thoughtleaders
BY MITCH MAC DONALD, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, AND STEVE GEARY, EDITOR AT LARGE
keeping the military mighty
You can’t fight a war without
interview with Alan Estevez
bullets—or food, fuel, clothing,
and a lot of other stuff. Alan
Estevez is responsible for
making sure U.S. troops have
exactly what they need when
they need it, no matter where
they are on the planet.
TO GET AN IDEA OF THE COMPLEXITY OF ALAN ESTEVEZ’S JOB, YOU
only have to look at the length of his title. Estevez is the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense (logistics & materiel readiness) in the office of the
secretary of defense and has served as the acting assistant secretary of defense
(logistics & materiel readiness) since April 2009. What that means is that
Estevez is the most senior official in the Department of Defense (DOD)
devoted to supply chain, distribution, transportation, product support, and
logistics issues.
While that may tell you something about what Estevez does, it doesn’t begin
to convey the scale of the operation he oversees. The following comparison
might provide some perspective: If DOD logistics were a private-sector business, Estevez would be the CEO of a company with close to $200 billion in
annual revenue. That would place it in the top 10 of the Fortune 500.
Estevez is a civil servant who has spent his entire career in military logistics,
beginning in 1981 at the Bayonne Military Ocean Terminal. He received a
U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY TECH. SGT. SCOTT T. STURKOL/RELEASED
