discovering music therapy and how 

different regions of the brain respond to 

various melodies, she put a five-CD player 

in his room to play a continuous loop of 

soothing nature sounds, Bach and the 

Rolling Stones. She studied reflexology 

and learned the best spots to massage 

essential oils on his feet. The nurses 

welcomed her attentiveness and taught 

her how to hang IV bags.

“It made me feel like, in some little 

way, I was bringing him back,” she said. 

Doctors pulled Lehman out of the 

coma July 5. He woke up weak and 60 

pounds lighter and was soon moved 

to the Mount Vernon Nursing and 

Rehabilitation Center. Nurses there rarely 

let him out of bed. 

“They kept pushing me around in 

wheelchairs, and I distinctly remember 

asking them, ‘I’m going to walk again, 

aren’t I?’”

He expected a “yes.” He even expected 

to be back on the rink with his hockey 

team the following Wednesday. It was 

what he did every Wednesday for years 

before the accident. But the answer he got 

sounded doubtful and bleak. “We’ll have 

to see,” a nurse replied.

“That’s when I thought to myself, 

‘There’s a chance I may never walk again.’ 

It scared me.”

Recovery became Lehman’s only 

goal. With physical therapy, he regained 

strength and balance. Speech therapy 

helped him relearn cognitive tasks such 

pre-injury, eight-hour day in May. 

“I was desperate to return to my 

normal life and get back a sense of self,” 

Lehman said.

The days of collecting evidence and 

interrogating suspects are probably over 

for Lehman. While most of his work at DLA 

involved white-collar crimes such as fraud 

and sexual harassment, he also investigated 

homicides, rapes and robberies. 

“I have a lot of experience I can call on 

that never goes away, which is good. But 

I’m not as sharp or as perceptive as I once 

was, and I’m well aware of that,” he said.

Estep, who followed Lehman’s 

progress on a website Greta shared with 

friends and family, said it was a special 

day when he returned to work.

“I find it so remarkable that Joe 

remained steadfast on returning to work 

despite the severity of his injuries,” 

she said. “More often than not, I see 

employees with much more minor injuries 

who remain off work as long as Joe did or 

even longer.” 

Lehman’s recovery isn’t complete. 

He still has seizures and symptoms 

of traumatic brain injury: difficulty 

concentrating, fatigue and forgetfulness, 

to name a few. 

“A person who goes through a TBI or 

loses a limb has some serious hurdles to 

get through. It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” 

Greta said. “It’s a long, long race.”

DLA Human Resources Director 

Brad Bunn said Lehman is the epitome 

of a DLA team member who is “resilient 

in the face of professional and personal 

challenges,” which is an objective in the 

DLA Strategic Plan. 

“Mr. Lehman’s personal and 

professional resiliency is a shining example 

for all DLA employees,” Bunn said.

His physical and mental impairments 

may endure, but Lehman strives each day 

to do something he was incapable of the 

day before. The man who once feared he’d 

never walk again now plays racquetball and 

rides a bicycle. He’ll consider himself fully 

recovered the day he plays hockey again, 

and while he’s at peace knowing it may 

never happen, he won’t stop trying. 

“That’s when 

I thought to 

myself, ‘There’s 

a chance I may 

never walk 

again.’ 

It scared me.”

— Joe Lehman
24 www.dla.mil

ost employees don’t expect 

to be injured on the job – 

but the Defense Logistics 

Agency processed a total 

of 498 claims in calendar 

year 2015, accounting for 2.1 percent 

of the agencywide workforce. Such 

occurrences can test an individual’s and 

an organization’s resiliency.

Donna Estep, director of the DLA 

Human Resource Services Injury 

Compensation Office, has been involved 

M

Story and Photos by Dianne Ryder

WORKPLACE INJURIES —

NOW WHAT?

(L-R) Lead Injury Compensation Program Administrators Donna Carr and Patricia Royster discuss a claim with DLA’s Human Resources Services Injury 

Compensation Office Director Donna Estep.

with DLA’s workers’ compensation program 

since its formal establishment in 2002.

“We put some good processes in place, 

and we started managing the cases from 

beginning to end,” she said. “And the result 

of that has been really positive. We’ve been 

able to go from what was heading toward 

$40 million in compensation and medical 

costs per year down to right around $20 

million this year.”

So what should an employee do if he 

or she is injured while on duty? Estep 

advises employees to first notify their 

supervisor and seek any needed medical 

care. Next, the employee and supervisor 

complete one of two claim forms. The 

Federal Employee’s Notice of Traumatic 

Injury and Claim for Continuation of 

Pay/Compensation, or CA-1 form, is for 

an acute injury from a specific, one-time 

incident. For workplace injuries accrued 

over time, the form to use is CA-2, 

Notice of Occupational Disease and 

Claim for Compensation. 

The injured employee’s supervisor 

is responsible for submitting the form 

to the Injury Compensation Office. If 

there is missing information, a specialist 

will contact the injured worker or the 

supervisor, Estep said.

“The claim form is then transmitted to 

the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of 

Workers’ Compensation Programs elecRESILIENCY IN ACTION
Loglines l September - October 2016 25

tronically for assignment of a claim number,” she said. “The claim number is used 

for all matters associated with the claim, 

including billing by medical providers.”

Estep reminds managers it’s 

important to submit injury claims as 

soon as possible but no later than seven 

days after receiving a claim from the 

worker. This helps the employee receive 

prompt benefit entitlements and helps 

the agency meet timeliness goals set by 

the Protecting our Workers and Ensuring 

Reemployment program. 

Even if an employee experiences a 

slip, trip or fall and reports it but doesn’t 

initially seek treatment, Estep always 

encourages employees to report on-thejob injuries. 

“Once a claim is received by the Injury 

Compensation Office, we’re going to have 

that claim number for you within hours,” 

she said. “It used to take days, but because 

we file the claims to the DOL-OWCP 

electronically, we’ve see claim numbers 

come through in less than 20 minutes.”

