BASOPS Maintenance purchasing agent to retire after 45 years of Army service

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany - When he started working in the late '70s, he was a mechanic at the auto skills and repair shop at Tower Barracks in Grafenwöhr, supporting Soldiers and their Families with repairs on their privately owned vehicles. After five years of doing this, he started at what is now called Base Support Operations Maintenance as a heavy equipment mechanic.

Günter Meissner now works as purchasing agent for BASOPS Maintenance, 405th Army Field Support Brigade. The German host nation employee is set to retire in about four months after 45 years of service in the Grafenwöhr Military Community working for the U.S. Army.

The 64-year-old local national employee said when he thinks back on his 45 years with the Army, he has many fond memories to take with him into retirement. The people he worked with, the jobs he did - overall, it was a good career and he's happy and proud of his work.

"Every once in a while, there was a little problem or issue here or there, but we always worked together to figure it out and fix it. The people I work with here are very nice, and the work environment is fine. Many of them are my neighbors so even after retirement I'll see them around town or out shopping and stop and say 'hello, how's things at work?'" Meissner said.

Meissner has worked as a BASOPS Maintenance purchasing agent for over 10 years. In that role he interacts with BASOPS personnel working at all five Army garrisons and multiple other sites in Germany - places like Stuttgart, Kaiserslautern, Wiesbaden, Baumholder, Garmisch and Ansbach. His job is to ensure the BASOPS Maintenance teams at those locations have the necessary repair parts, stock parts and tools needed to do their jobs.

But it wasn't always about purchasing repair parts and tools for Meissner. Before doing that, for about 30 years he worked as a mechanic in BASOPS Maintenance. His job was to repair and maintain heavy equipment like graders, generators, dump trucks, scrapers, lawn maintenance equipment, snow removal equipment, and more.

With retirement firmly on the horizon, Meisser said he looks forward to spending more time with his bride of 28 years traveling and enjoying their next chapter, together.

"We will try to go to the United States. We've never been there so I hope to visit the U.S. someday soon. It was very fine working for the U.S. Army all these years. Now I hope to just relax and enjoy my retirement," Meissner said.

As a field operating activity under the 405th AFSB, BASOPS Maintenance provides equipment maintenance support to all garrison community organizations and activities in Germany. It provides consolidated material maintenance support for base support operations equipment and mechanical safety inspections for privately owned vehicles. It performs automotive maintenance on a fleet of garrison support vehicles to include special purpose and armored vehicles, fire and rescue, snow and ice removal and construction equipment such as scoop loaders, excavators, scrapers, road graders, tractors, rollers, and more.

The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The brigade provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa - providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging the U.S. Army Materiel Command materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website and the official Facebook site.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.