COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- As Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training Class 18-03 prepares to graduate, their career paths will take them farther out into the Air Force and their interactions with the many aspects of mission support will become far greater.
Being the commander of the 14th Contracting Squadron here, I am writing to explain why contracting matters to these young Airmen and why it matters to you.
First, the personnel in the career field are contracting and the people that are contracted to work are contractors. There is a difference. Now that that’s out of the way, you may have asked yourself, “What does contracting actually do, besides spend money in September and take a long time to get me what I need?” Well, the simple answer is contracting plays a role in nearly everything.
Everything that makes up the Air Force--property, equipment, services, contractor personnel, etc.--all come from somewhere and someone had to buy it. I mentioned SUPT Class 18-03 earlier, so I will use them as an example. As one of these pilots drives to work they arrive at the base. It consists of gates, roads, and many buildings among other things. Well, a contracting officer had to execute a contract to build those. The power, water, gas for those buildings? A contracting officer has a utilities contract to purchase those services. The services that clean the buildings and collect the trash, there is a contract for that. Even the flight doctor is contracted out. The equipment and issued uniform items that are worn while that pilot flies, yep you guessed it, a contracting officer purchased them. Even the aircraft that that pilot flies; somewhere along the line someone identified a need for an aircraft and gave that requirement along with some money to a contracting officer. I think you get the point.
As a young or fairly new Airman you might also ask yourself why contracting is necessary. You might have even said that contracting just makes things more complicated and adds a huge layer of bureaucracy to everything. Well, in a way it does, and with good reason. All of the steps and procedures it executes in the acquisition process are driven by statute and or federal regulation.
The military and civilians who work in contracting are charged with being good stewards of tax payer money, and in doing so they must always determine that the government is paying a fair and reasonable price. They are required by statue to ensure competition in all acquisitions to the utmost of their ability and they must execute their jobs with integrity and impeccable ethics, and also strive to prevent fraud, waste and abuse.
Lastly, as you have read above, contracting plays a big role in the Air Force, but it does not create requirements, it executes them for its customers. It may not be able to get you what you want exactly how you want it, but it will always do whatever it can to get to the “yes” answer with your help, to ensure mission success.