Sleeping in and loving every minute of it!

Today being Sunday was a really great day. I looked forward to the opportunity of sleeping in and took advantage of it. Yesterday I was out and about all day long with prospective contractors who are bidding on our large contract. We had an open house/walk through for them. This was their chance to visit the facilities to get a boots on the ground, eye the facilities and ask questions. So it was an early start, plus walking through most of the buildings that will be part of the National Maintenance Depot. Now one thing is 114 degrees outside in the Sun but if you get some wind it’s not all that bad. But going inside huge warehouses that must be 125-135 degrees inside without a wisp of wind is brutal and that’s what we did for 6+ hours. By the time they left and we picked up all the supplies, chairs, tables, ice chests and drawings it was almost 1700 hrs. I got back to the office and was soaked from top to bottom, cooled off and then went to mass. Later I had to complete the visit report and finally got out of the office at 2145 hrs after speaking with Carmen and getting caught up on the latest news from the home front!

I got back to the hootch and after a nice shower I decided to do some reading, after reading about some of those great wines out there and drooling big time about those nice pinot noirs and cabs with my name on it that will go untouched for another 10+ months it was lights out. As luck would have it I forgot to turn off my alarm clock so at 0600 hrs off it went, after getting up and shutting it off, I was sound asleep once more and I finally got up thinking it must be around 0800 hrs. To my surprise it was 1040 hrs. Some nice coffee, biscotti and mellow music finally got me in the groove to work on putting together my computer desk from Fry’s, take a quick shower and shave and get to work around 1300 hrs.

We have been in constant discussion with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Rep Jeremy who is handling the project. They are doing the design review for the buildings that need to be refurbished/upgraded and new construction. Right now we have two very large buildings the disassembly and reassembly buildings for the Track Depot. These were used by the Iraqi’s to build their T-55 and T-72 tanks. The Depot will be rebuilding those types of tanks, but the buildings need to accommodate larger tanks that more than likely will be issued to the Iraqi’s in the future, such as M-1’s and Leopards or some other type. Problem with those is that they are wider than the current Iraqi tanks, hence doors need to be widened which will affect structure beams, etc etc. So we have to see what that impact is to the design, upgrade timeline and cost. On top of that there are huge bridge cranes that need to replaced and trying to figure out which ones need to only be refurbished versus removed and replaced has provided us with some long and rather heated conversations as to what makes sense in terms of cost, construction time, suppliers, etc.

Getting something contracted out here takes so damn long that with all the legal regulations, restrictions, etc that I swear it would have taken Marlon Brando 3 months to knock off his rivals and get the lawyers to buy off on his proposal and have the inspectors make sure that he really did knock off his rivals in the manner stipulated in the contract! You have to write up a statement of work (SOW), submit it with a letter of justification so that the Chief of Staff will approve it. You also have to fill out the authorization doc so everyone can approve of the request to include the janitor who cleans the latrines down the road. Fill out the purchase requisition form and get it sent to the contracting office who will review the docs and SOW to make sure they understand what you are asking for. Then they right up the RFP and send it out for bids. Most RFP’s are for 30 days, then the bids come in and they need to be reviewed in various areas before legal buys off on that process that was used for the bids. A contract is finally awarded and if there are no protests by losing companies then a quick round of negotiations with the winning contractor and then the contract is signed. Most then have a 30 day window for the contractor to mobilize (get their folks on the ground to begin work). So from the day you write up your scope of work and submit it to the time the contractor has mobilized you’re talking anywhere from a bare minimum of 60 days up to 90 days and even longer if there is a protest on a awarded contract. As a project manager you can see the project slipping to the right and there is not a damn thing you can do about it, especially since many of these contracts for services are handled by other organizations supporting you and you can’t throw money to make it go any faster!

Funny thing is that as I have had the folks from the IZ coming out here to see what we’re doing they are amazed at all the various tasks that 5 of us are handling from ordering fuel to furniture, supplies for construction, making sure the Iraqi’s complete the docs and tasks required of them, to working on contracts for guards, security fences, cleanup of the depot, DFAC equipment, installation, briefs, recognition of the Depot by the Iraqi Ministry of Defense etc. Once they are here the usually go back to the IZ and give my folks nothing but excellent support and service because they know what we are up against and anything they can do to grease the skids and let us remain focused on what we have to take care of here and they’ll handle the stuff back in the rear!

Well it’s late and that alarm clock will be given me a hoot and a holler in about 6 hours so I will close for today.

The Colonel