To be considered timely, employees 

have up to three years from the date 

of injury to file a claim, but Estep 

recommends employees immediately file 

their claim, while the circumstances of 

the incident are still fresh, since a delay in 

reporting can lead to an inability to recall 

all the facts surrounding the accident. 

Although DOL makes the final 

decision on approval of claims, Estep 

said she and her staff are available to 

answer questions about billing, appeals 

or to simply act as liaisons between the 

employee and DOL-OWCP. 

“We’re the squeaky wheel,” she said. 

“We get in the middle of it — calling 

providers, DOL-OWCP — we’re going to 

do what we can to help resolve the issue.”

The Injury Compensation Program 

is just one example of HR programs that 

help fortify workforce resiliency, which 

is an objective in the People and Culture 

goal area of the DLA Strategic Plan. 

“Top-notch support of people who are 

injured on the job and our administration 

of many other programs allow DLA 

Human Resources to help meet the 

director’s goal of supporting our entire 

workforce in their efforts to become 

more effective in their professional and 

personal lives,” Bunn said. 

In 2005, The Department of Defense 

established the Pipeline Funding 

Program, a special authority that allows 

for funding and up to one year of overhire authority, when the agency is able to 

return an injured employee to work in an 

alternate position that accommodates the 

work-related medical restrictions. 

DLA has used the program to great 

advantage, Estep said. To date, 102 

agency employees have been returned 

to work via the program. The lifetime 

time cost avoidance associated with 

the return to work effort is quickly 

approaching $99 million.

If managers are hesitant to take 

advantage of the program, Estep said she 

informs them that one of the program’s 

benefits is the authorization for that 

organization to hire another full-time 

equivalent if they agree to continued 

employment of the injured person.

“Our goal is to make sure we take 

care of our injured workers and ensure 

they receive the benefits they are entitled 

to under this program, while being good 

stewards of the agency’s money,” she said. 

Estep used Joe Lehman’s case as 

an example of successfully returning 

an employee to the workplace, because 

he is currently working in a different 

capacity from his original position. 

Estep said she and her staff, working 

with management and DLA Human 

Resources, seek out meaningful work 

for the injured employee. 

 “It’s actually a win-win situation; 

the injured worker is able to continue to 

contribute to the mission, the while the 

agency also continues to benefit from 

the employee’s knowledge, skills and 

abilities,” she said.

Estep said she feels fortunate to have 

a team of people who enjoy working in the 

injury-compensation field. 

“The work can be difficult, it’s 

something different every day – making 

sure employees are receiving support 

and guidance needed, making sure they 

are getting paid properly, making sure 

every ‘i’ is dotted and ‘t’ is crossed,” she 

said. “My team is all in. We have made 

significant accomplishments in the 

management of the program; however, 

there is always more to be done. We 

want to continue to make a difference 

while ensuring that our injured workers 

obtain the benefits afforded to them 

under the program.” Donna Estep has been involved with DLA’s 

workers’ compensation program since 2002.

It’s important to submit injury claims as soon as possible

but no later than seven days after receiving a claim from the worker.
26 www.dla.mil

ome can’t see. Others are 

haunted by post-traumatic stress 

disorder or need a wheelchair 

to move around. They make up 

a growing part of the Defense 

Logistics Agency workforce, one that 

contributes to the daily mission in spite 

of disabling conditions ranging from 

deafness to paralysis.

By the end of fiscal 2015, DLA 

had 2,769 employees with reportable 

disabilities and 399 with targeted 

disabilities. The Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission’s list of targeted 

disabilities includes deafness, blindness 

and other significant limitations. 

Reportable disabilities include diabetes 

and Crohn’s Disease.

S A 2010 executive order signed by 

President Barack Obama requires federal 

agencies to increase the hiring of people 

with disabilities, but DLA has long been 

recognized by the Department of Defense 

as a model agency in that endeavor. 

People with targeted disabilities make 

up 2.0 percent of DLA’s staff, although 

DoD’s current goal is 0.96 percent, said 

Eric Spanbauer, DLA’s disability program 

manager. Officials suspect the number 

of DLA employees with disabilities is 

actually much higher, however, since not all 

employees with disabilities have identified 

themselves as such through civilian 

personnel’s My Biz. 

DLA’s participation in the Department 

of Labor’s Workforce Recruitment Program 

is one example of the agency’s commitment 

to employing people with disabilities. 

The program places prescreened college 

students and recent graduates with 

disabilities in 14-week internships at 

federal agencies. DLA’s Equal Employment 

Opportunity Office significantly increased 

the number of interns it hired this year, 

going from 42 in 2015 to 57 in 2016. Interns 

were placed throughout the agency in 

positions including management assistant, 

supply technician and mobile vehicle 

dispatcher. Two were also placed in the 

Pathways to Career Excellence Program, 

or PaCEP, a two-year program to train 

entry-level personnel for advancement 

to the journeyman level in professional, 

administrative and technological career 

fields. Although interns are on DLA rolls, 

their salaries are paid by DoD.

“WRP is an excellent program that 

helps offset personnel shortages while 

benefiting from the many talents of 

students and recent graduates. And 

with 14 weeks, managers have enough 

time to evaluate individuals for possible 

permanent hiring,” said Carl Downey, 

EEO’s diversity-inclusion team lead.

Tamala Jackson was attending 

Temple University when she interviewed 

for the program. Based on her studies, she 

was matched with the finance department 

at DLA Troop Support for what she called 

her “first real job.”

Story by Beth Reece

ATTRACTING TALENT

John Slone (left) and Jon Mowl of DLA Finance 

Energy use the virtual remote interpreting 

service via tablet. It is one of many tools 

available to help DLA employees succeed.

Debra Simpson
Loglines l September - October 2016 27

“It was tedious and demanded a lot, but 

it helped me open my mind and explore 

avenues that I didn’t have the chance to 

consider in college,” Jackson said. 

