"Speaking with Vice Adm. Mustin during his visit was an invaluable opportunity for us to share with him how we've been leveraging reservists to augment our support teams operating across U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa," said Capt. Douglas S. MacKenzie, NAVSUP FLCSI's Commanding Officer. "There's no aspect of our logistics and supply mission that we do not benefit in some capacity from our reservists' expertise and leadership. Their contributions add a key strategic depth to our total-force approach to supporting the Fleet."
Capt. Stephen Holbrook, NAVSUP FLCSI's Reserve commander, presented a briefing to Vice Adm. Mustin during his visit. Holbrook is responsible for the administration of training and readiness of Navy Reserve logisticians who deploy to NAVSUP FLCSI.
"A key objective for me was to convey how Capt. MacKenzie, his senior leadership team and I are responding to Vice Adm. Mustin's mandate of accelerating warfighting readiness with all of my reservists by focusing our efforts on active-duty/Reserve component integration at all of the command's sites operating across USNAVEUR," Holbrook said.
Senior Chief Logistics Specialist Andrew Hasse, is one of the deployed reservists who is integrating with NAVSUP FLCSI's logistics support center at NASSIG.
"Much of my work while deployed to NAVSUP FLCSI has been assisting their work load of supply support for the incoming ships, especially in the ground transportation operations management, load planning and pier side support," Hasse said.
When he's not deployed on active-duty orders, Hasse said he maintains job proficiency by participating in drilling at NAVSUP Enterprise's headquarters located in Pennsylvania. He added that his civilian job in the logistics and accounting sectors of the grocery industry also contributes to bolstering his competency to perform his reservist duties as senior logistics chief.
"Much of what I do in my civilian job is about managing the movement of perishable commodities, like meat," Hasse said. "This involves similar supply chain management processes as those with NAVSUP FLCSI. Knowing how to overcome the logistics hurdles I face in my civilian job gives me an insight into best practices that I can share with my active-duty colleagues."
"By deploying Hasse and other fully-trained reservists to NAVSUP FLCSI's various operational sites across USNAVEUR, we are making great strides to define and document our Reserve training objectives per our new Individual Training Plans, or IDPS, which is a key element of CNR's Force Generation Guidance from November 2022," Holbrook said.
Since 1915, U.S. Navy reservists have been mobilizing to support their Navy and Marine Corps active-duty counterparts in areas of forward presence, deterrence, sea control, power projection, maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster response. Hasse and NAVSUP FLCSI's other deployed reservists continue to leverage their expertise and logistics through the present and future providing augmented support to the command's logistics mission sets across USNAVEUR-AF.
FLCSI is one of eight FLCs under Commander, NAVSUP and provides a full range of solutions for logistics, business and support services to the U.S. Naval, Joint, NATO and Allied Forces across 14 enduring and forward operating sites; forward contingency and cooperative security locations in 13 countries in Europe and Africa. Headquartered in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, NAVSUP employs a diverse, worldwide workforce of more than 25,000 military and civilian personnel. NAVSUP and the Navy Supply Corps conduct and enable supply chain, acquisition, operational logistics and Sailor & family care activities with our mission partners to generate readiness and sustain naval forces worldwide to prevent and decisively win wars.