FORT CARSON, Colo. -- The commanders of 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) and 4th Sustainment Brigade met with over three-dozen senior logisticians at Fort Carson, Colo., Feb. 7-10, to discuss current trends in logistics and the way ahead for sustainment brigades and for the Leveraging Support Operations in the Continental United States initiative.
Col. Knowles Atchison and Col. Mark Simerly joined a group of senior logisticians from several CONUS sustainment brigades, the U.S. Army Forces Command G4, the Army Sustainment Command and the Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Management Command and Joint Munitions Command to exchange ideas and share best practices.
Attendees touched on the following topics during the conference: Review and Analysis and Materiel Management Review, the Sustainment Brigade Way Ahead, Support Operations Synchronization and Movement Integration, Sustainment Brigade Support to Combat Training Center rotations, the Sustainment Brigade’s Relationship with the Sustainment Enterprise, Soldiers Sustaining Soldiers and Sustainment is Training.
Sustainment Brigade commanders also participated in a round table with Brig. Gen. Gustave F. Perna, JM&L LCMC and JMC and Brig. Gen. Brian R. Layer, deputy commanding general for sustainment, ASC. The two generals both offered an officer professional development session, which was opened up to all logistics officers in the 43rd SB and the Fort Carson logistics community.
Col. Todd A. Heussner, the commander of the 43rd Sustainment Brigade and conference host said that bringing logisticians together in a forum like this is important on a number of levels. “One, we share ideas with our team mates and we learn from each other. We don’t all have to invent things ourselves; we can gain a lot by sharing with one another learning the best practices. The second piece is that you develop relationships.”
The conference is part of an ongoing series of quarterly scheduled meetings, synchronized and coordinated by the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), and hosted by the different sustainment brigades, Heussner said. By moving the conferences around participants get to see how other people do things and how they are set up at their individual posts. “Each post is different, so we all have different requirements, so we can’t take the Fort Carson solution and give that to Fort Hood, because their circumstances are different… [However] there are some common fundamentals that are easily exportable and some good ideas that they can take and use on their post.”
Col. Knowles Atchison, who besides commanding the 13th ESC is also the head of the LSOC initiative, hopes that the conference has some important outcomes. “We have to go back to a reset and contingency based Army … we need a common view and vision statement,” Atchison said during his opening remarks. He is also hoping to build a bridge between ASC and FORSCOM and find a way ahead of tying in all the important players in the logistics arena. “We don’t have a choice because of resources,” Atchison explained. “We have to integrate, work, train and fight together.”
Heussner invited the ASC and FORSCOM representatives to facilitate this cooperation and to feed ideas and suggestions from the bottom up. He said participants are discussing force structure and the ways in which they do business. “There is a little bit of a difference in terms of what we have stated in doctrine and what is really happening on the ground… How do we change what we are doing based on the current circumstances?” Heussner also added that because of the force reduction, changes in the economy and budgets, logistics units have got to get smarter and more efficient to maintain their effectiveness.
Simerly agrees with his fellow SB commander on efficiency: “By capitalizing on the training opportunities inherent in our expanding set of support tasks, the Wrangler Brigade can not only provide better support to the war fighter, we can also build our readiness for our wartime mission.”
Having ASC and FORSCOM leaders at the conference was invaluable, said Simerly, who only recently took command of his organization. “If we did not have those essential players, in the sustainment community across CONUS, we would really have an incomplete picture of requirements and also the solutions. Leaders from these organizations help us complete the picture by helping us see ourselves and also the Army’s capabilities,” said Simerly.
“We bring the Army Sustainment Command and Army Materiel Command perspective of above field level logistics. It gives us a different view, different perspective, but it also shows the synergy that we can accomplish,” said Lt. Col. Andrew D. Centineo, the commander of the Fort Carson Army Field Support Battalion. “We work extremely close with the 43rd Sustainment brigade and all the units at Fort Carson and Fort Sill, but I believe it enables us, to ask ourselves and our senior leaders the tough question: Is this the way the Army [sustainment] should be structured, or is there a better way that we can approach it?” Centineo added.
Some of the ideas that fired up participating logisticians during the discussions included possibly recommending a change for the deployment train up of a sustainment brigade headquarters and actually pushing them through a field exercise and forcing them to jump their Tactical Operations Center; completely aligning sustainment brigade headquarters with divisions headquarters and possibly getting them in the same deployment rotation cycle; and coming up with a robust and augmented sustainment brigade rear detachment headquarters, that is still capable of supporting garrison operations when the sustainment brigade headquarters is deployed.
Participants also discussed how in the absence of what used to be the Division Support Command material managers, that oftentimes several different entities at the brigade support battalion, in the brigade logistics support team, and at the sustainment brigade support operations level are duplicating efforts, for example by tracking parts, calling the same item manager in the United States for the same information. The subject of reducing customer wait times by pushing orders from the Department of Logistics straight to the supply support activity instead of processing it through the central receiving and shipping point also attracted a lot of comments and interest.
There is a slightly different takeaway for all participants, depending on their background and the agencies they represent. “It has been a tremendous opportunity to partner with other sustainment brigade commanders, look at their best practices on how they are sustaining their formations, their installations, and some good ideas that we can share in the way we are supporting the footprint at Fort Hood,” said Simerly.
“Having taken command within the last month, for me it has been very enlightening and it has been encouraging to see other commanders being presented with the same problems, coming up with some of the same solutions, but also the chance of learning new solutions they have come up with,” said Simerly. “Our challenge is to use creative thinking and innovative solutions to best support III Corps units and Fort Hood as well as provide them with greater flexibility through improved stewardship of limited resources,” he said. During future conferences, Simerly hopes to further explore installation support, cost savings for the Army and the way that we can match capabilities when we have shortfalls between installations.
“We owe it to ourselves and our senior leaders to ask ourselves the tough questions … have open and honest dialogue about what the solution sets might be, and not ignore or eliminate any of our possible solutions. We can’t tread water and the status quo cannot be the norm. We have to think of creative ways of [supporting] the Army as we reduce in force size and structure,” said Centineo in conclusion.