NEW CUMBERLAND, Pennsylvania –
To discuss the current and future relationship between DLA Distribution and United States Northern Command, DLA Distribution hosted Air Force Brig. Gen. Stan Sheley, director of Logistics and Engineering, North American Aerospace Defense Command and NORTHCOM, July 21.
Sheley is responsible for the planning, coordination, and integration of strategic logistics and engineering to facilitate both the NORAD mission of conducting aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning in the defense of North America, and the USNORTHCOM mission of partnering to conduct homeland defense, civil support, and security cooperation to defend and secure the United States and its interests.
Supporting the combatant command with distribution functions such as full distribution centers, Consolidation and Containerization Points, Materiel Processing Centers, and retail capabilities, DLA Distribution currently maintains a strong partnership with NORTHCOM. However, DLA Distribution key leadership and Sheley discussed further integration of DLA Distribution’s expeditionary capabilities into NORTHCOM exercises to further refine DLA support.
Following an overall DLA Distribution command brief, Sheley learned how DLA Distribution’s expeditionary team enables combatant commander distribution requirements that cannot be supported from the organization’s fixed based network of distribution centers, and supports the full range of military operations from humanitarian assistance/disaster recovery to major theater wars.
The group outlined the process used to request expeditionary support, the deployment timeline, and various models of expeditionary that can be requested.
At the end of the discussion, Sheley commented on how much new information he had gleaned from the session. "This has been a huge learning experience for me. I am much more knowledgeable about DLA Distribution's capabilities than I was two hours ago," he said. "DLA has come a long way in the 20 years when I was a maintenance guy."
Following the briefing, Sheley visited DLA Distribution Susquehanna, Pa.’s Eastern Distribution Center, the largest distribution center within the Department of Defense. There, he viewed the Consolidation and Containerization Point, and then toured part of a deployable distribution center.
Impressed with the organization’s capabilities, Sheley said "DLA is a first-class organization. NORTHCOM cannot do what we do without DLA."