According to Program Manager Medium/Heavy Tactical Vehicles Bryan Prosser of PEO Land Systems, the program consolidation did not come as a complete surprise.
“I will admit that we went through several weeks if not a couple of months of anticipation and expectation without any of the specific details on the ‘who, what, and when’ of the new portfolio. But we were still trying to plan for it and getting ready to make it happen,” he said.
“As part of that process, we started out trying to expand our connections with the folks in ‘Motor T,’” he explained. “Obviously there were already connections between our two offices on some level, but the new connections focused on ‘one team’ of Medium and Heavy Tactical Vehicles.”
Logistics Vehicle Systems line up at a gravel pit July 21, 2006, outside Al Qaim, Iraq. The LVSs were being used by Marine Wing Support Squadron 274 to haul large amounts of gravel to be used during the installation of helicopter landing pads. DoD photo courtesy of MWSS-274
The new team set about identifying a set of common issues surrounding the expanded portfolio, ranging from program status to key issues to upcoming decision points.
“Wouldn’t you know that every one of these programs was facing a major milestone decision in the near term,” Prosser said. “And in many cases those had to be adjusted because there were other issues which needed to be resolved first and this impacted the schedules. It would have been nice if we could have started the process a little earlier, but in the end the team did an excellent job adjusting with the schedule realities.”
Acknowledging that one structure for the expanded organization could have inserted the former MARCORSYSCOM elements as “their own team,” Prosser countered, “I really didn’t want to do that because that would have fostered an ‘us and them’ mentality. So we worked with the structure by creating a Medium Team and a Heavy Team. I worked with the leadership team to integrate the programs which transitioned to the PEO into the two teams that we had, spreading them out to not only make them a part of the team but to give them an opportunity to possibly work on other things than just the programs they had arrived with.
“And every day since has been a new adventure,” he added.
Recent and Pending Milestones
Asked about recent and pending milestones across the Medium and Heavy Tactical Vehicle fleets, Prosser highlighted the Flatrack Refueling Capability (FRC), which had a Milestone C low-rate initial production (LRIP) decision milestone on April 16, 2012.