ANNISTON, Alabama –
Army Lt. Col. Hattie Richardson has been awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for her achievements while serving as commander of Defense Logistics Agency Distribution Anniston, Ala. During her tenure, her leadership resulted in the organization performing well above the DLA standards in quality, performance, accountability, and safety.
Richardson coordinated the inventorying, processing, and shipment of more than 500,000 small arms, vehicles and artillery, and major end items to more than 60 foreign military sales countries and customers around the globe.
Under her leadership, the distribution center launched a major rack replacement optimization project, resulting in almost 5,000 square feet of additional storage space for new and existing business. The project also included a realignment of 15 warehouses, which moved fast-moving material close to shipping activity.
As part of the Army’s M4 and M4A1 conversion, Richardson’s team processed and repacked more than 9,000 weapons. The team coordinated the shipment of the M4s to the Anniston Army Depot Small Arms Maintenance shop.
From October 2014 to January 2015, Richardson led her team to complete a Total Package Fielding for the Korean Theater of Operations, consisting of more than 16,000 weapons to pure fleet units. The TPF required the distribution center have the material packed and ready for shipment within 30 days to meet the fielding plan, while simultaneously executing a Foreign Military Sales mission of approximately 24,000 weapons for shipment during the same time period.
In the course of two weeks, the distribution center processed the largest amount of weapons in their history, while continuing normal operations of nearly 300 local and off-depot requirements.
In October 2015, Richardson successfully planned and executed the first-ever 100 percent wall-to-wall inventory of all serialized and non-serialized weapons located in the small arms facility at the distribution center. This mission included the mobilization of more than 115 Army, Navy, and Air Force reservists, and 11 DLA Distribution personnel to complete the bare-metal and dual serial number verification of more than one million small arms and small arms parts in 150 days.
“Lt. Col. Richardson’s actions enabled the organization to greatly improve productivity and accountability, setting the path of relevancy which has secured a future for its employees,” said Perry Knight, DLA Distribution chief integration officer.