DC Velocity - April 2009

initiative. It turns out that Keeney likes lean. “Partnership [between management and the workforce] is the way to do the work ... I look for the day when we have everybody on board. The old way was adversarial,” he says. Now, however, “you become like a cog. You understand where you are on that wheel. You try to make it easy for the next guy.”

He sees the work as important. “I enjoy making a difference, trying to do good,” he explains. “We have obligations to the soldiers in the field, to the agency. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, you’re not going to be a good employee.”

Focused on the warfighter

The same commitment comes across in conversations with senior management. Ed Visker has been the deputy commander of the DDSP since June 2006. Visker, who has a B.S. in banking and finance, as well as a couple of master’s degrees, including one in logistics systems management from the University of Southern California, has spent 30 years in the logistics business, primarily with the military. Before coming to DDSP, he reached the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army. He served in the Airborne, and his tour included deployment to Iraq during the first Gulf War and time in Special Operations. He’s got the qualifications and the experience to be a senior manager in any global distribution business.

Visker first came to DDSP as a soldier. “As a young platoon leader and company commander, I was in a general supply company. We used to bring the unit here to train. We helped clear the footprint for this building that we’re in right now. We brought in all our rough-terrain forklifts and cranes and set up shop down by the pond for the month of February. We emptied out the old sheds that used to be sitting here.”

He describes how he sees the mission of DDSP and how to accomplish it. “I don’t know that anybody would tell you that they’re a warehousing professional. We are supporting the warfighter,” he says. “I think you would get that out of just about anybody you talk to. We’re really focused on the warfighter. I share

with them pictures that I brought back from my time in the desert to remind them that these guys are out at the pointy end of the spear and it’s important.”

That perspective drives the operation. “We’re a strategic platform. We need to think bigger,” he says. “We’re

focused on three basic values: respect for people, customer focus, and continuous improvement. It gets the folks on the floor more engaged. It’s largely about relearning: How do we manage the organization? How do we lead people in the organization?”