Reorganization touches SDDC: change transparent to workforce, customers

Translog: Journal of Military Transportation Management, Spring, 2007 by Mitch Chandran

The Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) is officially a Major Subordinate Command (MSC) to U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Under the new Army reorganization, instead of reporting directly to Department of the Army as a Major Army Command (MACOM), SDDC will now report to Army Materiel Command as one of their MSCs for administrative purposes.

Operationally, SDDC continues to be the Army Service Component Command to U.S. Transportation Command, coordinating all surface movement of Department of Defense assets including the operation of 24 worldwide seaports.

There will be no change for reporting units within SDDC.

"It's important to note our service to the Warfighters will not change under this change in command relationship," said Col. Timothy McNulty, SDDC Chief of Staff. "The change in this command relationship will be transparent to the folks we support daily and to our workforce as well."

The Army designated its three large four-star commands--Forces Command, Training and Doctrine Command, and Army Materiel Command--as Army Commands. This reorganization also eliminated the term MACOM and moved several of the former MACOMs that used to report directly to Department of the Army underneath these three large Army Commands.

Some advantages are that AMC provides SDDC with four-star level Army support in all aspects of the command's administrative requirements and the synergies between SDDC and AMC's other Major Subordinate Commands are invaluable.

"This is a very positive relationship," said Col. Scott Kilgore, Judge Advocate General for SDDC. "We now have more clout than in the past (Army four-star oversight) and the AMC staff was very accommodating to us as we went through the reorganization process."

In a memorandum of agreement between Gen. Benjamin Griffin, AMC commander, and Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, USTRANSCOM commander, SDDC will continue to be responsible for all end-to-end surface deployment and distribution as an Army Service Component Command under the combatant command of USTRANSCOM.

The agreement identified 179 regulatory authorities SDDC possessed in which SDDC will relinquish 34 (19 percent) to AMC.

"We look forward to being a member of the AMC team, to leverage all AMC brings to the fight, and with SDDC joining the team we are moving towards an Army command that is the logistician for this Army," McNulty

said.

According to AMC officials, major advantages of aligning SDDC to AMC support the following emerging capabilities:

--Single Army integrator of logistics with joint and strategic partners.

--Coordination of the end-to-end distribution pipeline from a national sustainment base to deployed Theatre Support Commands.

--Providing command and control, training and readiness oversight of assigned forces.

--Assisting Forces Command generation and rapid projection of trained and ready forces from continental United States bases to Regional Combatant Commander and reset of forces upon return to home station.

The U.S. Army Materiel Command is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness--technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection, and sustainment--to the total force, across the spectrum of joint military operations. If a soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, or eats it, AMC provides it.

For more information about SDDC, visit: http:// sddc.army.mil

For more information about AMC, visit: http:// www.amc.army.mil

by Mitch Chandran

SDDC Headquarters, Alexandria