Contingency Contracting Special Interest Area.

Imagine you're an Air Force Contingency Contracting Officer (CCO) and you've just hit the ground in Kandahar, Afghanistan, to support Army operations in theater. The good news is you made it there safely. The bad news is the CCO you're replacing just left two days ago, along with his or her knowledge of local processes, contingency contracting support requirements to the unit, and the unique aspects of doing business in and around Kandahar. There is nothing to worry about because you visited the Acquisition Community Connection (ACC) Web site <http://acc.dau.mil> and checked out the Contingency Contracting Special Interest Area (SIA) before you departed. There you reviewed Army Field Manual 100-10-2, Contracting Support on the Battlefield, and read the latest after action reports for Kandahar. You are ready to support the warfighter!

That scenario just became a reality with a new Contingency Contracting SIA, sponsored by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Contracting (SAF/AQC), which was just launched on the Defense Acquisition University (DAU)-sponsored ACC Web site. The vision is for this SIA to become a viable, joint, military virtual community, and a central focal point and exchange medium for contingency contracting knowledge across DoD. The primary purpose is to facilitate communication between CCOs to improve contingency contracting preparation and operations.

The need for a joint community to address contingency contracting challenges became clear as a result of the increased operations tempo and demand for CCOs generated by Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. ACC provided the collaboration tool to bring the joint community together to facilitate a dialogue on contingency contracting issues.

Several critical business issues will be addressed by the community, including improving pre-deployment and contingency contracting planning, facilitating the development and communication of policy for contingency contracting, and deploying contractors to the battlefield, as well as capturing and sharing lessons learned through after action reports.

This community facilitates DoD's transformation initiatives and enables the joint contingency contracting community to work together to ensure success in meeting combatant commanders' contingency contracting requirements. It also supports the acquisition, technology and logistics vision for fostering organizations that learn, share information and learning, and act on that learning.

The community is still evolving as the military services and defense agencies join and contribute their knowledge to enhance knowledge-enabled support to the warfighter. Check out this new SIA at <http://acc.dau.mil/contingency> and contact one of the editors to find out how you can help build this critical community.