thoughtleaders
BY STEVE GEARY, EDITOR AT LARGE
THE DC VELOCITY Q&A
interview with
Vice Admiral Al Thompson
He has P&L responsibility for an operation roughly the
size of a Sunoco or Lockheed Martin. But Vice Admiral Alan
Thompson says his top priority is making sure the Defense
Logistics Agency does what’s right for America’s armed forces.
PERHAPS THE BEST WAY TO CONVEY THE SCALE OF
the operation Vice Admiral Alan Thompson oversees is to
put it this way: If it were a company in the private sector, it
would rank 57th in the Fortune 500.
The operation in question is the Defense Logistics Agency
(DLA)—a logistics combat support agency that provides
virtually everything America’s military forces eat, wear,
drive, shoot, or burn as fuel. The DLA operates like a business, selling goods and services to the military (with a congressional mandate to break even). In fiscal 2008, it reported more than $42 billion in sales.
As you might expect, it’s an organization with a lot of
moving parts. According to the DLA’s Web site, the agency
has 23,000 military and civilian employees, operates 25 distribution depots, and manages the flow of 6. 4 million items
across eight supply chains.
But ask Vice Adm. Thompson, who serves as the DLA’s
director, about his agency’s complex responsibilities and he
doesn’t cite statistics. Instead, he boils its mission down to
this simple goal: “Doing what’s right for the armed forces
and the Department of Defense.”
The vice admiral came to his current assignment in
NAV Y VICE ADM. ALAN THOMPSON (CENTER), DIRECTOR OF THE DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY, WITH COALITION AND IRAQI LOGISTICS OFFICIALS AT TAJI NATIONAL SUPPLY DEPOT,
IRAQ, IN FEBRUARY. DLA IS HELPING THE IRAQI FORCES ESTABLISH A PHYSICAL DISTRIBUTION WAREHOUSING SYSTEM THERE. (PHOTO BY NAV Y PET TY OFFICER 1ST CLASS JASON
WINN, MNSTC-I PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