She loved it and was encouraged by 

her supervisor to apply for PaCEP. She 

completed the program in 2006 and is 

now a tailored-vendor logistics specialist 

at DLA Troop Support, where she ensures 

military customers and schools receive 

regular deliveries of fresh bread, dairy 

products and soda. 

“The WRP was a great stepping stone 

for me. Ever since, I’ve been climbing this 

ladder of success,” she said. 

Managers can also use a special 

authority called Schedule A to attract 

and hire employees with disabilities. 

Schedule A is often considered a fast 

track to employment because applicants 

can be hired without public notice. 

Michael Cowley, WRP manager at DLA 

Troop Support, said his activity is a 

frequent user.

“This gives us immediate access to 

some of the best qualified and brightest 

applicants. Some of these 

folks have credentials that 

are through the roof,” 

he said, adding that 

approximately one-third 

of all WRP participants 

at DLA Troop Support 

become permanent hires.

Mason Chronister 

completed two internships 

with DLA Distribution before he was 

permanently hired by the activity’s 

Organization Management Directorate. 

Working for the federal government 

was a dream come true for Chronister, 

who has Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic 

disorder that results in hearing loss and 

visual impairment. His supervisor, Polly 

Charbonneau, said her team is fortunate 

to have him.

“One of our responsibilities is 

processing honorary awards for our 

civilian workforce, which is quite large 

at nearly 7,000 people. There is a great 

deal of paperwork required for each 

award, from nomination to selection to 

recognition. Mason helps ensure we get 

everything right on every document. He 

misses nothing,” she said.

DLA also helps employees with 

disabilities take advantage of DoD’s 

Computer/Electronic Accommodations 

Program, which provides assistive 

technology and reasonable 

accommodations to employees 

with disabilities. Jackson 

was given Zoom Text, a 

magnification and screenreading program that 

enlarges, enhances and reads 

out loud what is displayed 

on her computer screen. Joe 

Lehman, an investigator for the 

DLA Office of the Inspector General, 

also benefited from the program when 

he returned to work after a motorcycle 

accident that resulted in traumatic brain 

injury and a permanently bent finger. He 

was given Dragon NaturallySpeaking, 

speech-recognition software that lets 

users create documents and emails just 

by speaking. (See Road to Recovery on 

page 18.) 

Although the Rehabilitation Act of 

1974 and the Americans with Disabilities 

Act require federal employers to provide 

“reasonable accommodations” to employees 

who are disabled, DLA managers have gone 

out of their way to ensure employees with 

disabilities have the tools they need to 

succeed. When Debra Simpson, chief of 

DLA Energy’s analysis master planning 

branch, noticed that communication 

was becoming a barrier for three deaf 

employees on her team, she led an 

effort that enabled them and other deaf 

employees to receive tablet- and desktopbased remote interpretive services, called 

virtual remote interpreting.

“This was the single most important 

thing I will ever do for DLA,” she said.

Other reasonable accommodations 

available to DLA employees include 

alternate work schedules, modified 

work stations, wheelchair ramps and 

elevators. Such accommodations don’t 

mean people with disabilities contribute 

less, Jackson said.

“We work hard, and most of us feel 

like we have to prove ourselves,” she 

said, adding that DLA’s commitment to 

employing people with disabilities results 

in dedicated, loyal employees. 

Mason Chronister, an administrative assistant with DLA Distribution’s Organization Management 

Directorate, was permanently hired after he completed two Workforce Recruitment Program 

internships with DLA. — Photo by DLA Distribution Headquarters
28 www.dla.mil

Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of the premier 

military and commercial maintenance event of the year!

sae.org/dod

Administrative support provided by SAE International 

under contract with the U.S. Department of Defense

2016 Department of Defense 

Maintenance Symposium

December 5-8, 2016

Albuquerque Convention Center

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

P165654

Engaging Tomorrow’s Maintenance Enterprise Challenges, Today! 
Loglines l September - October 2016 29

Teodora Mocanu

For the non-Department of Defense 

person or the Defense Logistics 

Agency employee whose job isn’t 

directly in acquisition, what is 

Logistics Information Services, 

and what is it not?

Logistics Information Services 

classifies, names, describes and 

numbers each item of supply 

repetitively used, purchased, 

stocked or distributed by DoD. 

The single-item identification is 

used for all functions of supply, 

from the original purchase to 

disposition. The unique number 

assigned to an item of supply is the 

National Stock Number. 

The mission has its roots 

in Chapter 539 of Public Law 

Raymond Zingaretti

The director of Logistics Information Services, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, 

explains how his division manages information that every DLA customer relies on.

436, the Defense Cataloging and 

Standardization Act, also known 

as Title 10, U.S. Code, Chapter 

145. The law was enacted 

July 1, 1952, and called for a 

single cataloging system and 

related supply standardization 

program. In 1962, the Defense 

Supply Agency and Defense 

Logistics Service Center were 

established, and DLSC became 

the central control point for the 

Federal Catalog System and 

what is Logistics Information 

Services today.

Our division does not determine whether an NSN is assigned. 

NSN assignments are based on 

requirements and requests from 

the military services, DLA, other 

federal agencies and NATO and 

NATO partner countries. NSNs 

are not assigned at the request of 

industry or suppliers. 

How is Logistics Information 

Services unique within DLA 

Information Operations? 

DLA Information Operations 

is an information technology service provider. When most people 

think of IT, they immediately 

think of the things you can touch, 

like a computer, laptop or mobile 

device — or software they use to 

do their work. 

What Logistics Information 

Services provides is information 

management — the “I” in IT. The 

NSN links core logistics data 

necessary for the life cycle support 

of weapon systems. Timely and 

accurate logistics information is 

essential to planning, procurement, 

order fulfillment, warehousing, 

distribution, repair/maintenance 

and disposition.

