Q&A: General Ann E. Dunwoody

Written by Jeff McKaughan

MLF 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 (February)

Dunwoody received a direct commission as a quartermaster officer in 1975, after graduating from the State University of New York at Cortland. She later earned a Master of Science degree in logistics management from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1988 and a Master of Science degree in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 1995.

Her command assignments include: the 226th Maintenance Company Fort Sill, Okla.; 5th QM Detachment (ABN) Kaiserslautern, Germany; the 407th Supply and Service Battalion/782d Main Support Battalion, Fort Bragg, N.C.; the 10th Division Support Command (DISCOM) Fort Drum, N.Y.; the 1st Corps Support Command Fort Bragg; the Military Traffic Management Command/Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, Alexandria, Va.; and the Combined Arms Support Command, Fort Lee, Va. She most recently served as AMC’s deputy commanding general.

Her key staff assignments include 82d Division parachute officer; strategic planner for the chief of staff of the Army; executive officer to the director, Defense Logistics Agency; and deputy chief of staff for logistics G-4. She deployed with the 82d as the division parachute officer for Desert Shield and Desert Storm from September 1990 to March 1991, and in 2001, as 1st COSCOM commander she deployed the LOG task force in support of OEF1 and stood up the Joint Logistics Command in Uzbekistan in support of CJTF-180. As commander of SDDC, she supported the largest deployment and redeployment of U.S. forces since WWII.

Her awards and decorations include: the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster; Defense Superior Service Medal; Legion of Merit with two Oak Leaf Clusters; Defense Meritorious Service Medal; Meritorious Service Medal with Silver Oak Leaf Cluster; Army Commendation Medal; the Army Achievement Medal; the National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Star; SWASM (2 campaign stars); and the Kuwait Liberation Medal. Her badges include the Master Parachutist Badge and the Parachute Rigger Badge.

She has been recognized as a 2001 Distinguished Alumni for the State University of New York at Cortland, the 2004 recipient of the National Defense Transportation Association’s DoD Distinguished Service Award, the 2007 recipient of the Military Order of the World Wars Distinguished Service Award and the 2009 recipient of the Association of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces Eisenhower Award. She also received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the State University of New York at Cortland in 2009.

General Dunwoody was interviewed by Editor-in-Chief Jeff McKaughan.

Q: The Army Materiel Command is a very mature command. It’s been around for about 50 years as I understand it. Can you describe the scope and size and the mission of your organization for me, please?

A: Well, the word I would use to describe it is breathtaking. When you think about the size and scope of this command, it’s 67,000 military and civilians located in 48 states and 127 countries. Of course, everyone says, ‘Okay, which states don’t you have?’ That’s Wyoming and North Dakota. That gives you the global nature of our command. If we were a private company, we’d be 39 on the Fortune 100. We have a $57 billion budget and manage over $97 billion in contract obligations.

Now, those are just big numbers to give you the scope and magnitude of this operation.

Q: Obviously, you’re spread out with all kinds of different organizations within that. Your major commands are located here at Fort Belvoir and at?

A: Our headquarters is here at Fort Belvoir but we are truly a global organization. The Army Contracting Command headquarters is currently here, but it will move along with AMC headquarters to Redstone Arsenal, Ala. where the Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command is located. The other major subordinate commands, the two-star commands are located around the country. The Army Sustainment Command and the Joint Munitions Command are at Rock Island Arsenal, Ill. The TACOM Life Cycle Management Command is out of Warren, Mich. RDECOM, the Research, Development and Engineering Command and the Chemical Materials Agency are located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The CECOM Life Cycle Management Command is up at Fort Monmouth, N.J., and is moving to Aberdeen in 2011 as a part of BRAC.

The Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, SDDC, is now located at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. USASAC, the Security Assistance Command, was located here at Fort Belvoir and has already moved to Redstone.

So it’s one year ahead of the BRAC schedule. Then we have our operating commands, which are the Army field support brigades, located around the United States to facilitate reset and forward deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Korea to facilitate our factory-to-foxhole operations. We also have new Contracting Brigades that are located throughout the world.

Q: The country has been at war for about eight years. How was AMC evolved over that timeframe to be where you are today?

A: I’ll tell you, I think the beauty of this command since its inception is that it continues to reform, transform, and reinvent itself to remain relevant. The last eight years are no different. Because we’ve been an Army at war, the dynamics of our transformation has resulted in units that have either been created, reformed, realigned or transformed. People not familiar with the current AMC may assume it is still an industrial command that is CONUS centric. Over the last eight years we’ve built an operational piece of our command that now links the industrial base to the warfighter. We’ve stood up an Army Sustainment Command at Rock Island, which is kind of like the DISCOM [Division Support Command] for the Army. This new command facilitates and synchronizes all the logistics and reset for our Army.

