FAIRFAX, Va. –
Defense Contract Management Agency’s Aircraft Operations Directorate invited employees and service representatives from around the world to attend their first in-person training seminar since 2019. Over 200 people within the aviation community attended the event.
This year’s theme focused on innovating for the future with flexible goals so the Aircraft Operations enterprise is poised to accept new challenges, to include global sustainment and collaborating with partner nations.
“The goals of the seminar are to improve organizational safety cultures, ensure policy compliance, provide legal consultation, and provide a forum to network and foster relationships in order to better share best practices across the aviation enterprise,” said James Broadway, DCMA Aircraft Operations acting executive director. “Our goal is for everyone to return to their (contract management office) better able to execute the mission in the safest possible manner.”
The forum featured informative sessions relevant to the entire group, as well as breakout sessions for more focused interactions based on region, functional expertise or military branch.
“We don’t own any of the contracts, or aircraft, so we have to work closely with service members across the different military branches to ensure there’s consistency between our agency policy and the services’ own combined instruction,” said Michael Fludovich, DCMA Aircraft Operations policy program director. “Meeting in-person during this seminar is one of the best ways to collaborate and even reach resolution more efficiently.”
The Aircraft Operations team aims to continually improve the Aircraft Operations Training Seminar and ensure the different offices and aviation program teams receive the support they need. Attendees were able to leave anonymous feedback during the seminar that the team collected, to include the following:
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“The biggest benefit I had was meeting the members in my region and connecting with them,” said one attendee.
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“AOTS was well-organized, on-point, well-presented and very helpful for assisting this important task,” said another.