New contracting chief: Love the gray matter

  • Published
  • By Benjamin Newell
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs

HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. -- Charles Anthony Braswell introduces himself with an easy smile and a handshake in his undecorated corner office. Many of his possessions are still in storage.

“Hi, I’m Tony,” the Senior Executive Service member and Air Force Life Cycle Management Center director of contracting for Hanscom, says at the start of our interview. His office is situated dead-center to the base's three major acquisition buildings. The contracting workforce he oversees is divvied up into every single program office on base and are as necessary to the mission here as electricity.

He introduced himself to his team during a director’s call Dec. 5 at the Hanscom Conference Center, discussing work-life balance, career advancement and acquisition techniques. Attendees representing the acquisition directorates and the Air Base Group filled the conference center to capacity, spilling over into multiple rooms and dialing in via video teleconference to hear his introductory speech.

“Our acquisition process seems to latch onto certain tools and types of contracts,” said Braswell, during an interview prior to his speech, referring to Other Transaction Authorities and traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation contracting vehicles. “OTA’s, for instance, aren’t new. The Global Hawk system was prototyped through an OTA, and then moved into a FAR type process. The focus, for us, should not be on the tool itself, but on the requirement. And then we evaluate what tool we can use to get the best product, fastest, for the best price.”

Braswell took time during his speech to the workforce to address this topic, as well as individual career development and retention of qualified people within his field.

To that end, he is instituting a self-nomination process for contract officers who want to qualify for limited or unlimited contracting warrants, which allow Airmen to purchase on behalf of the government, and are key to his workforce’s career field progression. Self-nominations allow motivated contracting specialists to nominate themselves, while seeking supervisory endorsement, to begin the formal process.

“I’m pretty excited about the warrant process,” said Capt. Cyrus Olsen, contract officer for Battle Management’s Force Protection Division. “I just finished up my limited warrant, and the three-month time progression he’s setting up is really good to see.”

Elizabeth MacPhee, contract specialist with AFLCMC services, agreed. “The opportunity to get a limited warrant faster is huge. I’d also say that, when it comes to contracting types, finding the yes is important. Hearing ‘no you can’t do this; no you can’t do that’ can be difficult, so it sounds like he’s in support of newer strategies.”

Braswell said he and Debra, his wife of 40 years, are excited to live near a major East Coast city, which is a new experience for them. They moved here from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, where Braswell oversaw contracting for the Air Force Sustainment Center and the maintenance depot.

The lifelong civil servant was born on Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, and is the son of an Air Force staff sergeant, who was a cook. Braswell has eight children and, so far, twelve grandchildren.

“There’s a friendly competition going on with my wife’s parents, who have scores of grandchildren and great grandchildren,” said Braswell. “Family is very important to us.”

Now that he’s arrived at Hanscom, Braswell’s already scanned local university sports schedules for upcoming matches with Brigham Young, Utah and Idaho State Universities, his alma maters. However, he jokingly lamented his first experience with the local commute, and twice encouraged supervisors to provide their contracting officers and specialists with opportunities to telework.

“Contracting can sometimes get the short end of the stick, since we’re the last process in the line for acquisition,” Braswell said during his speech. “I know that we’re used to being blamed for schedule delays or cost overruns, but I want every individual here to know that if you have a new way of doing things, or think you have a different or innovative perspective on the FAR, and you don’t break any of the regulations that are directly based on law, I’ll support you.”

“Most of our job, and many of the regulations are a matter of gray, and we’re the gray matter experts and have to learn to navigate the gray matter to get to yes,” said Braswell. “I hope you all learn to use that to your advantage.”