DLA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Andy Busch has announced the DLA Distribution Europe Warehousing Division Team as the winner of the DLA Strategic Goals Award for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 in the Warfighter First category.
The 62-member team, led by DLA Distribution Europe commander Army Lt. Col. Krista Hoffman, is diverse, comprised of 26 civilians and 36 local national employees from seven different countries.
Supporting the “Warfighter First” concept, which focuses on the delivery of innovative and responsive solutions to Warfighters first, DoD components, and other valued customers, the team brought in leaders from U.S. Army Europe, or USAREUR, and Army Materiel Command, and collaboratively developed solutions for these customers as they wrestled with how to best stand up and provide long-term support to the European Activity Set, a heavy brigade equipment set for CONUS-based rotational units to use in Europe with NATO allies.
DLA Distribution Europe established and presented a plan on how the organization could provide a quicker response time to meet USAREUR’s needs at a better value than other logistics agencies in theater. To date, the team has provided unmatched mission readiness to DoD forces partnering with NATO Allies in the Baltics, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and, most recently, Ukraine.
As word of the team’s success spread, the group was called upon to stand up the first-ever Army Global Combat Support System to manage critical non-DLA Army repair parts that had previously kept major combat systems down for extended periods of time. To support this mission, the team built and currently maintains more than 900 line items and has improved the readiness of the EAS by an estimated 65 percent, according to USAREUR maintenance managers.
Increasing its level of support to Whole of Government, the distribution center’s Warehousing Division was sought out by the Department of State’s U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, to provide storage and care of stock in storage solutions for its fleet of “fly-away” contingency motor vehicles. DLA Distribution Europe currently stores, inventories, fuels, and exercises a growing fleet of vehicles critical to embassy operations throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
"I am tremendously proud of our Warehousing Division. Their ability to provide the best support possible at the best value is evident by the additional work our customers are bringing to DLA. They are truly deserving of this award!" said Hoffman.