We’ve stood up the Army Contracting Command in response to the Gansler Commission Report. It’s brand new, the headquarters just became fully operational October 2009, and it has subordinate commands, which are all new.

The SDDC, which has been realigned under Army Materiel Command and operationally assigned to TRANSCOM, gives us the distribution capability to align the movement of the materiel that we manage. USASAC, which handles all the Army’s foreign military sales programs, is helping the combatant commanders generate host nation combat power.

Q: And this benefits the warfighter.

A: We’re also transforming to be more responsive to the warfighter. Our old commodity commands are now life cycle management commands, so they’ve transformed to work closely with the program managers to start managing the lifecycle process instead of just delivery and repair.

Our headquarters is in the midst of transforming and we’re leveraging BRAC to do so. Our move to Huntsville will allow us obtain the necessary skill sets like security assistance expertise, contracting expertise, research and development expertise, to facilitate our ability to better manage the entire life cycle of materiel and to help manage our subordinate commands global reach.

Q: You’re talking about these commands and bringing in additional skill sets. Is there a growth number that you’ve attached to that that it will cause a certain percentage increase in growth or numbers?

A: That’s a great question. Right now, I do not see a need for growth but an exchange of skill sets that may no longer be relevant and replace them with skill sets needed in the future.

Q: What would people be most surprised to know about the command that they may not know today or may not know by reading the front page of your Website?

A: I think what would surprise people most is the diversity of our mission. And again, I think the perception is we run the depots and we repair stuff and we return it to the user, when in addition to that mission we do research and development. So we’re developing the latest technology or pushing industry on the leading edge of technology. We have over 11,000 scientists and engineers in the command.

We manage the foreign military sales [FMS], which is a growth industry—billions of dollars that we, through USASAC, manage. And, I say growth industry because in order for us to effectively get out of Iraq, we have to build the Iraqi capacity. Basically the same with the Afghan National Army and Police— we’re doing that primarily through FMS of equipment. I think another really important thing, and this goes to the national strategy, is that we have a tremendous economic impact on our nation. For every $1 we invest at our depots the return on investment to the community is $1.74. So as our depots invest in this trained and skilled workforce that’s going to enhance readiness of our nation, we can show that by increasing the investment we can generate more jobs and services across our communities.

Conversely, if that investment

declines we can show the economics of lost jobs and lost impact. I think that’s an important message, that the second and third order effects of priorities could have the opposite impact.

Q: That reminds me of a conversation with Lieutenant General Pillsbury late last year. A similar question came up about AMC’s role in protecting skill sets that you don’t come across every day. So you are actually protecting very vital skill sets out there.

A: We are, and working very closely with industry, because it truly is a partnership to maintain a level in the industrial base to keep a wartime footing for the next contingency. A couple other areas that people probably aren’t aware of are our requirements to manage chemical munitions storage and the demilitarization and destruction of those stockpiles. This is a critical responsibility for AMC and obviously one that, if you didn’t have the right people, would keep you and me up at night. We have a very talented workforce that manages it every day.

As you can imagine, in our depots, we are doing three times the workload we were post Vietnam. We reset 33 brigade combat teams every year. The OPTEMPO and the PERSTEMPO [personnel tempo] of the workforce is incredibly high right now. We have to pay attention to that.

Q: There’s obviously a lot going on in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Most of Iraq is the drawdown and then the surge and the push to upsize Afghanistan. What is AMC’s role in that, both at a strategic level and then down sort of where the warfighter is going to understand it?

A: These are our number one and two priorities. For the last year we were very focused on the drawdown in Iraq because we didn’t want to repeat what happened after Desert Storm—as you may recall, iron mountains of equipment. It took us years to sort it out. We don’t have that kind of time or resources, and we must be good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars.

AMC is the executive agent for the Army for reset, and we put an incredible amount of time and energy into working with all the stakeholders to support General Odierno and CENTCOM’s drawdown plan. They drive the strategy and we facilitate and enable that strategy. So, we’ve been linked with General Odierno and his team, and he’s got a great plan. General Odierno is sandwiched between elections and defined departure dates. The hard work is getting visibility over what we have, which has been one of our Achilles heels in the past. Knowing we are in an era of persistent conflict and knowing the volume of stuff that’s been over there for eight years, the entire department has done a terrific job planning for this responsible drawdown. I think for the first time we have good visibility over the stuff coming out. And that’s been hard, because there are containers that have probably been there since the first rotation and they’re now being opened up. Now, the baseline moves as we see the stuff, but that’s good news.

