Contingency contracting: the joint environment: the JCC Handbook initiative benefits not only the Air Force, but ultimately the entire DoD by synchronizing and accelerating contingency contracting transformation efforts of all four Services. This initiative eliminated redundancy and standardized core contingency contracting training for all of DoD.

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Captain Dennis Clements, AFLMA

Introduction

Since the invasion of Iraq and the ongoing Global War on Terror, contingency contracting operations have taken whole new perspective. Air Force contingency contracting officers now comprise approximately 70 percent of the military contracting capability postured to support the Department of Defense (DoD). However, most of these taskings are not in direct support of Air Force missions. In fact, most were in support of the Army or operations in a Joint environment. In light of the Air Force's high operations tempo and coupled with the fact that contracting is a stressed career field, the Air Force sought to find a way to better meet the overall requirements of the national defense strategy. To meet this challenge, the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology an Logistics, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (OSD [AT&L] DPAP) sponsored the Air Force Logistics Management Agency (AFLMA) in the development of a Joint contingency contracting handbook. The following paragraphs will highlight AFLMA's efforts in the development of this handbook. It is envisioned to better equip contingency contracting officers with the tools to efficiently and effectively operate in the Joint environment.

Selling the Vision

In June of 2006, AFLMA began exploring the idea of publishing a new contingency contracting guide. AFLMA last published the Air Force contingency contracting guide in 2003, and since then, contingency contracting has changed dramatically and has taken on a whole new meaning. Recent deployments to Iraq, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries had been anything but Service-specific. Rather, most deployments were centered around a truly Joint Service environment. Not only had this aspect of contingency contracting changed, but deployments were leaning toward operating in a more sustained environment. With this in mind, AFLMA built a briefing to introduce its concept to OSD for a new Joint contingency contracting handbook.

OSD [AT&L] DPAP had already been working with Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisition (SAF/AQC), as part of a Joint Contingency Contracting Working Group (JCCWG), to develop Joint contingency contracting policy. This new policy was envisioned to lay the groundwork for Joint contingency contracting operations and the deployment of a Joint framework for contingency contracting during current and future contingency contracting operations. AFLMA's vision was directly in line with what OSD was working to accomplish, except AFLMA's timeline provided an end product to the warfighter faster. AFLMA briefed their vision to OSD and received sponsorship to participate in the JCCWG and to develop a new Joint contingency contracting handbook for the DoD contracting workforce. The working group had two main objectives.