In October 2025, the Secretary of War released his Acquisition Transformation Strategy, which refocused acquisition efforts to prioritize speed, flexibility, and rigorous execution.
Our logistics system ensures that our nation’s Warfighter has access to the right people, equipment, and materiel to go, fight, and win. As a result, the Department of War (DoW) recognizes the critical role of civilian logisticians and the need to recruit, develop, and retain an adaptive and highly skilled and qualified workforce to successfully execute the National Defense Strategy (NDS). The Logistics Functional Commu - nity (LFC) identifies and develops strategies and initiatives that will at - tract, train, and promote a workforce with the skills and abilities needed to creatively solve complex national se - curity challenges. The LFC workforce includes more than 150,000 salaried as well as wage-system civilians in the Deployment, Distribution and Trans - portation, Maintenance, Supply, and Life Cycle Logistics areas. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2024–2029 Lo - gistics Human Capital Strategy (LHCS) was published in July 2024. The LHCS ensures that the department has the right people with the right skills in the right roles to achieve sustainable suc - cess. Centered around the NDS Line of Effort Four, “Supercharging Amer - ica’s Defense Industrial Base” and “Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem,” the strategy has outlined plans to recruit, acquire, mo - tivate, and reward a high-performing, top-quality workforce. A copy of the strategy can be found at the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Product Support, ODASW(PS) website . Strengthening the Industrial Base Workforce Currently, the United States faces a skilled labor shortage that under - mines its productivity and innovation. ODASW(PS) is charged with identify - ing workforce recruitment and re - tention solutions within the Organic Industrial Base (OIB) and seeks to de -
velop an OIB Innovation Ecosystem with an agile, industrial skills work - force development pipeline to DoW employment. The OIB employees are a critical workforce component that contrib - utes directly to our armed forces readiness. Several initiatives are ori - ented toward strengthening the OIB. To increase our outreach and promote the DoW as an employer of choice, ODASW(PS) launched a national campaign to promote criti - cal industrial skills and increase the workforce in manufacturing occupa - tions such as machinists, welders, and others. The team developed strategic messaging (i.e., recruiting videos and information papers) to highlight DoW as an employer of choice. The prod - ucts focus on OIB career opportuni - ties and can be used for recruiting by any OIB organization. Working in conjunction with De - fense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service (DCPAS), the team stream - lined the hiring processes by eliminat - ing the 180-day hiring restrictions for veterans in positions ranked at GS-13 and below and extending a Direct Hir - ing Authority through Sept. 30, 2028. Finally, ODASW(PS) is partnering with DCPAS to design the DCPAS Ap - prenticeship that supports Executive Order 14278. This is an opportunity to provide quality upskilling to current DoW civilian workforce members in the skilled trades. We aggressively pursued and re - ceived more than $2 million to fund DoW personnel (acquisition and non- acquisition) to attend and graduate from the Institute for Defense and Business LOGTECH Advanced Course. This funding increase was the first time that the ODASW(PS) was able to secure funding for the nonacqui - sition workforce. Participants com - pleted a weeklong in-residence pro - gram focusing on decision-making,
MAY – JUNE 2026 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE 39
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