341st CONS and CPTS activated at Malmstrom

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Kristina Overton
  • 341st Missile Wing Public Affairs Office
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. --  The 341st Comptroller Squadron and the 341st Contracting Squadron were activated during a ceremony at the Grizzly Bend Club May 7.

Lt. Col. Trevor Whitehill assumed command of the 341st CPTS from Col. Michael Fortney, 341st Missile Wing commander, who officiated the ceremony. Maj. Jill Boese assumed command of the 341st CONS from Col. John Patricola, 341st Mission Support Group commander.

The two were activated as a result of the deactivation of the 341st Comptroller Contracting Squadron. The squadrons were combined in July of 2008.

"The initial reason for combining the two squadrons was that both career fields were changing their business practices, which resulted in a smaller personnel footprint at the base level," said Colonel Whitehill. "With less people, it seemed practical to combine leadership and administrative functions."

Though ultimately the two squadrons were split, there were several benefits to the contracting and comptroller squadrons being able to work together.

"Jointly, we observed that the decision cycle with contracting and funds execution appeared quicker, particularly during fiscal year end closeout," Colonel Whitehill said.
"Both communities play an important role during fiscal year closeout and we were able to work the buy lists faster. When contracts were being made and funding was available, we were able to go to the wing and make confident buy recommendations with a unified voice. Also, we were able to eliminate some administrative redundancies in universal squadron overhead and additional duties."

Charles Weibel, 341st CONS deputy commander, also felt that the merge had some strong benefits and learned a great deal from working directly with the comptroller squadron.

"The greatest benefit was the collocation," said Mr. Weibel. "This created an incredible cohesive team that was able to react quickly to wing requirements. An additional benefit was sharing processes that allowed comptrollers to understand how contracting works and gave the base contracting office greater insight into the funding process."

Due to a variety of factors, it was eventually decided that the comptroller and contracting squadron would be split into separate organizations.

"The primary reason for separating the squadrons was the reorganization of the Installation Acquisition Transformation," Mr. Weibel said. "This was the project to downsize the local organizational contracting squadrons by 75 percent and centrally locate the majority of the manpower in strategically selected locations. As the construct for this program changed due to the economic conditions, the program was downsized and we only lost three positions to the new IAT organization. Since our local footprint remained about the same there was no real need to keep the squadrons combined."

In addition, base level comptroller organizations were given administrative responsibilities of wing staff agencies.

"The biggest lesson learned was to maintain a strong relationship between the two individual squadrons," Mr. Weibel said. "Communication is the key to maintaining a strong bond between the two units. This will benefit the wing and pay great dividends at the end of the year. Working together over these last two years produced an outstanding team, and if we continue to maintain the team concept we will be better able to execute the needs of our customers and the wing."