FORT CARSON, Colo. – In 2010, the Fort Carson Mission Support Element Logistics office began a partnership to provide real world training to aspiring logisticians with the Civilian Logistics Career Management Office at Fort Lee, Va.
For more than a year, the Fort Carson team prepared more than a dozen interns prepare for a long term career in the Army logistics field.
By spending a large portion of their training on the job, future logisticians gain valuable insights into their field of study, said Nekoletta Brown, logistics management intern specialist, currently assigned to Fort Carson MSE Logistics office.
“I’ve learned that the logistician’s field is very wide,” Brown said. “You have to deal with transportation, contracting and procuring, and it is growing even larger. Nothing moves in the Army unless logisticians move it. It is a very wide field with a lot of room for growth.”
Students enrolled in the program spend approximately half of the 18-month training period at different Army posts across the country, learning from logistics professionals and gaining experience at every level of the Army formation, explained Brown.
By interning with logisticians across the Army, the students gain valuable contacts for future assignments, in addition to knowledge and experience, Brown explained.
“We have interns at a lot of different Army bases, and a lot of the facilities like to hire the interns they trained,” she said.
Brown, who will finish the first of her three “on-the-job” training assignments at the end of February, expressed interest in returning to the “Mountain Post” after completing the course.
Brown said she is most interested in pursuing a career in transportation or contracting logistics, but also enjoys the possibilities her new job opens up for her.
“I like the opportunity that you can go any direction in the logisticians field,” she said. “Every day you are doing something different.”
One of the biggest lessons interns learn at Fort Carson is the versatility logisticians must maintain to accomplish their daily missions, said Kristin Bowen, director MSE Logistics office.
“In this office we cover every aspect of logistics” Bowen said. “Our hope is that when they come here, we can give them a broad base knowledge of all of those things.”
To further this goal, the interns spend time with multiple units and directorates throughout Fort Carson, learning different logistics requirements.
“We have not kept our interns at the top level of the organization,” Bowen said. “We have given them experience with as many Fort Carson units as possible. Our hope is that by being exposed to that, they can see how all those pieces have to fit together for us to be effective.”
Bowen said she would like to see more career fields in the Army provide training similar to the logisticians from Fort Lee.
“This program is an incredibly effective training tool,” she said. “I think a lot of Army civilian career fields should look into trying something similar.”