DLA Aviation’s annual operating plan aligns to agency strategy, gets director’s OK

RICHMOND, Va. -

Sustaining a resilient workforce, meeting customer needs, posturing for crisis and integrating through partnerships were among the top priorities Defense Logistics Agency Aviation leaders presented to agency heads during a Nov. 5 review of its fiscal 2025 annual operating plan, or AOP, at Aviation headquarters on Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia.

Army Lt. Gen. Mark Simerly, DLA director; Air Force Command Chief Master Sgt. Alvin Dyer, DLA senior enlisted leader; and leaders from the agency's J-codes and other major subordinate commands attended in-person or online. DLA Aviation's AOP was the first reviewed this cycle; the AOP reviews for other MSCs are on the near horizon.

Identifying change, performance and culture factors as central themes for the AOP discussion, Simerly said the organization's culture is critical to achieving the plan's objectives.

"It's through our people and our positive culture that we're going to be able to embrace change," he said. "We're going to be able to make the right decisions. It's going to allow us to meet our performance objectives and meet the requirements that we have to sustain the services."

Air Force Brig. Gen. Chad Ellsworth, DLA Aviation commander, directed the briefing of the AOP to Simerly, turning to various directors and deputies to share how planned efforts in their respective areas will align with DLA's 2025-2030 Strategic Plan. He also shared a road map listing those objectives and directorates involved, paired them with the agency plan, and set expected timelines - a concept Simerly said clearly showed the way forward.

"Cross-function integration is key for progress on this, and I appreciate how it's mapped out where you're showing not only the tasks that fit in with the objectives and strategy, but also rate them by time in terms of execution," Simerly said. "We all know that our strategy is ambitions. If it weren't ambitious, we wouldn't have called it a 'Call to Action: DLA Transforms.' Those words were not selected without a lot of deliberation of what we wanted to communicate about the strategy. Our necessity to think differently, to act differently and to operate differently is embedded in our strategy."

Ellsworth said holding the command accountable for its strategic objectives is vital to continue making progress in these efforts. To achieve this, the themes of weekly Aviation production governance meetings will now align with the strategic plan, alternating between people, precision, posture, partnerships and special projects during a five-week cycle.

"We feel this is a good structure to keep us accountable," he said. "It won't just be a plan that goes on the shelf … at any time, we can say this is where we stand. Another thing I've learned during my new commander immersion with the leaders in Aviation is that there is a lot going on. We can either tread water and do many things, or we can prioritize internally where we can and let the directorates execute."

The Aviation leadership team identified 24 efforts that align with 15 of the DLA Strategic Plan imperative objectives, designating teams within the command to guide and execute those projects. Much emphasis was placed on recruiting and retention, the new F-35 mission, pilot programs, and the expansion of organic and defense industrial bases.

Martha Tuck, director of Procurement Process Support, spoke of the command's plan to improve recruiting, retention and training with the Aviation objective of fully executing labor dollars, aligned with the "Attract and Retain Talent" section under the "People" imperative of the agency strategic plan. Two main concerns she raised included the retention of contract specialists and GS-13s.

"For FY24, our attrition rate was 10% and, on the surface, that seems good. But when we peel back the data, about 40% of that attrition is in our contracting field," she said. "When we dig further down, our GS-13 level is experiencing a tremendous amount of (attrition), as we are losing one out of every five."

Some directorates are facing upwards of 30% attrition at their GS-13 level, Tuck said. She added that many job announcements on USAJOBs only garner internal applications, leading to more positions that must be filled. The AOP includes several ways to improve the recruiting, retention and training efforts required to support the nation's warfighters: those include improvements to on-the-job training, supervisor development and military familiarization through customer visits, to name a few.

Several briefers discussed pilot programs their directorates recently participated in and how to adapt them to meet the command's needs. The programs were wide-ranging and included efforts like building digital forecasting tools, expanding organic and commercial manufacturing sources, and tackling delinquent contractor support.

After sharing the plan ahead, Ellsworth turned to the command's "asks" for DLA senior leaders: prioritizing targeted recruitment/retention; increasing MSC control of planning system settings; crystalizing support targets with services over the next year; and providing rules, tools and resourcing for organic industrial bases to move at scale.

After thanking the team for the high-level AOP discussion, Simerly said he found the session beneficial to learn about Aviation's fight from the foxhole.

"It's really important for me to hear you describe some of your requirements and the things you're doing," he said. "I really appreciate what I can see and what I understand from all the other evidence of your commitment to change, your commitment to performance and your commitment to culture aviation. This is a high-performing organization, no doubt about it, but we understand that the bar is being raised constantly.

"We've got to be able to keep up the change," Simerly continued. "We have to retool, redesign and refocus so that we can be competitive … relative to our adversaries, right? They are always trying to find ways to act, think and operate better than us so that we talk about decision advantage. It's not just (having a) decision advantage over the competition or changing conditions. It's being able to outperform our adversaries. Think about it from a department and a national perspective; you all play a key role in setting conditions and supporting our national security."

DLA Aviation's official fiscal 2025 annual operating plan will be finalized soon and shared with the workforce.

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