Could you describe some capabilities your group has that the 

average DLA employee might not 

know about?

Logistics Information Services 

verifies demilitarization codes 

for DoD. Every DEMIL code is 

assigned by one of the military 

services and submitted as part 

of a request for a new NSN. The 

Raymond Zingaretti, director of Logistics Information Services, Battle Creek, Michigan. DEMIL verification team comprises 

A Conversation with . . .
30 www.dla.mil

expert professionals certified 

in DEMIL coding. They review 

each new NSN’s DEMIL code 

and process challenges to DEMIL 

codes entered by DLA Disposition 

Services employees processing 

turned-in equipment and parts. 

The verifications and challenges 

help ensure items are properly 

demilitarized and don’t end up in 

the wrong hands, and that DLA and 

DoD don’t incur unnecessary costs 

when DEMIL isn’t required.

Provisioning support is a 

service available to weapon 

system program managers. 

Logistics Information Services 

provisioning staff are available 

to support provisioning 

conferences where decisions are 

made on spare and repair parts 

requiring logistics data. The 

early involvement of cataloging 

at this phase facilitates the 

establishment of NSNs and 

associated data and increases 

the quality of that data.

Our division also offers 

training to customers on 

logistics data interpretation 

and fundamentals. It also 

includes logistics tools like 

the DoD Electronic Mall 

(soon to be FedMall) and 

WebFLIS [Web-based Federal 

Logistics Information Service]. 

The training is offered in 

the traditional classroom 

environment and has been 

incorporated into military service 

curriculums. It’s also available 

through webinar sessions. 

We also provide cataloging 

services to other federal agencies, 

such as the Federal Aviation 

Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard 

and the National Weather Service.

How has Logistics Information 

Services changed in the past 

10 years, with the continuing 

advances in technology?

One major area is the 

development and enhancement 

of E-Cat [Electronic Cataloging], 

the application customers use 

to submit requests and the 

FLIS Portfolio Workbench. 

E-Cat interfaces with FPW 

to allow customer requests 

to automatically route to the 

workbench. The workbench 

provides the capability to monitor 

and manage workload and assign 

workload based on priority and 

available resources.

What part of Logistics Information 

Services never gets the credit it 

deserves? And what does that office 

or unit do for DLA? 

One area not widely known 

is the group in Logistics 

Information Services that represents the United States on 

NATO Allied Committee 135, 

also known as the National 

Directors on Codification. 

In the international world, 

“codification” is another term 

for cataloging. Participating 

countries share in the international language of logistics, 

based upon the U.S. Federal 

Catalog System. This standardized data provides a common 

description of items of supply, 

enabling logistics interoperability across allied forces.

Logistics Information 

Services also operates the 

DLA Customer Interaction 

Center. As part of the mission 

to manage and disseminate 

logistics information, the 

CIC is DLA’s 24-hour, yearround point of entry for all 

customers. Customer inquiries 

are received via telephone, 

email and fax. The CIC 

resolves approximately 70 

percent of all inquiries. The 

remaining 30 percent are 

escalated to subject matter 

experts throughout DLA. 

They processed over 650,000 

actions on behalf of customers 

last year.

What are the biggest changes in 

store for Logistics Information 

Services in the near future?

An ongoing characteristics 

redesign will be a big 

improvement for describing 

items of supply. The redesign 

will allow for characteristics to 

be added to NSNs based on the 

technical documentation that is 

provided. Today characteristics 

are limited to what is defined in 

the Federal Item Identification 

Guides. 

The redesign will provide a 

much more agile and expedient 

way to include characteristics 

that are important and 

evolving within the industry 

manufacturing the items. In 

addition, more business will 

use rule-driven automation, 

which will allow for processing 

of routine maintenance actions 

without human intervention.

If there’s one thing you want the nonlogistician DLA employee to remember about Logistics Information 

Services, what would it be?

While the concepts of the 

NSN and the single item of supply 

were developed decades ago, it’s 

just as relevant today. Items of 

production that have the same 

form, fit and function are grouped 

under the NSN as the item of 

supply. The benefits gained from 

these concepts, such as logistics 

interoperability, lower acquisition 

costs through competition and 

the linkage of logistics data 

throughout the life cycle, are just 

as critical to military readiness 

and cost efficiencies.

Lastly, many customers 

know us as DLIS (or FEDLOG); 

however, we are an ever-evolving 

organization, and the term DLIS 

has been retired. Today we are 

Logistics Information Services, 

a DLA Information Operations 

service provider. 

DLA Public Affairs
Loglines l September - October 2016 31

n a warm day in January each 

year, Defense Logistics Agency 

Distribution and DLA Energy help 

support the nation’s scientific 

advancement by supporting the 

resupply of a research ship.

Warm being a relative term — because 

the January in question is in Antarctica, 

whose seasons are opposite those of the 

Northern Hemisphere.

Each year, personnel from DLA 

Distribution at Port Hueneme, California, 

O

SUPPLYING THE END

and from DLA Energy have supported the 

National Science Foundation’s Antarctic 

research by helping load supplies onto the 

ship and providing various types of fuel 

for the research station to use during the 

year. Due to Antarctica’s harsh climate, 

the resupply occurs in the month when the 

ice is thinnest.

Last year the MV Ocean Giant, 

chartered by the Military Sealift Command, 

arrived in Antarctica Jan. 22. The ship 

returned to Port Hueneme a month later, 

Story by Brianne M. Bender and Christopher Goulait

with a load of trash for disposal, along with 

a year’s worth of scientific data and ice core 

samples that will assist the NSF’s continued 

study of the Antarctic. 

During the 2015 mission, DLA 

Distribution personnel from the 

Preservation, Packaging, Packing and 

Marking team packaged more than 3,500 

line items of general and hazardous 

cargo; made more than 1,100 custom 

pallets and wooden containers; and built 

more than 1,400 fiberboard boxes for 

31 www.dla.mil
32 www.dla.mil

surface and air shipments, to protect the 

items from damage.

