BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
The 2023 Agency Contingency Operations Readiness event is underway in Battle Creek, Michigan, this week, with Defense Logistics Agency personnel from across the enterprise taking part in deployment preparedness training.
Property disposal experts, agency reserve military members and headquarters support elements have coalesced at the Battle Creek Air National Guard Base where DLA Disposition Services maintains its hands-on training warehouse, classrooms, and expeditionary support facilities.
Exercise Planner Jeffrey Nofzinger, who coordinated the DLA Disposition Services portion of the event, said about 40 property disposal experts from across the network are taking part this year, their participation numbers split basically evenly between expeditionary civilians and military reservists.
For Disposition attendees, the summertime expeditionary training has taken on different forms and names over the past decade. Nofzinger said this year’s training is more compact than in recent iterations, with a focus on “back to basics” education and individual skill development.
During the first week, property disposal participants received individualized classroom instruction. The team completed a demilitarization module followed by breakout sessions tied directly to specific job roles, Nofzinger said.
During a recent training day, DLA Disposition Services Property Disposal Specialist Bryan Davidson was explaining preventive maintenance checklists for material handling equipment to an attentive group of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians.
“We want to make sure this training is fun and interesting for you all,” Davidson told the group.
He said their hands-on instruction would look like a “crawl, walk, run” process for those without previous MHE driving expertise, but also promised to add some extra challenges to the training for those who had solid familiarity. Above all, he highlighted the importance of safety.
“We push safety very hard here,” Davidson said. “We have story boards of previous incidents, and we do ‘deep dives’ into the information to show them what should have been done differently.”
Navy Logistics Specialist 1st Class Joel Utsinger, a member of Disposal Support Unit 4 out of Columbus, Ohio, said he had trained for deployment with DLA, but had never actually worked from an assembled ESS modular property disposal site. He said he was looking forward to working with material handling equipment, and perhaps, in the future, learning to use the torches that DLA personnel use to demilitarize used equipment.
“I’ve always enjoyed warehouse-type work,” Utsinger said. “I find it very engaging, as opposed to office work.”
During the second week of training, attendees construct a medium-sized Expeditionary Site Set and conduct disposal operations to process property received from nearby military turn-in customers at BCANGB and Fort Custer Training Center.
This year’s event marks the inauguration of agency-wide participation. ACOR ’23 is overseen by DLA Logistics Operations leadership and directly supported by both DLA Information Operations and DLA Joint Reserve Force personnel. Both agency Rapid Deployment Teams arrived over the weekend to take part in scenario-based training on site in Battle Creek, while elements of DLA Distribution are conducting a linked East Coast training event in Virginia.