Editor’s Note: This is one of five stories featuring 2025 DLA Hall of Fame inductees. An induction ceremony will be held 2 p.m. May 21 at the McNamara Headquarters Complex auditorium on Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The ceremony is open to all DLA employees; invitations are not needed.
A senior logistician known as a strategic thinker, creative problem-solver and visionary behind numerous continuous improvement initiatives across Defense Logistics Agency Distribution is a 2025 DLA Hall of Fame member.
Larue “Scott” Rosbaugh’s federal government career began in 1987 as an intern with the Army Materiel Command before joining the DLA Distribution as a program analyst in 1991. He later became a special projects team lead, deputy director of Strategic Plans and Supply Chain Integration and ended as the director of the Office of Strategic Plans.
“DLA Distribution is a command of truly global reach, unconstrained by combatant command boundaries, sustaining warfighter readiness and lethality through a network of 24 distribution centers in 20 states and eight countries,” according to the nomination. “The plans, projects and capabilities crafted by Mr. Rosbaugh and his team marshalled the capabilities of a workforce of approximately 7,800 civilian employees, 317 active and reserve military personnel and 1,600 contractors who collectively manage 2.4 million stock items worth $110 billion. This immense enterprise provides materiel readiness and extends the operational reach of six combatant commanders and the military services.”
Throughout his 33-year career, Rosbaugh enhanced the agency’s distribution operations globally, as the nation’s priorities and military operations shifted. In 2005, he led the charge to build a deployable depot capability to provide disaster response for the continental United States at the request of the DLA director.
“Mr. Rosbaugh led the mission analysis effort. The timeline from receiving the task to actual operational capability, which entailed standing up DLA Distribution Expeditionary with 75 personnel and its organic equipment, was measured in months, an astounding achievement of project management in itself,” his nomination noted.
Successful efforts resulted in DLA receiving its first-ever nomination for a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration. This assessment from the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts examines military use of new technology to determine its operational utility and system integrity.
These demonstrations evaluated DLA Distribution Expeditionary as a distribution services provider in military contingencies and disaster relief operations. The DLA Distribution Expeditionary team validated joint logistics concepts by working with organizations to influence processes and become operational.
The DLA Distribution Expeditionary Team was first deployed to Osan Air Base in the Republic of Korea from April 20 to May 20, 2007, for the Limited User Evaluation. It was deployed again to U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Kinser at Okinawa, Japan, from March 24 to April 16, 2008, for the joint military utility assessment.
Rosbaugh led the Arabian Peninsula Distribution Network initiative in 2018 to align DLA Distribution with the U.S. Central Command’s plan to increase strategic depth, provide operational flexibility for emerging requirements and respond to loss of access to the Arabian Gulf waterways.
“He and his team devised a Bahrain-centric distribution strategy for the Arabian Peninsula that the doubled the capacity at this location, saved the military services $50 million per year, while reducing customer wait times incurred when flying materiel from Europe,” his nomination said.
He also served as the distribution lead for the consolidation of DLA Distribution and DLA Disposition, a DLA director-chartered initiative signed by five senior executive service members.
“The effort yielded a decrease in customer appointment wait times in Norfolk, Virgina, from 143 days to 14 days, a $3.4 million cost avoidance at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and the implementation of a ‘central receiving’ concept at Richmond, Virgina,” the nomination said.
Rosebaugh left DLA Distribution with a legacy of innovative problem-solving, exuberance for the work, and dedication to the personnel, the nomination said.
“He earned a sterling reputation throughout the high echelons of DLA and the Department of Defense for his knowledge of logistics and distribution,” the nomination said. “His visionary and unwavering leadership through periods of budgetary plenty and austerity, in peace and war, clearly sets him apart from his peers.”