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NEWS | Jan. 3, 2022

409th Engineers take on Supply Excellence Award

By Maj. Khoran Lee 416th Theater Engineer Command

Soldiers of the 409th Vertical Engineer Company located in Windsor, Colorado, are taking on the opportunity to excel in the Supply Excellence Award (SEA) competition in the upcoming months.

The competition is a Chief of Staff Army SEA Program and was conceived during the total Army worldwide supply conference held in November 1984. The Deputy Chief of Staff of logistics tasked the United States Army Quartermaster school to assist in the research and development of an award program that would recognize supply excellence at various unit and organizational levels.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sandra Hawkins, property book officer with the 244th Engineer Battalion in Denver, Colorado, has been working with the 409th supply team for the past two years. She has helped the 409th Company to compete for the SEA.

“Upon my arrival to the battalion, the 409th scored a 90 percent, which is the qualification to be able to compete in the next level of supply excellence. Within that competition, you have to submit your unit SOP [Standard Operating Procedures] and it has to cover all logistical areas involving unit supply at unit level and incorporate the command supply discipline program, which is a commander’s program. As a unit supply sergeant, it’s their responsibility to take that on and manage that program for the commander,” explains Hawkins.

The 409th submitted the first year to United States Army Reserve Command and won runner up. Afterward, they advanced to the Department of Army (DA) level competition. The DA level competition is for Combined Arms Support Command, the Quartermaster School at Fort Lee, Virginia, to review the packets.

For units that advance to level two, which is an on-site evaluation from their chief warrant officer, subject matter experts from the Quartermaster School at Fort Lee. The 409th took runner-up overall for DA level the last year. “This year,” says Hawkins, “we have advanced so far as to level two and we are pending the dates when the C team from the Quartermaster School will come and evaluate us in person this year.”

An award for their involvement are individual Soldiers, who are being personally challenged as they continue along with the program, she said. It involves group competition being perpetuated at all levels. The program is used as a management tool and it shows unit supply sergeants and new company commanders the standard for the command supply discipline program.

It also offers awareness of a sub-supply exercise program.

“It gets the publicity out there of what it is and it gives Soldiers the opportunity to excel and to show something he or she always knew. Overall, it's an improvement of an entire commands supply program. So from the 416th TEC to the Brigade, down to the unit level. It spreads the awareness at all levels when it comes to logistics excellence,” said Hawkins.