The Ocean Giant departed Port 

Hueneme Dec. 31 with more than 

400 containers, vehicles and pieces of 

equipment. It then traveled to Christchurch, 

New Zealand, to pick up more cargo before 

heading to its final destination, McMurdo 

Station — the logistics hub for NSF’s 

Antarctic research mission and the largest 

inhabited station on the earth’s leastpopulated continent.

For its part, DLA Energy for each Deep 

Freeze mission delivers several types of 

fuel: mid-grade unleaded gasoline, marine 

gas oil and kerosene-based aviation fuel — 

JP5 and JP8. Each was chosen specifically 

for Antarctic use, according to Richard 

Knapp, supervisory quality assurance 

specialist with DLA Energy. 

“The remote locations and cold operating conditions of the Antarctic dictate 

the procurement process,” he explained.

That process takes place more than 

a year in advance of the shipment. Bids 

are normally solicited in September for 

a delivery window of Dec. 1-Jan. 31 the 

following year, plus a 30-day carry-over 

period, Knapp said. And procurement is 

just the tip of the iceberg. 

Loglines l September - October 2016 32

The Military Sealift Command-chartered 

tanker ship MV Maersk Peary provides DLA 

Energy-procured fuel to the National Science 

Foundation-chartered scientific research 

vessel R/V Nathanial B. Palmer at McMurdo 

Station ice pier. 

— Photo by Larry Larsson
Loglines l September - October 2016 33

“To get the only annual shipment of 

fuel from Western Europe to Antarctica 

and McMurdo Station’s ice pier, MSC 

vessel follow a route that can involve some 

of the worst sea conditions and hazards 

that exist anywhere,” Knapp noted.

Weeks at sea are needed to make 

delivery, due to unpredictable and harsh 

weather, along with increased hazards from 

floating ice, Knapp said. While the region is 

most accessible in January and February, 

the last 17 miles of the journey still need 

icebreaker ships to create a channel 

through the ice shelf.

“The U.S. Antarctic research mission has three objectives: expanding the 

fundamental knowledge of the region, 

fostering the research of global and regional 

problems of notable scale, and the use 

of Antarctica as a platform to continually sustain research efforts,” explained 

Michael Sneed, packing supervisor at DLA 

Distribution San Diego at Port Hueneme. 

His group works closely with NSF contractor Lockheed Martin to load cargo in a way 

that minimizes shipping costs and waste.

The NSF funds the U.S. Antarctic 

Program through its Office of Polar 

Programs; the agency also coordinates the 

research and logistical support of civilian 

contractors, the military and several other 

federal agencies in Antarctica and the 

Southern Ocean.

San Diego’s Port Hueneme site has 

been assisting the NSF with this mission 

the last six years, since the site was 

obtained as a detachment through the 

Navy warehouse transfer. Before that, 

the Department of Defense had been 

supporting the mission for over 30 years 

as part of the NSF-DoD Memorandum 

of Agreement.

The first petroleum support provided 

as part of Deep Freeze, between 1955 and 

1956, was a combination of packaged 

products with bulk shipments of Arcticgrade diesel and aviation gasoline, Knapp 

said. At that time, there were no tanker 

ships, and so a construction battalion 

out of Davisville, Rhode Island, loaded 

55-gallon drums aboard the vessel, he 

recalled. And because above-ground 

storage tanks were still being built by 

U.S. Navy Seabees when the fuel arrived, 

personnel created temporary storage “by 

allowing two fuel vessels to freeze in the 

ice offshore,” he said.

The commander of DLA Distribution 

San Diego noted the value of DLA’s 

support. “It is an exciting mission for DLA 

Distribution San Diego, California’s Port 

Hueneme site to be partnered with the 

NSF’s polar program, as part of the DoD 

and NSF MOA, in providing preservation, 

packaging, packing and marking of 

crucial material that supports the various 

research stations in Antarctica,” said Navy 

Capt. John Soracco.

“I am very proud of our Port Hueneme 

team in what they do every year to prepare 

the thousands of items for transport to 

Antarctica that directly supports the 

3,500 people stationed there to fulfill 

their research and other missions yearround,” Soracco said. He noted that the 

Port Hueneme PPP&M team was recently 

awarded the DLA Distribution Small 

Team Performance of the Year Award 

and the Superior Civilian Service Award 

for its work.

“Operation Deep Freeze is a very 

critical mission for the people who live 

and work in Antarctica,” said Navy Capt. 

Sylvester Moore, former commander 

of MSC Pacific. “Without this resupply 

mission, all operations in Antarctica 

would end, and the scientific community 

would lose the opportunity to conduct 

research and study not only the continent 

of Antarctica, but its impact on our 

global climate.” 

Air Force Master Sgt. Efrain Gonzalez

Brianne M. Bender is a public affairs specialist for DLA 

Distribution. Christopher Goulait is the web content manager 

for DLA Public Affairs.

A New York Air National Guard LC-130 

Hercules unloads DLA Energy-procured fuel 

supplied during a prior annual Operation 

Deep Freeze Antarctic refueling mission. The 

aircraft is used to deliver fuel and supplies to 

remote locations throughout the continent.
34 www.dla.mil

HATCH ACT OUTLINES RESTRICTIONS ON 

POLITICAL ACTIVITY BY FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

With the 2016 election season in full swing, people are getting involved in political activities 

and supporting their favorite party or candidate. However, federal employees need to be aware of 

legal restrictions on their political activity set forth in the Hatch Act. 

The Hatch Act governs the political activity of employees in the executive branch, which 

includes DLA employees. Specifically, the Hatch Act forbids activity directed at the success or 

failure of a political party, a partisan political candidate or a partisan political group while the 

employee is on duty or in a federal building. 

