BASOPS Transportation employee: we’re tracking pretty much everything that moves

Photo By Cameron Porter | Diane Wilson, the administrative officer at Base Support Operations Transportation, wears pink to work in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The German host nation employee with the U.S. Army will celebrate 25 years of Army service in January. Her mother, who also worked for the U.S. government as a German local national employee, passed away from breast cancer.  

KAISERSLAUTERN, RHEINLAND-PFALZ, GERMANY

10.11.2024

Story by Cameron Porter 

405th Army Field Support Brigade - Europe & Africa

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – Diane Wilson may be German, but she knows a thing or two about the U.S. Army. Her father was a career Soldier who worked in military intelligence and retired at the rank of master sergeant. Her mother served as a Department of Defense host nation employee for 28 years and retired as the assistant manager at the commissary in Darmstadt, Germany. And Wilson, herself, hits a quarter century of government service in January as an Army local nation employee.

The administrative officer at the 405th Army Field Support Brigade’s Base Support Operations Transportation Division has held several positions while serving as a German host nation employee with the Army. Long before working at BASOPS Transportation, she worked as an administrative officer with the Directorate of Public Works. She was also employed with the U.S. Corps of Engineers, and her last job before coming to BASOPS was at European Regional Dental Command in Heidelberg, Germany.

“On 1 January, I will be eligible for my 25-year length of service award. I was a temporary employee with the Army for a year, but that year doesn’t count so technically it should be 26,” Wilson said. “I was a little hesitant at the beginning, buy my mom was like, ‘you’ll love it. You’ll enjoy it.’ And you know what? When I look back, she was right. Here I am, 25 years later, and I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.”

Working in BASOPS Transportation has given Wilson an additional set of tools to add to her Army toolbox. The transportation world is more than just household good shipments, she said, and the intricacies and regulatory statues of Army transportation are meticulous and all encompassing.

“At the beginning I didn’t know much about the transportation world. I didn’t know how far our reach was, how much we impacted the military communities, and how important BASOPS Transportation really is,” said the mother of one adult son and an 11-year-old boy. “At first, I thought it was just household goods. And I thought it was just Germany, but it’s much broader than that.”

Wilson learned quickly that BASOPS Transportation’s responsibility extends across the entire continent of Europe with operational reach back to the continental United States and duty locations in other countries around the world. Plus, BASOPS is responsible for providing transportation support to the Middle East, parts of Africa, and additional, outlying areas.

“We do handle the whole of Europe, but it’s more than that. We’re tracking pretty much everything that moves. And it’s not just household goods. In some cases, its mission related versus just personal property – unit moves and sustainment operations, stuff like that,” said Wilson, who holds a bachelor’s degree in business and administration from Wiesbaden Taunus – Hochschule and calls Darmstadt her hometown.

With its Consolidated Personal Property Shipping Office and European Official Travel Branch, BASOPS Transportation is a field operating activity under the 405th AFSB, providing back office support functions for personal property shipping, official travel services and quality control disciplinary actions for U.S. military communities across Europe, and beyond.

The BASOPS Transportation team manages all outbound shipments from Europe – mainly Germany, Belgium, Italy and Poland – but they also cover places like the Middle East, other areas in Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and East Africa. The BASOPS team manages transportation shipments and acts as the middleman between commercial transportation industry leaders and the U.S. government. BASOPS Transportation counselors work directly with their supported customers, often face-to-face but also remotely. BASOPS Transportation handles 12,000 to 18,000 outbound shipments a year while taking great pride in supporting Soldiers and military families.

The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern. The brigade provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging U.S. Army Materiel Command’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.

• Date Taken: 10.11.2024
• Date Posted: 10.11.2024 02:42
• Story ID: 482973
• Location: KAISERSLAUTERN, RHEINLAND-PFALZ, DE