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Acquisition fixes can be done

The challenges are daunting but not impossible, Defense Distinguished Service Medal winner says.

Federal News Network Staff

May 18, 2010 2:18 pm

2 min read

wfedstaff | June 3, 2015 1:53 am

From “Acquisition Professionals Needed, But They Should Be Qualified” by Dale Church on National Defense, NDIA’s business and technology magazine:

“During the last 40 years various groups have convened study after study. Each of these studies offered useful suggestions of how to improve government acquisition. But what has been seriously lacking is a government cadre of properly educated and experienced business managers, financial experts, engineers and scientists to provide the essential oversight.

“The Defense Department announced it plans to hire 20,000 additional professionals. This goal is quantitatively overly ambitious and misses the requirement that these new hires be well qualified. To attempt this massive hiring could result in degrading the acquisition corps. The current qualification criteria and hiring process will prevent the desired quality goal from being achieved…

“The Army appears to be attempting to expedite the hiring of candidates for critical acquisition positions. Its new policy allows for the direct hiring from the list of qualified applicants, which has been generated by the civilian personnel officer. This change allows direct hiring while waiving the requirement to explain why each of the higher candidates on the list was not chosen. This approach does not address the problem created by cutting off more qualified applicants from the list because they lack military experience.

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“Achieving the goal of hiring 20,000 new acquisition professionals will require a tremendous effort but it cannot be reached without major changes to the personnel system. The prior military service preference is inconsistent with the requirement to hire the most qualified person for the position and needs to be eliminated.

“The time to make these changes is now.”

Mr. Church is a former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. He joined me to talk about building the acquisition work force that my previous panels of both civilian and military leaders say is necessary for success in the 21st century.