Photo By Hendrick Dickson | 230328-N-KP445-1001 NORFOLK, VIRGINIA (March 28,2023) Military Sealift Command's 81...... read more read more
The procurement arm of Military Sealift Command (MSC) is vital to maintaining the fleet. It begins with soliciting the right contracts and contractors to help ensure MSC ships are mission ready. It ends with the contracting officer representatives (CORs) who oversee the execution of those contracts.
CORs assist contracting officers (KOs) and program managers (PMs) in developing requirements, administering contracts and ensuring contractors, working for MSC and the various programs, meet their commitments, including the timeliness and delivery of quality goods and services. They are the subject matter experts who know what the work items are supposed to look like and how they should function
“Their role is the surveying and monitoring of contract efforts, rather its boots on the grounds or communicating through various mediums,” said Policy and Compliance Director and COR Program Manager Sabrina Caldwell. “They are the accountability element of the contracts.”
There are 81 designated CORs at various sites at MSC. They oversee the hundreds and millions of dollars of contract obligations, from casualty repairs to long-term overhauls. Most of the CORs perform these responsibilities as collateral duties outside of their primary jobs.
“CORs are required for service acquisition at/or exceeding $250,000 when required,” said Caldwell. “They must be a government employee or military individual, and they are appointed by the KO. They have to be capable of taking on this additional task, completing the training requirements that comes with it and have the appropriate experience to be the COR.”
In addition to juggling their COR responsibilities along with their primary job, they also sometimes face the challenge of providing day-to-day oversight of contractors working aboard vessels that are forward deployed.
“It requires the coordination of an entire ‘village’ of contractors, government engineers, logisticians, budget analysts, program analysts and contract specialist just to name a few,” said Prepositioning Program Analyst and COR Frank C. Ragsac. “We have to leverage the use of all the available technology such as email, Flank Speed, Teams, etc., in addition to in-person inspection.”
Ragsac expressed that contract execution is a total team effort. It takes open communication and flexibility between the mariners on the deckplates and the CORs working ashore.”
“It is important that the COR can effectively communicate with all the stakeholders involved in the performance of the contract whether remotely or in-person,” said Ragsac. “Ship operation is the point of main effort in our contracts, but we need support from all the N-Codes. Short-fuse requests for support are inevitable when dealing with high-operational tempo. We ask all personnel supporting the program to be flexible and patient and to not lose focus on why the program is ‘asking’ for support.”
Caldwell said there many tools and platforms available for the CORs to do their jobs effectively, most notably the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) COR Website, which includes workshops, online lessons and other training tools.
“The DAU COR Community of Practice (CoP) helps CORs across Department of Defense (DOD) understand and get best practices so they can lean forward knowing what they need and must do,” Caldwell said. “DAU COR office hours meet every Tuesday for one hour, starting at 11:45 a.m. that includes facilitated lessons to assist them in doing their job. The intent is to give CORs an audience and support so they can be successful.
“Additionally, N10 (Contracts & Business Management), specifically N106 (Policy & Compliance Division)m supports the CORs and contract specialist and officers during local COR hours every Tuesday from 9-10 a.m. on MST (Microsoft Teams). Unlike the DAU COR office hours which serves as a training evolution and think tank, the local COR office hours provide immediate assistance/support to ensure compliance to regulation.”
Despite taking on the extra responsibility, these employees are often forgotten in the MSC organizational structure. However, they are without a doubt vital to keeping the command operational.
“We appreciate the additional diligence applied to toggling between their workload and managing contracts,” said Caldwell. “They are making sure we get what we need when we need. It is our job to do everything we can support them in their tasks so MSC can continue to carry out its mission.”
| Date Taken: | 03.28.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 03.29.2023 13:12 |
| Story ID: | 441469 |
| Location: | NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 275 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Not Just a Day Job; MSC CORs Provide Contract Oversight, Accountability, by Hendrick Dickson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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