Fort Belvoir, Virginia –
Defense Logistics Agency and Marine Corps leaders met June 12 at DLA’s Fort Belvoir, Virginia, headquarters to discuss how they could grow their partnership and improve mutual support during the annual Marine Corps-DLA Day.
Army Lt. Gen. Darrell Williams, director of DLA, welcomed guests from across the DLA enterprise and Marine Corps as well Lt. Gen. Charles Chiarotti, deputy commandant of installations and logistics for the Marine Corps.
Williams said participants often talk about service readiness without addressing the combatant commands, so he invited representatives from DLA Indo-Pacific and DLA Europe & Africa to participate via video teleconference.
In his opening remarks, Chiarotti thanked everyone for attending, adding that he appreciated DLA’s support during the past year.
“We have benefited from a higher level of readiness across the board, not because of anything I’ve done, but because of things that our teams have done,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Williams said the DLA Service Readiness Dashboard shows a rise in material availability of more than 90% since last year.
He thanked the Marine Corps and DLA teams for their collaboration and stressed that the strength of their partnership will be even more important than before with continued funding constraints.
Weapons systems support and back-order reductions remain priorities for the service and DLA. Other topics included results of the May 1 Demand Planning Summit, additive manufacturing, war reserve program modernization and a review of open tasks.
Chiarotti said the Marine Corps staff will continue to apply the improvements DLA has helped them implement.
“This is a very challenging and difficult portfolio we have,” he said. “I want to thank you for continued support and I look forward to another year of partnership.”
The session ended with leaders signing a 2019 performance based agreement that frames DLA’s support of Marine Corps logistics by highlighting key strategic and partnership efforts.