In general, all federal employees may:

• Vote;

• Express personal opinions about candidates 

or issues;

• Make monetary contributions to a political 

campaign or candidate;

• Display a political bumper sticker on a 

personal vehicle; and

• Attend and participate in nonpartisan 

activities not specifically identified with a 

political party.

However, DoD employees may not:

• Participate in any political activity while on 

duty or in a federal building; 

• Use the insignia of a government office 

while participating in political activities;

• Display campaign photos, posters, bumper 

stickers or other campaign material in a 

federal building;

• Engage in political activity while using a 

government vehicle;

• Host a fundraiser for a partisan candidate; or 

• Run for public office in a partisan election.

– Sara Thompson, DLA Office of General Counsel

More online: go.usa.gov/xj3f5

DLA ENERGY WORLDWIDE ENERGY 

CONFERENCE TO RETURN

After a seven-year hiatus, Defense 

Logistics Agency Energy is bringing back the 

Worldwide Energy Conference to the Gaylord 

National Hotel and Convention Center, 

National Harbor, Maryland, April 10-12, 2017.

The conference and trade show will 

draw from the entire energy supply chain 

and provide an exclusive opportunity 

for Department of Defense employees, 

contractors, military representatives and 

industry experts to discuss trends and 

initiatives in petroleum, alternative fuel and 

renewable energy. 

“The conference promises to reach 

new heights in featuring distinguished government and industry speakers addressing 

a multitude of energy issues,” said Bruce 

Blank, DLA Energy’s director of procurement process support. 

For more information, call 844-883-5697. 

– Irene Smith

More online: go.usa.gov/xjxmG
Compiled by Beth Reece

Loglines l September - October 2016 35

DLA EARNS DOD RECOGNITION FOR 

HIRING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The Defense Logistics Agency has been 

recognized by the Department of Defense as 

a model employer of people with disabilities. 

The agency was named Component of the 

Year, and DLA Disability Program Manager 

Eric Spanbauer was named Workforce 

Recruitment Program Coordinator of the 

Year for his work managing the program 

agency-wide.

The awards were presented by Peter 

Levine, acting undersecretary of defense for 

personnel and readiness. He applauded the 

efforts of DLA and other organizations that 

partner with the Department of Labor to make 

the WRP a success. 

The WRP places prescreened college 

students and recent graduates with disabilities 

in 14-week internships at federal agencies.

“The WRP is more than an internship 

program,” Levine said. “It is a vital pipeline 

of talent that supports a diverse, inclusive and 

mission-ready workforce.” 

– Beth Reece 

More online: go.usa.gov/xjakm

The Defense Logistics Agency has 

announced its top performing industry 

partners for fiscal 2015 as part of the 

Department of Defense’s Superior Supplier 

Incentive Program.

The SSIP is an extension of DoD’s Better 

Buying Power initiative and is designed 

to incentivize contractor performance 

by identifying suppliers with the highest 

rankings in areas such as performance, 

quality and business relations. 

“This program allows DLA to spotlight 

those companies that consistently perform 

well and deliver high quality products to our 

warfighters. They should be proud of this 

distinction,” said Matthew Beebe, head of 

DLA’s acquisition directorate. “We also hope 

it serves as a reminder to both industry and 

government personnel of the importance of 

having ongoing, open and honest dialogue 

about contractor performance.”

DLA considered its top 150 parts and 

commodity suppliers with the highest spends 

within a particular supply chain that have 

done business with the agency over the past 

two years. To be eligible for consideration, 

companies – or their subsidiary business units 

– had to have DLA contracts with a proven 

record of performance, as well as an established 

rating in the federal Contractor Performance 

Assessment Reporting System.

Of those considered, 42 companies 

were selected as DLA’s superior suppliers 

based on the last three years of CPARS 

ratings, with the most emphasis placed on 

recent performance. The selected companies 

represent all of DLA’s major supply 

chains, include nine small businesses and 

collectively account for nearly $16.7 billion 

in DLA contract expenditures annually. 

Suppliers were categorized into three levels 

based on their performance and CPARS 

ratings: Gold, Silver and Bronze. 

DLA TROOP SUPPORT HELPS POWER FEMA WITH NEW GENERATORS

An entire region can lose electricity 

when disaster strikes, but a Defense 

Logistics Agency Troop Support contract 

for power generators aims to reduce the time 

affected communities are left in the dark.

The five-year contract will provide 

supplemental diesel power generators to the 

Federal Emergency Management Agency 

for disaster relief operations.

“FEMA has generators in stock in 

several locations. When a disaster hits, 

there is a possibility they might not have 

the size, or quantities of the size, they need 

to support the relief effort,” said Mary 

Ryan, a contracting officer for construction 

and equipment. “If that happens, they 

would tap into this contract to augment 

what they need.”

The generators can be leased for the 

amount of time FEMA requires and range 

from 15 kilowatt-hours up to 1 megawatthour, Ryan said. 

– Jason Kaneshiro

More online: go.usa.gov/xjCDR
36 www.dla.mil

DLA NEWSWIRE

OLD FURNITURE GETS NEW LIFE 

HELPING LESS FORTUNATE

Hundreds of pieces of used barracks 

furniture were given to those in need 

instead of being tossed in a landfill 

thanks to teamwork between Defense 

Logistics Agency Disposition Services, 

Marine Corps Base Hawaii and Helping 

Hands Hawaii.

DLA employees coordinated with 

the General Services Administration 

for permission to donate more than 400 

items, which included bed frames, sofas, 

chairs, desks and tables.

Property Disposal Specialist Gilbert 

Delagente said DLA employees found 

it “gratifying” that so much furniture 

could be reused “to help our homeless 

and the less fortunate people in Hawaii.” 

– Tim Hoyle, DLA Disposition Services

More online: go.usa.gov/xjavh

DLA’s superior suppliers for 2015 are listed in alphabetical order by performance level:

— DLA Public Affairs

More online: go.usa.gov/xjrJJ

 GOLD:

AmeriQual Group, LLC

AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation

Burlington Industries, LLC

Cardinal Health, Inc.

