Southwest, Asia -- On December 12, 2017, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 approved 143 million dollars be allocated to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing for military construction. More than any other overseas military contingency operations construction in 2018.
With such a large sum, contracting specialists assigned to the 332nd Expeditionary Mission Support Group are entrusted to allocate the funds toward a new living sustainment area.
“The contracts currently being awarded are to get us from the buildup phase to sustainment phase,” said Capt. Anthony Lee, 332nd Expeditionary Contracting Squadron Commander. “We won’t be moving to the new LSA for about four more years, so until then we have to sustain the quality of life here on this LSA. Recently awarded contracts included new modular facilities for the chaplain, finance, safety and personnel units, which are currently located in tents, and for all new latrines on the LSA.”
332nd ECONS airmen are responsible for every single host-nation contracting service that comes onto the base, and focus on three tiers: commodities, service and construction.
“One of our main missions here is to provide life sustaining critical functions, such as feeding our people, providing water, shelter; anything that has to do with sustaining life,” said Senior Master Sgt. Daniel Taliaferro, 332nd ECONS superintendent. “That’s about as critical as it gets and we manage that on a day to day bases.”
When it comes to the construction aspect, there is a lot of teamwork exhibited between 332 ECS and the 332nd Civil Engineer Squadron.
“For construction, we rely heavily on the project managers at civil engineering to write the statement of work, it’s definitely a team effort and we make sure to get them what they need,” said Lee. “We also handle all Government Purchase Card purchases in-house, whereas back home it’s a decentralized program.”
Being at an undisclosed location can present some challenges when attempting to solicit offers for contracts.
“There is a system called Federal Business Opportunities where we can post all the solicitations we plan on awarding,” said Lee. “On that website, vendors have the opportunity to send us proposals. Because we’re at an undisclosed location we’re not able to use that website, we’ve been exempted from that. We have an internal list of vendors that we use. We’re constantly expanding as we find new qualified companies we’ll add them to the vendor list, talk to them, assess their capabilities and allow them to send us proposals.”
So while the wing moves from expeditionary to enduring presence, the 332nd ECONS is adapting and keeping their eye on the future of the 332nd AEW.
“One of the most important things we do here is maintain quality relationships with our local national partners and contractors,” said Lee. “As well as sustain good positive relationships for the U.S. going into the future.”