Courtesy Photo | Navy Cmdr. Colleen Salonga shakes hands with former U.S. Forces Afghanistan Commander...... read more read more
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FORT BELVOIR, Va. - Sitting behind a desk wasn’t how Navy Cmdr. Colleen Salonga wanted to learn about the Defense Logistics Agency, so just one month after her arrival in July 2010, she volunteered for duty in Afghanistan.
“I wanted to be an asset to DLA, and I figured the best way to get a crash course on what the agency does was to put boots on the ground where we’re doing some of our most important work,” she said.
Salonga served as deputy commander of the 150-member DLA support team scattered throughout Afghanistan from February to July. From her post in Kabul, she helped warfighters get the supplies and support they needed and ensured DLA employees located at forward operating bases had the tools to do their jobs.
What she learned during the deployment primed her for her new role as the executive assistant for DLA Vice Director Mae DeVincentis, she said.
“My time in Afghanistan gave me the perspective that I was looking for, and it also gave me the opportunity to interact directly with each of the primary-level field activities on the same types of issues I’m encountering here” she said.
Her life is no longer threatened by insurgents and roadside bombs, but Salonga regularly works 12-hour days in the DLA Headquarters front office. Before many people have drained their first cup of morning coffee, she’s already collected an update on DLA’s worldwide operations from the Joint Logistics Operations Center.
“It’s my responsibility to make sure Ms. DeVincentis has the most current information on the wide range of issues that DLA handles, from daily item tracking to long-range strategic issues. That usually means giving her the Cliffs Notes version because she’s got a very tight schedule,” she said.
Salonga also arranges the vice director’s schedule, provides background information for meetings and manages the more than 100 emails that typically arrive in DeVincentis’ inbox each day. She described the work as fast-paced, but said she enjoys the challenge.
Being assigned to DLA has lead to two firsts in Salonga’s career. This is her first joint-service assignment, and while her time in Afghanistan wasn’t her first land deployment, was her first joint land deployment in a combat zone.
“I’m used to deploying on ships, but that’s not the same as being on the ground where the action is happening,” she said.
But managing supplies and meeting warfighters’ needs is not new to Salonga. She spent a year at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, where she was in charge of scheduling deliveries of food, fuel and other equipment to coalition vessels using U.S., U.K., German, French and Japanese supply ships in the region.
That experience was very different from her time in Kabul, where she often interfaced with officials at NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Embassy.
“We had a lot of initiatives in which we worked together, so it was important to keep an open dialog with them,” she said. “Most of my time was spent tracking support to U.S. forces.”
Army Lt. Col. James Nelson, who served as DeVincentis’ executive assistant for the past year, said these and other experiences helped make Salonga a good choice as his replacement.
“She is a talented officer who comes to the job knowing how DLA operates, having seen firsthand how the agency operates in a deployed environment,” Nelson said.
| Date Taken: | 10.05.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 10.05.2011 11:14 |
| Story ID: | 78056 |
| Location: | FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 551 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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