Junior acquirers share knowledge, experience to address challenges

  • Published
  • By Patty Welsh
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
A group of junior acquisition professionals from across the installation held an event here Feb. 23 to 25 to collaborate on solutions to acquisition challenges.

Known throughout the Air Force acquisition community as the Revolutionary Acquisition Techniques Procedures and Collaboration, or RATPAC, the group consists of junior AF acquirers from various centers who discuss and share innovative tactics, techniques and procedures. Although there are many national events, the Hanscom occurrence was set up as a local, or fractal, event to encourage and maximize participation across the base and to let attendees work together to solve current, relevant acquisition issues.

"We are working to build a movement, a grassroots movement, that empowers junior acquirers to do what makes sense - not to just meet the status quo," said Capt. Jessica Wright, event coordinator.

During the three-day event, a wide variety of activities took place. Senior-level speakers, including Dr. Camron Gorguinpour, director of Transformational Innovation, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisitions; Col. Bruce Lyman, Distributed Common Ground System Modernization chief; and Col. Niles 'Tack' Cocanour, Talon Group commander, AF Rapid Capabilities Office, provided information and guidance to attendees.

"We were very lucky to be able to have personnel such as Dr. Gorguinpour, Colonel Lyman and Colonel Cocanour present to the group," said Wright. "Not only did they emphasize how important the acquisition career field is, but provided knowledge on topics such as Other Transaction Authorities that can be applied to a problem today."

Hanscom speakers were Robert Weeks, chief of Contracts; Jenny Carrion, Acquisition Fraud and Program counsel; and Capt. Tom Kellermann, contracting officer, who shared information and their experiences.

In addition, presenters shared three case studies as innovative approaches to prioritizing workload, workforce, time and money. Attendees also brought current program acquisition challenges in order to collaborate with their peers.

"The event gave our members a chance to share current problems they are facing with program acquisition," said Wright. "Together, we were able to work through a process to help them determine a proposed solution and an effective implementation path for that solution."

Wright added that all the best practices will be stored on the group's SharePoint site.

Outside of the formal training of problem solving and guest speakers, attendees had a chance to interact with each other during workouts and socials.

Wright said the event was a resounding success.

"I'm glad we were able to put this event together and have strong participation from the RATPAC attendees. We're lucky to have outstanding support from the PEOs [program executive officers], Maj. Gen. Olson and Mr. Wert, too," she said. "I think everyone had a chance to gain some new knowledge and we were able to build new relationships and strengthen existing ones."

As for the next steps, currently the PEOs are selecting members from their junior acquisition force to attend a national event in April being held at U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill AFB, Florida. The next local Hanscom AFB RATPAC fractal will be sometime this summer, and Hanscom will host the national RATPAC event in the fall.