An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

News | April 30, 2018

Central York High School students visit DLA Distribution Headquarters

By Diana Dawa DLA Distribution Public Affairs

Students from the Central York High School visited DLA Distribution Headquarters Friday, April 20 to learn about DLA Distribution operations, the DLA Pathways to Career Excellence Program, and receive a tour of DLA Distribution Susquehanna’s Eastern Distribution Center. 

“The visit was scheduled as part of their educational studies in their Advanced Placement U.S. Government Class,” said teacher Karen Hudson. 

Hudson was assigned to DLA Distribution J9 as an Army reservist years ago. She started scheduling the tours for her students four years ago. Hudson believes these visits are a good teaching opportunity for her students to learn about a government agency’s business processes as well as the job opportunities available.

“We just did a big election and now we’re getting into branches of government. Everybody’s been assigned a department under the executive branch, and they’re working off of an executive memo stating that they have to do certain things to bring their agency in compliance with national strategy. So, they’ve pulled national strategies for each of their different departments and they’re looking at things they need to do.”

As part of their class curriculum, she felt these visits help give the students an idea of how logistics operate within the Department of Defense. 

“It’s a morning outing, usually the general comes in and speaks with them for a few minutes.  Then we have an overview of DLA Distribution and they receive a human resources brief which touches on the Pathways program,” said Hudson.

The DLA PaCE Program is a 2-year training program designed to train entry-level personnel for subsequent advancement to the journey-level in professional, administrative, and technological career fields. This is accomplished through on-the-job assignments, cross-training, rotational assignments, and formal training (e.g. classroom, distance learning, web-based training, conferences and seminars).

Given the close proximity of DLA’s Eastern Distribution Center to their school – 20 miles - and the fact that it is the largest of its kind in the DoD, it’s the perfect opportunity for these students to see up close how logistics operate in a federal government agency.

“I think it’s really interesting to see how everything is working because we’re learning about some of this stuff in our class. We never really go over how exactly everything works in our class so I think it’s really neat to see how everything works up close,” said sophomore Daniella Feistritzer.

Sophomore Brent Forry plans to go into the Coast Guard after high school and after hearing about the Pathways program here, he may pursue a federal career.

“Learning of the Pathways Program really widened my range of knowledge. I was looking at going into the military and then coming out of the military and looking at a federal job, so it widened the range on what I could possibly do in the Federal Government.”