Commentary: Director visits form, enhance DLA Europe & Africa

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany  –  

Senior leader authority is most potent when exercised face-to-face. Put simply, things get done when the boss visits. It’s therefore not surprising the organizational history of Defense Logistics Agency Europe, now DLA Europe & Africa, can be told through DLA directors’ trips to the continent.

Europe quickly became important to the Defense Supply Agency. DSA was restricted to supplying troops in the continental United States until the Vietnam War showed the necessity for integrated logistics overseas. After returning from his fourth trip to Europe in May 1971, DSA’s third director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Earl Hedlund, wrote Assistant Defense Secretary Barry Shillito “these visits, together with DSA liaison representation in Europe, have improved communication between elements of EUCOM and DSA.” Liaisons became permanent when the Defense Department made DSA the worldwide manager of subsistence, fuel and property disposal under Hedlund’s successor, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Walter Robinson, Jr. Traveling to Europe to implement these responsibilities, Robinson posted security, customer assistance, general counsel, network control, and engineering staffs to the continent.

Regional staff didn’t represent the entire agency. When DLA’s seventh director, Navy Vice Adm. Eugene Grinstead, traveled to Europe in late 1982, theater leaders complained the agency lacked a single individual with whom they could consult. Grinstead responded by forming Headquarters, DLA Europe and appointing Air Force Col. Frederick Ware, the agency’s deputy inspector general, its first commander.

Grinstead’s successor empowered the newly formed headquarters. After traveling to Europe, Army Lt. Gen. Donald Babers gave his theater commander operational control of staff elements, increasing his workforce from four to 20. He also put all DLA elements in Europe under the commander’s authority in wartime. By announcing he looked to his European commander “for answers to all Europe questions” in peacetime, he effectively designated him an information manager, not a combat leader. Army Lt. Gen. Vincent M. Russo, Babers’s replacement, saw this as a problem and wrote senior leaders, “On my visit to Europe, I had the impression that the agency would be better served by placing all staff activities in Europe under the administrative, repeat administrative, cognizance of” the DLA Europe commander. Staff directors in Virginia convinced Russo to leave the issue alone, however.

Trips to the continent resulted in further modifications to DLA Europe’s structure in the 1990s. Army Lt. Gen. Henry “Tom” Glisson, DLA’s 13th director, both reversed and expanded his European commander’s authorities. First, he directed staff elements be supervised from Virginia to unburden regional commanders from administrative tasks. At the same time, he increased planning and liaison employees in the region. More significantly, Glisson gave his European commander tasking authority over subsistence, fuel and property disposal offices in peacetime. While tasking authority was less than operational control – field activity commanders still maintained ultimate authority and European commanders couldn’t reorganize offices – it nonetheless centralized mission responsibilities on the continent. DLA had already complicated these authorities for named operations by introducing contingency support teams.

Contingency support teams grew from DLA’s response to the Gulf War. Operationalized under theater commanders, they nonetheless received their support from regional commands. DLA Europe, for example, oversaw the teams sent to Afghanistan and Iraq until the agency established DLA Southwest Asia in October 2003. The one exception to this model occurred in 2014, four years after the DLA Europe became DLA Europe & Africa. When President Barack Obama decided to combat Ebola in west Africa, Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek, the agency’s 17th director, kept regional commander Army Col. Lisa Keough in the operational area so she could exercise his authority whenever he couldn’t do so personally.

In addition to supporting U.S. Africa Command, DLA Europe & Africa received two other missions in the 21st century. The first was a coordinating responsibility with agency depots in Germersheim, Germany, and Sigonella, Italy. The Germersheim depot had come under DLA operation in the early 1990s as the result of Defense Management Review Decision 902; the Sigonella depot was cut over from the Navy in 2004. The second mission was headquarters consolidation. Army Lt. Gen. Robert Dail, DLA’s 15th director, mandated consolidation of the region’s command and staff elements at Kaiserslautern, Germany, after returning from Europe in 2007.

Even in today’s age of instant communication, director visits prompt change. As observed by current DLA Europe & Africa Commander Army Col. Faith Chamberlain, Navy Vice Adm. Michelle Skubic’s visit to the continent in November 2022 enhanced the agency’s ability to support NATO’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As with past director trips, Skubic’s visit smoothed organizational issues and enhanced theater-to-agency communication.