DMS Pharmaceutical Group, Inc.

Herndon Products, Inc.

McRae Industries, Inc.

Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation

Peckham Vocational Industries, Inc.

Science Applications International Corporation

Source One Distributors, Inc.

Sterlingwear of Boston, Inc.

Tennier Industries, Inc.

US Foods, Inc.

The Wornick Company

 SILVER:

AM General, LLC

American Apparel, Inc.

Bell Boeing Joint Project Office

Bethel Industries, Inc.

Federal Resources Supply Company

Graybar Electric Company, Inc.

Lockheed Martin Corporation

McKesson Corporation

Propper International, Inc.

Supplycore, Inc.

Theodor Wille Intertrade AG

Triumph Structures, Inc.

Veyance Technologgies, Inc.

 BRONZE:

The Boeing Company

CPD Alaska, LLC

Foster Fuels, Inc.

General Electric Company

Meggitt, Inc.

Michelin North America, Inc.

National Industries for the Blind

PPG Industries, Inc.

Raytheon Company

Rockwell Collins, Inc.

Sysco Corporation

Textron, Inc.

USFI, Inc.

Y. Hata Company Limited

DLA ENERGY

FISCAL 2015

FACT BOOK

An organizational overview of the 

agency with a snapshot of the facts, 

figures and financial information 

from fiscal year 2015

GET IT ONLINE AT: GO.USA.GOV/xDA9B

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY ENERGY

Available online at: www.dla.mil/Energy

Fiscal Year 2015 Fact Book

Available Now!
Loglines l September - October 2016 37

STARS OF RETAIL

istorically, the Defense Logistics 

Agency has served as the 

wholesale inventory manager 

for the Department of Defense, 

procuring consumable items 

from commercial vendors and storing 

those items in distribution warehouses. 

DLA is still very much a wholesale-oriented 

organization in which military service 

logisticians requisition material from the 

agency through their supply systems, thus 

keeping DLA employees at least one layer 

removed from the retail end users. 

However, in the past decade or so, DLA 

H

Story by Chris Erbe has taken on retail responsibilities at 20 of 

DoD’s industrial activities, which include 

Navy fleet readiness centers, Army depots, 

Navy shipyards, Marine Corps logistics 

bases and Air Force logistics complexes. 

As the retail manager at the industrial 

sites, DLA manages the supply, storage 

and distribution of material, and provides 

needed items directly to the end user. In 

this case, the end users are the individuals, 

artisans and teams maintaining and 

upgrading aircraft, ships, tanks and other 

critical weapon systems. 

Simply put, there are important 

differences between DLA’s wholesale and 

retail activities.

To bring focus to the retail side of 

the agency, DLA held the Semi-Annual 

Total Retail Sustainment Review, called 

STAR, May 24-25 at the Portsmouth Naval 

Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. The purpose of 

the event was to explore ways to bring more 

efficiency to DLA’s retail activities and to 

increase overall agency awareness about 

the challenges facing DLA’s retail industrial 

operations. DLA’s Retail Operations 

Division, in coordination with DLA Land 

and Maritime, sponsored the event.

Participants included DLA headquarters personnel, DLA process owners, 

personnel from primary-level field activities 

and commanders from the DLA industrial 

support activities that have a direct impact 

on retail industrial operations.
38 www.dla.mil

This was the second STAR summit. 

Organizers plan to hold future STAR events 

at a different industrial site each time so 

that participants can see firsthand the 

mission each industrial activity performs 

and how DLA affects their operations. The 

first STAR event was held in October 2015 

at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex 

at Tinker Air Force Base.

As part of the most recent summit, 

shipyard officials gave participants a tour 

and overview of the Portsmouth Naval 

Shipyard, the oldest continuously operating 

Navy base in the nation. The shipyard’s 

primary mission is the maintenance, repair 

and modernization of the Navy’s nuclear 

submarine force. 

“It’s a tough business to deliver 

these ships, but we’ve had great success 

delivering on time and on budget,” Navy 

Capt. William Greene, commanding 

officer of the shipyard, said in his 

presentation to the group. “A portion of 

that success is due to part support, which 

is where DLA comes in. It takes a team 

effort, and DLA is part of the team here at 

the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.”

Greene discussed how a submarine 

must undergo an engineered overhaul 

after about 20 years of duty. While in drydock, workers maintain a strict schedule, 

removing parts for repair or replacement 

in sequential order, and reinstalling them 

in the reverse order. Any delay due to a 

problem procuring a single part can disrupt 

the schedule, creating devastating financial 

consequences and loss of military readiness.

“Just one back order on a component 

causes a chain reaction that can cost 

hundreds of thousands of dollars a day,” 

Greene said to the group. “The last sub 

that we worked on [USS Alexandria (SSN 

757)] was the fastest engineered overhaul 

on record. It was completed two weeks 

early and $9 million under budget. We’re 

very proud of our part in national defense 

— we could not do it without all of you.”

The level of urgency in procuring parts 

is one of the most important contrasts 

between DLA’s wholesale and retail 

activities. While DLA wholesale focuses 

on replenishing inventory stocks for wide 

distribution to many retail customers, 

DLA retail often focuses on procuring a 

single critical item directly to employees 

in a work area or a maintenance line.

“As Capt. Greene conveyed, for the lack 

of a part, they could be impacted by days 

if not weeks, and millions of dollars,” said 

Navy Capt. Ronald Carr, who at the time 

of the STAR summit was serving as DLA 

retail process owner and retail operations 

division chief, with only one week to go 

before his retirement from the Navy. 

“We’ve got to make sure it’s understood 

that one part is as important as 10,000. 

We’re trying to achieve that with STAR, by 

bringing attention to this issue.”

