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MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO
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Quantico’s vehicle fleet is undergoing reductions each year, but Transportation Branch is keeping the motor pool robust for units that need a vehicle for some hours or days.

Photo by Mike DiCicco

Drawdown, budget cuts mean fewer vehicles for base units

3 Apr 2013 | Mike DiCicco Marine Corps Base Quantico

As the Department of Defense manages cuts to its budget, and as the Marine Corps draws down for peacetime, one reduction being felt by just about every unit aboard Quantico is a cutback in the fleet of General Services Administration-owned vehicles.

This year, the base eliminated 70 of the approximately 475 vehicles it leased from the GSA, and it will likely lose another 70 or so over the next two fiscal years. Vehicles owned by base units, on the other hand, have not been affected.

Generally, GSA-owned vehicles include commercial vans, sedans and trucks, while those owned by base units are more specialized, such as forklifts, all-terrain vehicles and electric carts.

Marine Corps Installations Command funds about 75 percent of Quantico’s budget for vehicles leased from the GSA, and that funding was cut by 17 percent for FY 13, explained Lt. Col. Vincent Applewhite, head of the base Logistics Division.

“Our job is to prioritize those cuts for the base commander so he can best utilize the fleet he has,” Applewhite said. “We’re shrinking down to mission-essential vehicles only.”

“How we’re targeting vehicles is by mileage,” said Capt. Michael Martinet, deputy director for the Transportation Branch. Marine Corps orders spell out minimum mileage for vehicles, he said. For example, a light truck should log at least 6,000 miles per year. If a vehicle is used less than that, its presence needs to be justified.

There are exceptions for alternative-fuel vehicles, which are part of a DODwide initiative to cut down on petroleum consumption, and for vehicles like fire trucks or range safety vehicles, which may not log a lot of miles but are mission-essential, Martinet said.

“If a vehicle is not being driven, the base and the government are losing money, because they’re paying for it to be parked,” Applewhite said.

Martinet said this year’s reduction brought the budget for GSA-leased vehicles from about $1.8 million down to $1.5 million.

The vehicles were pulled from the fleet throughout the year, often simply by not replacing them, rather than all at once, Applewhite said, adding that, while the fleet reduction has had an impact on operations, units are learning how to make better use of the vehicles they have.

“I think folks are doing a great job of adapting to the situation as it is,” he said.

Transportation Branch’s biggest customer is the base Facilities Maintenance Section, whose fleet of GSA-leased vehicles was reduced from 106 to 95.

“To make up the difference, our maintenance mechanics are carpooling to sites,” said Darrel Davis, deputy director of Facilities Maintenance, noting that his section’s fleet has been losing vehicles for the last few years. He said carpooling works, but it affects response times and productivity.

Facilities Maintenance has also created a van service, using a van from the Motor Transport Section to drop workers off and pick them up, but Davis said this often leaves workers waiting an hour for the van to return.

He said managers have also taken to using their own vehicles to travel to meetings and job sites.

One way the Transportation Branch has tried to mitigate the effects of the fleet reduction is to maintain the size of the motor pool, from which units can borrow a vehicle for the hours or days it’s needed, Martinet said.

“We try to have that as a last resort to be hit,” he said. “The sections that are losing their vehicles, they’ve got to have someplace to come and get a vehicle.”

Martinet said use of the motor pool has gone up with the fleet drawdown, “but it hasn’t increased drastically to where we can’t keep up with the demand.”

One reason may be that the program doesn’t work for everyone. For example, Davis said checking out a vehicle, loading it with all the equipment needed for a job and then unloading it at the end of the day takes too much time to be efficient. “That’s a two-hour turnaround we’ve lost in productivity,” he said.

Capt. Brian Basile, logistics officer for Weapons Training Battalion, said his Marines have been making the trip to the motor pool on the other side of base a lot more since they lost two trucks in October. But he said the battalion has the required number of mission-essential vehicles to support training at the range complex to ensure range safety and transport live and expended ammunition, weaponry and targets while also conducting various range maintenance tasks.

Despite the support of the motor pool, he said, “We’re at a point where the loss of just one more vehicle would place us at critical condition.” Basile said he was concerned about supporting the courses and events the battalion will host in the summer.

One way the unit is dealing with the loss of vehicles is by getting its Marines licensed to drive the light utility and all-terrain vehicles the battalion owns, he said.

Martinet said units will feel the pain of the reduction but eventually learn to make do with the vehicles they have. “It will get to be the new normal.”

Applewhite said the change affects everyone, noting that Col. Roarke Anderson, the base chief of staff, was one of the first to offer up his vehicle. But he said cutting back to only the essential vehicles is the right thing to do.

“We’re still doing our mission with the reduction in vehicles,” he said.

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com


Marine Corps Base Quantico