The Army contracting community appears to be continually re-organizing, re-inventing, and re-orienting itself. There is a very long story that explains this condition, but the short version is that Army leadership put all of its acquisition eggs in the major weapons systems procurement basket, and then got involved in two land wars that required a massive contingency contracting support effort. Sadly, the Army could not perform its own contracting mission in Afghanistan and Iraq, and relied heavily on the US Air Force for that support (more on that later). Anyway, back to the point: the Army contracting community appears to be in perpetual flux, struggles to align capabilities against pressing requirements, and lacks the organizational maturity and systemic processes that typically exemplify effective groups or departments.
Army Contracting is comprised of two major elements: the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the Army Contracting Command, or ACC. USACE handles all military construction efforts for the Army and some of the other military services, as well as supporting civil works projects such as dams, levees, etc. throughout the continental United States. USACE has a long, varied history, and has grown fairly autonomous from the Army, because of its interrelationships with other federal Departments, state governments and related agencies. USACE’s independence and specialization in construction projects warrants a separate article devoted solely to its culture and processes. This article will focus on Army Contracting Command, and its two major components, the Mission and Installation Contracting Command and the Expeditionary Contracting Command.
Mission and Installation Contracting Command (MICC), consists of the multitude of Directorates of Contracting (DoCs) and Contracting Centers located on or near Army bases throughout the United States. For example, every Army post, like Fort Bragg, NC, Fort Hood, TX, or Fort Campbell, KY, has a Directorate of Contracting that supports the installation and garrison mission requirements of the tenant units. These Directorates support the garrison command that runs the installation, but actually work for a higher-level Contracting Center or Contracting Support Brigade, all of which fall under the MICC Headquarters. Additionally, the MICC manages several Contracting Centers, organized around the various Life Cycle Management Commands within Army Materiel Command. Basically, the Army has a major command that manages every single item of property, from combat boots to M1 tanks and Apache helicopters. Divided into commodity type or by function, these Life Cycle Management Commands (LCMCs) include the Aviation and Missile LCMC, the Tank and Automotive LCMC, the Communications and Electronics LCMC, and several others. There are other more specialized centers that support specific activities within the Department of the Army, but for the most part, the MICC focuses its efforts on garrison support of Army installations and managing the contracting effort for major systems procurements.
While the MICC is a fairly new organization, most of its component elements – the garrison DoCs and Contracting Centers, have been around for a long time, and merely had to adjust to the new command structure. And the MICC had a similar predecessor, the Army Contracting Agency, so in the garrison and systems contracting world, things are pretty much the same as they have always been, it is just the letterhead and signature authorities that have changed. Thus, the policies, procedures and processes have been fairly consistent, having been established and routine for decades. The MICC, therefore, represents the longevity and experience in Army contracting, which is important when it comes to multi-billion dollar systems acquisitions or long-term service contracts. The DoCs and Centers are staffed by experienced, talented contracting professionals that have weathered a long series of reorganizations, Defense cuts and budget expansions, and changing Army missions and structures. Their contracting authority and warrants originate in the senior Centers and Contracting Support Brigades, whose Directors and Commanders serve as PARCs, or Principal Assistants Responsible for Contracting. These PARCs derive their authority from the MICC Commanding General, who serves as the Head of Contracting Activity, or HCA. The details may vary from Center to Center, but the concept is consistent, established and effective.
The other major subordinate command of Army Contracting Command is the Expeditionary Contracting Command (ECC). The ECC is the result of fifteen years of prolonged warfare and military operations abroad, for which the Army was almost completely unprepared in terms of contingency contracting workforce, experience or doctrine. For years after the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Army relied heavily on the US Air Force’s experienced contingency contracting personnel to carry the load of supporting two major ground wars. In 2009, the Army finally established and codified a military command that is nominally capable of training, fielding, and deploying sufficient quantities of qualified contingency contracting officers. The ECC consists of several Contracting Support Brigades (CSBS) that each supports a designated Army Component Command around the world. For example, US Army North (ARNORTH) supports the US Northern Command, charged with defending the US homeland, while US Army Europe (USAREUR) supports US European Command, which commands US forces stationed or operating in Europe.
Every Army Component Command is supported by a Contracting Support Brigade from ECC, and these CSBs are comprised of one or more Contingency Contracting Battalions (CCBns). The CCBns are composed of US Army officers and Non-commissioned officers that have been accessed into the Army Acquisition workforce and are organized into a battalion HQs and multiple 4-5 person teams, known as Contingency Contracting Teams. The CCTs and battalion HQs are typically co-located with a MICC Directorate of Contracting or Contracting Center, so the CCBn personnel receive contracting training, experience and professional development while at home station. And upon receipt of deployment orders, the battalion and/or some of its teams will ‘unplug’ from the garrison contracting mission, hand off their workload to the non-deploying team(s) or MICC civilian employees, and deploy to whatever theater has need of their support as contingency contracting officers.
The ECC embodies the chaos and constant flux that has beset Army contracting for the last 20 years. The strain of the endless deployments, the new structure and organization, and the sheer effort of recruiting, training, and managing a whole new cadre of personnel have combined to cause a constant state of change and upheaval. Recently, the Army has decided to reverse its growth trends, meaning the cycle will continue as units deactivate, reorganize and shrink down to pre-war levels. Amidst this turmoil, the ECC and its units and personnel must continue to establish, enforce and systematize policies, procedures and staff relationships amongst themselves and their customers. As such, for the indefinite future, it appears that Army contracting will maintain an air of slight schizophrenia, as the organizations evolve, transform, and hopefully settle into a fairly static environment.
For most government contractors, the ECC’s hardships and frustrations will be invisible, as it is the MICC activities that handle most of the applicable contracting efforts. For those companies that dabble in overseas or contingency operational support, the Army’s contracting shortfalls are largely offset by the greater experience and oversight of the Air Force contracting community. Wise analysts are forever grateful for the shield and support that Air Force personnel have provided as the Army contracting community undergoes its transformation. So eventually, the Army contracting workforce will achieve an overall stable, effective level of competence, qualifications and experience, and in the meantime, the risks and pitfalls will be concentrated mostly in the contingency arena.
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