COLUMBUS, Ohio –
Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime’s Acquisition Executive Mark Brown took on questions from across the workforce Aug. 25 during his annual Brown Bag Lunch hosted by the Leadership Development Council.
This year’s event was virtual in keeping with current social distancing guidelines and to accommodate a teleworking audience, with nearly 100 associates tuning in via WebRTC. The luncheon’s theme of “Meeting the ever-changing procurement needs of our Warfighter and nation” invited discussion on current challenges facing the agency as it works to ensure the nation’s military has what’s needed to meet evolving mission requirements.
“When you don’t have a part that you need, it’s not a good feeling,” Brown said, answering a question about navigating tense communications with industry. “We owe it to the men and women in uniform who are potentially in harm’s way to do everything we can to have the part they need when they need it – whether it’s to fix a piece of equipment to do their mission or a weapon part that keeps them safe.”
“You need to be aggressive to a certain extent…and try to get the best deal you can for the government,” he stated.
The question-and-answer session was moderated by LDC’s Chrissy Southern-Hempstead, who kept things flowing throughout the hourlong event as associates submitted questions in real time to be answered. Brown is a regular presenter at LDC, having participated on an annual basis nearly every year since his selection as DLA Land and Maritime’s senior acquisition leader.
In response to a question about working with military customers on competitive sourcing, Brown lauded DLA Aberdeen’s success with multi-award contracts for interconnection parts and talked about future opportunities to apply these types of contracts in the Strategic Acquisition Programs Directorate.
Additional questions came in on sole source procurements, pricing and demand planning, taking the event up to its conclusion. Brown’s final thoughts were on leadership, offering words on leadership strategy written by former Secretary of State Colin Powell before drawing the event to a close.
LDC announced the brown bag would serve as a kickoff for additional virtual events planned in the future and encouraged associates to reach out for membership questions. The council’s stated mission is to foster leadership and critical decision-making skills by providing the workforce with continuous learning opportunities through education forums, networking and professional events. For more information, email DLALMLDC@dla.mil.