It is rare these days to find green-suit officers in charge of major procurement programs. That has to change, says Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III, director of the Army Acquisition Corps.
“Our acquisition workforce is 97 percent civilian,” he says. “It’s out of balance.”
By comparison, 88 percent of the Navy’s and 65 percent of the Air Force’s weapon buying workforces are made up of civilians. An independent commission led by former Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler cited the dearth of military contracting officers in war zones as a contributing factor to procurement fraud in Iraq and Kuwait.