Updates Regarding Personal Property Forum (Part I of II)

Updates Regarding Personal Property Forum (Part I of II)

Over 250 people attended the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command’s semi-annual Personal Property Forum on October 29th, 2013, in Fairview Heights, Ill. A variety of topics were discussed and a large number of varying opinions were certainly voiced.

The main speaker of the event was SDDC Chief of Quality Assurance, John Johnson. Though the opening comments were given by the new Deputy to the Commander, William H. Budden, who recently joined the SDDC team from the Defense Logistics Agency Distribution Command (New Cumberland, PA). Following, was Capt. Aaron K. Stanley, who was announced as the new Director of Personal Property.

The meeting also noted some exciting new announcements. One of which was that the SDDC had received over 271 applications from companies to become approved DoD Transportation Providers. The SDDC also announced that they had tentatively approved 49 of those particular companies. A list of those approved companies were released as of November of last year.

The Open Season discussion also took place during the meeting. There were many questions concerning the criteria of which is presently used by SDDC to veteran applicants, and interestingly a number of those applicants (who were denied approval) were there at the event. While many felt that they could have offered a new capacity to the Defense Personal Property Program, they questioned why they had been denied. To which Johnson had responded that the requirements were set so only entries of which offered completely new capacity were eligible. And that no van line agencies, approved storage providers, non-temporary storage, or any other company who had hauled or “touched” a DoD shipment was eligible either. Nor any company who maintained any affiliation with a current DoD service provider.

Several additional concerns were addressed as well. For instance, the lack of evaluation criteria which was not added in the SDDC Qualifications document, Pam 55-4, which was vetted by the industry and accepted by SDDC. Many in attendance also voiced their concern that they had not been shared with the industry at the start of the official Open Season announcement (July 19th, 2013). As well as being given only 2 weeks to submit all required documentation.

While much grief as well as confusion was expressed during the meeting, Johnson seemed to handle it all quite well. Expressing his concern, as well as understanding to all complaints and questions that were raised.

In the final part of this article, we will take a deeper look into the remaining areas of the meeting, as well as what the SDDC has in store for 2014!