What we’ve done with the approval of General Odierno, General Petraeus, Lieutenant General Webster and with the support of our Chief of Staff, General Casey, is deploy a threestar headquarters forward into Kuwait—an AMC team that’s facilitating the reset and redistribution of equipment. I liken it to being a big catcher’s mitt. So when materiel comes out and CENTCOM and ARCENT says we are done with this, we no longer need it in this theater, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan or Iraq, then it’s handed over to our Responsible Reset Task Force. We make sure we have it on accountable record and we know where it’s going: to a depot, to a unit, to Army Prepositioned Stocks, or to foreign military sales. We have a process that everyone has agreed to, so this equipment is not just coming back and showing up in someone’s motor pool. It’s a huge undertaking and quite frankly just to get that institutional piece forward in another COCOM’s AOR is a paradigm shift.

That’s really an enterprise look and helps to facilitate the disposition of all the materiel coming out, then the distribution to the appropriate place, where we can repair it quickly and get it back into the next force to deploy.

Q: I want to make sure I kind of understand. As far as this catcher’s mitt. With all this stuff coming out, somebody in Afghanistan says I need six HMMWVs. Does the team in Iraq look at each piece of equipment and decide first of all whether it’s salvageable or usable and worth the effort to reset and send the six HMMWVs to Afghanistan or back to CONUS?

A: It’s kind of a double answer here. We have teams forward that do the triage and say, okay, this equipment is washed out. This goes to the DRMO. This one is salvageable. This one needs depot level repair, and so on. We have teams forward that are already helping the unit that just got there plan for their reset of equipment. So we’ve moved all those decisions and processes way forward so that we can facilitate the reset on this end. In terms of the redistribution of items within theater, that is the CENTCOM commander’s priorities—executed by ARCENT. We have moved 30 percent of the requirements for Afghanistan from Iraq instead of either buying new or shipping it from the United States. The teams are so integrated and have taken a real enterprise look from the PMs who are fielding stuff, to the guys who repair, to the guys that plan. I feel really, really good. Do we have it 100 percent? No. Are there game changers out there? Yes. But I think when you have a plan, strategy and process you can react to the game changers.

We VTC globally every week from our operations center so when you have issues we can react quickly—it eliminates a lot of the bureaucracy. Now, shifting channels to Afghanistan—we have been planning for an expansion or potential increase in troops in Afghanistan for about a year. You can’t just sit and wait and see what’s going to happen, but you have to plan and anticipate and that’s what we did—not get in front of any decision, but being prepared once the decision was made. We’ve got an Army Field Support Brigade forward that is synchronizing the delivery of all the equipment and then getting it into the hands of the warfighter.

I’ll tell you, Afghanistan is not Iraq; it’s the size of Texas with 2 percent of the roads and infrastructure. That is a tough, harsh environment with 10,000, 17,000 foot mountains. So different challenges there, but again, I think no show stoppers. There are game changers out there, but again, we have an enterprise look to support General McChrystal and his strategy.

Q: The team, the organization, the structure you put into place to handle the drawdown and the surge, are those things that you think are—and when I use the word temporary during the conflict, or are those kind of structures you may keep in place afterwards?

A: That’s a great question, a doctrine piece of the future. Is this a taskforce that’s temporary in nature, or is it an enduring capability that we may need? I think the answer is maybe. I’m not avoiding the question, but I think the magnitude, scale of any operation determines how much of the institutional Army needs to be forward. We have capability forward in all theaters, but it’s not at this. When you put a three-star forward you now have someone that’s on the same level as department, as DLA and as the joint staff.

So, I think your level of effort has to be tailored to the level of the operation. But, I do think it is a model for future large scale operations if we had to handle similar drawdowns. We have received nothing but thanks, hallelujah, we’re so glad they’re here; they are really making a difference. So when you get that kind of feedback from the warfighters then you know you have a good thing. So, it will be tailorable and scalable. But, I think this was the right decision for all the right reasons given the magnitude of this drawdown.

Q: It’s easy to talk about accomplishments sometimes. It’s challenging to talk about challenges. What do you see as AMC’s biggest challenges in the near term?

A: You know, with challenges come opportunities. I’m always a glass is half full kind of person. As I look at what we have to do in Afghanistan and Iraq, I think we have to keep our finger on the pulse of our workforce because on top of those missions we also have 11,000 people affected by BRAC, and that’s law. During FY11 we have to move 11,000 folks to include my own headquarters, to include a command that has congressional oversight—that is CECOM. We have to do this while making sure there is no interruption in the support to the warfighter. Unlike military, who are used to moving around, we’re primarily talking about civilians. We only have about 1,400 military in this command, which might be one of those other surprises. Out of the 67,000, only 1,400 are military. So when you’re talking about people, asking them to move, you’re talking about people that have been in the same place all their lives, their mom and dad live there, and now you’re saying, ‘come with us.’ So you have a whole different set of challenges with trying to encourage that workforce and maintain the proper skill sets. I think another area we have to pay attention to is modernizing our industrial base. Over 70 percent of our facilities are over 50 years old. And it’s our responsibility to lay out the requirements to maintain the industrial capability, the modernization required, and/or articulate the risk.