The role of DLA’s retail operations 

originates from the 2005 Base Realignment 

and Closure Commission round and a 

June 2005 decision by the under secretary 

Workers from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard 

in Maine swarm over the deck of USS Scranton 

during an engineered overhaul in 2014.

Courtesy PhotoCourtesy Photo
Loglines l September - October 2016 39

James Cleveland

of defense for acquisition, technology 

and logistics that required the services to 

transfer to DLA all of their retail inventory 

supply, storage and distribution functions 

at their depot-level industrial sites.

After more than a decade, the services 

have transferred these functions to DLA 

in varying degrees. Air Force air logistics 

complexes and Navy fleet readiness centers 

have transferred all retail functions to DLA. 

The Army and Marine Corps have transferred control of storage and distribution 

functions to DLA while retaining management of their supply functions. The Navy 

shipyards transferred supply, storage and 

distribution functions to DLA, but kept 

their legacy processes and systems that 

used to be operated by sailors, but that are 

now operated by DLA personnel.

While DLA can certainly point to 

successes in supporting the services at 

the retail level, the lack of consistent 

processes and procedures throughout 

all of DoD’s industrial sites poses an 

increasing challenge to efficiency and 

progress. Pressure to streamline is 

especially acute in DLA’s climate that 

stresses audit readiness, process excellence, continuous process improvement 

and end-to-end process management. 

DLA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Andy 

Busch made process excellence a significant part of his Strategic Plan 2015-2022.

Adding an external push, the 

Government Accounting Office published 

a report in June addressing DLA’s retail 

support to the service industrial activities 

and measuring DLA’s progress in accordance with the original BRAC 2005 

law. In the report, GAO recognized the 

benefits already realized by the Air Force 

air logistics complexes and the Navy fleet 

readiness centers. Among those improvements were reduced inventory, increased 

warehouse efficiencies, improved demand 

signals, enhanced information sharing and 

improved supply performance. But, GAO 

made several recommendations, including 

that DLA, Army, Marines Corps and the 

Navy shipyards should conduct business 

case analyses to help determine whether 

further transfer of retail functions is warranted. GAO also recommended that DLA 

and the military services develop better 

metrics to measure planning accuracy and 

track disruption costs. 

In light of these developments, 

organizers of the STAR summit brought 

together the various elements of DLA 

to educate, inform and, ultimately, take 

action to improve DLA’s retail operations.

Carr said that he often gets asked if the 

STAR summit is worth the investment. 

“I don’t think we have any other venue 

four days a year that gives us this level 

of integrated, dedicated focus on retail 

operations,” he said. “As we are seeing the 

cost and impact of those back orders for 

our industrial activities, the impact of not 

getting that process streamlined and more 

effective, it’s certainly worth the time and 

effort that we put into this.”

With one week to go before his retirement, Carr was recognized for his outstanding support for his country and DLA retail 

operations. The incoming retail operations 

division chief, Robert Therriault, attended 

the STAR summit as well.

“We’re trying to go from the walk to 

the run,” Therriault said. “It’s about trying 

to standardize these processes so we can 

streamline and be vertically integrated. 

There used to be [military] service logisticians serving their customers — they are 

now DLA logisticians. At these sites, DLA 

is in direct support of a maintenance line, 

and it’s a different level of urgency.”

And retail is an area DLA should 

continue to focus on, according to James 

McClaugherty, the acting director of 

DLA Land and Maritime. “We need to 

put more investment and management 

attention into retail,” he said. “There’s a 

lot to do, and maybe the most important 

thing we can take away from this meeting 

is to go back and advocate and inspire the 

rest of the agency. We’re still a wholesaleoriented agency that’s got to learn that 

retail is different,” McClaugherty noted. 

“So let’s go back and start spreading the 

gospel about retail.” 

Participants of the DLA Semi-Annual Total Retail 

Sustainment Review gather at the mast of the 

USS Sailfish (formerly USS Squalus) at the 

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine. 
40 www.dla.mil

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY STRATEGIC PLAN GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

ENGAGE INDUSTRY AND OTHER PARTNERS

IN THE DELIVERY OF EFFECTIVE AND

AFFORDABLE SOLUTIONS

STRATEGIC

ENGAGEMENT
I AM

My name is: 

Ada Catherine Torres Vega.

I am: 

A contracting officer for DLA Troop Support Europe & Africa.

Describe your job in a sentence:

I am a contracting officer for the Commodities Team and the team lead for the 

Maintenance, Repairs and Operations prime vendor program, which supports construction 

and facilities maintenance materials for Europe and Africa.

How long have you worked at DLA?

I’ve worked for DLA Troop Support almost eight years, beginning in the DLA Corporate 

Intern Program. I spent six and a half years as part of Clothing and Textiles. The last year and 

a half, I’ve been overseas with our regional office in Germany on the Commodities Team.

What is your favorite thing about working for DLA?

The interaction with my customers! Our office is 100 percent about supporting the 

warfighter. And it’s very broad in the supplies it provides, so you’re never 

working with the same type of requirement. I get to work hand-in-hand 

with the customer from the beginning of any procurement. And I support 

customers all over the world.

What are your best memories of working here?

My coworkers. I have had the opportunity to work with people who 

have inspired me and guided me throughout my career. C&T is a huge 

family of people who take care of one another. Now I’m part of DLA Troop 

Support Europe & Africa, which is a small office, and that feeling is the 

same. When you work overseas, your coworkers become your family.

How do you make a difference?

By giving 100 percent to the warfighter. I feel I have to support them in 

any way possible because I’m lucky to be home and safe while they put 

their lives at risk every day. Once, I was doing a large order on a Saturday. 

It was very long and complex, but all I could think was that I was home 

and comfortable, and my work that day was to support a customer in 

Africa who was not as comfortable. I felt good making sure he had what 

he needed. Not long ago, I received a call from a member of that unit I was working with on a 

different project; he just wanted to say thank you. That alone made my day.

Ada Catherine Torres Vega