21st Theater Sustainment Command hosts Inaugural Logistics Conference

Photo By Spc. Samuel Signor | U.S. Army Soldiers and Department of Defense civilian employees from across Europe attend the Inaugural Logistics Conference at the Armstrong Club, Vogelweh Military Complex, Kaiserslautern, Germany, from April 8-10, 2024. The theme for this year's Inaugural Logistics Conference was “Setting the Theater Through Logistics.” The purpose of conducting the Logistics Conference is to provide leaders at all levels with practical tools, knowledge of force enablers and the ability to increase the efficiency of their organizational logistics program. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Samuel Signor)  

RP, GERMANY

04.10.2024

Story by Sgt. Andrew Jo 

21st Theater Sustainment Command

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – The 21st Theater Sustainment Command held their inaugural logistics conference [LOGCON] at The Armstrong Club on Vogelweh Military Complex, Kaiserslautern, Germany April 8 – 10, 2024. The LOGCON gathered members from all ranks, to provide leaders at all levels with the tools, knowledge, and ability to increase the efficiency of their organizational logistics programs.
The event began with opening remarks from Lt. Col. Andrew Garcia the fourth, chief of staff logistics, and Brig. Gen. Karen Monday-Gresham, deputy commanding general of the 21st TSC.
“So last year when the command had the maintenance symposium, the feedback they received was, they wanted to get more of a logistics point of view since we are the Theater Sustainment Command,” said Garcia.
The LOGCON developed from the maintenance symposium the 21st TSC hosted last year, as the TSC is United States Army Europe and Africa’s lead organization for all sustainment activities.
“We did the maintenance symposium last year just to cover, as it says, maintenance,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Ronnie Williams, G4 senior ground ordnance warrant officer, 21st TSC. “This year, we were looking at the logistics conference to cover all portions of logistics to include supply, munitions, maintenance, and everything else.”
The theme of the conference was “Setting the Theater Through Logistics.” Garcia says the theme stems from the priorities and intent of Maj. Gen. Ronald Ragin, the commanding general of the 21st TSC.
“Our focus on readiness, from a maintenance and property perspective, is being able to understand how we can improve ourselves from the grassroots up to the senior,” said Garica. “So, we had brigade S4s, noncommissioned officers in charge, their maintenance technicians, and then their subordinates come out and help them understand how we can improve ourselves here in theater.”
The conference covered variety of topics including Global Combat Support System – Army [GCSSA], the agreement concerning the international carriage of dangerous goods by road [ADR], and guest speakers from the Department of the Army and United States Army Combined Arms Support Command
“The topics and talking points really come from the inspections that we conduct within the G4, based on findings that we have in organizations is how we get our talking points toward why we want to bring certain speakers in and the topics that we want to discuss,” said Williams. “It was also fed up from the units [saying] hey, these are things we would like to discuss at LOGCON.”
This year also saw an increase in attendance from Soldiers of all ranks and organizations.
“We saw a lot of new things occurring in policy and doctrine, so we reached out to seniors from [HQDA G4] and CASCOM and had them come over and we were able to get Soldiers at [Private 1st Class] and corporals to attend to the 175 personnel from Army Support Group Balkans, Army Support Activity Black Sea, and 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, and it’s really incredible that the command’s given them the opportunity to do that today,” said Garcia.
Garcia goes on to say the feedback he has received from both junior and senior Soldiers has been great and that they hope to build upon it for next year.
“The two things I hope to do is expand the audience. We’re looking to see if we want to get participants from either V Corps. or Southern European Task Force, Africa [SET-AF] to attend so we could look at it from a European perspective since we’re supporting the European Theater,” said Garcia. “Point two we talked about maintenance and supply property for this forum, so we want to look to see if we want to open the aperture further to include either transportation or food and field services, and major initiatives from [Army Material Command] or see what other aspects of sustainment we want to engage participants on.”

• Date Taken: 04.10.2024
• Date Posted: 04.16.2024 03:36
• Story ID: 468304
• Location: RP, DE