Earlier we discussed standing up the Army Contracting Command to address the Gansler Report. Army Contracting Command manages billions of dollars. Our challenge is to make sure that we are able to address the Gansler report findings: lack of oversight, lack of funds control, fraud. But as we build this command, keep in mind that you can’t grow a contracting expert overnight. It takes time to build that skill set. So while we stood up the command, we’re still building the skill sets we need within Army Contracting Command. Another challenge, and I mentioned it being our Achilles’ heel, is the technology of logistics—the ability to have the tools to see ourselves—we are playing catch up. For the longest time we were not automated, not real time, using spreadsheets to keep track of our stuff—you know, multiple hand receipts. With the constant motion of equipment moving here, moving there, units rotate, it made it physically impossible to track. We are now getting those automated tools fielded and funded that allow us to see ourselves better so that we can make those prudent decisions, so we don’t buy stuff just because we can’t see it, which is what we would do. Now we’re trying to integrate all those databases so that we have an enterprise view of all the materiel that we own. A huge challenge—it’s not sexy so people tend to accept risks in those kinds of investments, and we’ve got to keep them on the radar screen.

Finally, and I think the most important, is that we have an obligation to help the chief of staff and the secretary rebalance the Army. As we identify inefficiencies in our current processes, we’re hoping to free up resources so the leadership can reinvest in soldiers, families, or programs that help the Army get back in balance with this incredible OPTEMPO. We all have a responsibility to do that. We’re trying to synchronize our reset efforts to protect the dwell time of our soldiers and families to enhance quality of life.

Q: If I could touch back on asset visibility—knowing what you have so you don’t either re-buy it or go without. Is the technology available at the level that you need or is the technology just not where it needs to be to give you what you need?

A: The technology is there. I think one of our challenges was there are so many systems out there that it took us a while to get a focused approach on, ‘this is what it’s going to look like.’ It’s going to be a single Army logistics enterprise. It’s going to be made up of these systems.

If you were out there as an operator and couldn’t find something, you would build your own system; because you can’t afford not to know where the stuff is. That’s what happened over time because we didn’t deliver an enterprise system; people had to fend for themselves. Now the Army has a holistic approach to delivering the Single Army Logistics Enterprise, which will connect the operational piece, and now in AMC we have the Logistics Modernization Program, which will connect the institutional piece to the operational architect. We’re not there yet. We’re still in the process, but we are a heck of a lot further than we’ve ever been.

Q: Let’s talk about the lifecycle management concept with TACOM, CECOM etc. Any thoughts on the organizational and philosophical changes required to implement the structure changes? What’s your overall view of the progress? How is that going?

A: That’s a great question too, and it’s one of the most frustrating ones right now because if you look at the lifecycle management of materiel and you look at all the processes, whether it’s research and development, whether it’s testing, evaluation, buying, sustaining, maintaining, getting rid of, demil, there’s multiple owners for each one of those processes. So there’s no single person accountable. There are seams between each one of those processes. I think we owe it to big Army to bring the two communities together. Not in the command and control construct, but by collaborating, and communicating to make better-informed decisions at the lowest level.

If we buy and deliver equipment without the consideration of the cost of sustaining, maintaining, disposing of, that’s not the whole lifecycle and not responsible. We have inefficiencies in the process. We’re trying really, really hard to synchronize our Acquisition and Logistics efforts.

Finally, AMC runs 31installations, 31. Is that our core competency? No, it’s really IMCOM’s. So, we are divesting ourselves of that and IMCOM is taking that on. No one told us to do it. We just think it’s the right thing to do for the Army. TRADOC was maintaining their equipment, is that their core competency? No, that is our core competency. So with a Memorandum of Agreement we at AMC are now doing the maintenance of all equipment on TRADOC installations. So, in my mind, lifecycle management is an enterprise attitude—as soon as you are inclusive instead of exclusive you’re going to get better decisions, more informed decisions. AMC and the ASA (ALT) have work to do regarding this lifecycle management. It’s a journey, but I think it’s one that has a huge return on investment if we’re able to get our arms around it and establish accountability and responsibility.

Q: Last, the people and the mission of AMC here and moving forward, what else can you tell me about them?

A: You know, whenever I come to closing thoughts, I can’t help but think that we can never thank our people enough—you can’t. They are so busy and we ask so much of them. Whether they’re forward deployed—in uniform or civilians—or back here working around the clock to get the next units ready to deploy. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank the men and women and their families for the sacrifices they’re making. You can’t take that for granted. Every day they’re working incredibly hard to perform miracles. And, to our fallen comrades and wounded warriors, they must know that we will never forget their sacrifices. I think the bottom line is—the reward for all of them—is that they know, that they have and continue to make a difference. They know that. ♦

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