Army Medical Logistics Command marks five years

FORT DETRICK, Md. — They were building the plane as they flew it.

That is how many leaders described the development of the Army’s first Life Cycle Management Command for medical materiel — U.S. Army Medical Logistics Command.

Yet, executing operational excellence and innovation at the same time isn’t easy.

As AMLC celebrates its five-year anniversary on Sept. 17, leaders recognized the command’s high-tempo history and ability to — without fail — deliver every time.

The Beginning

AMLC headquarters was initially activated June 1, 2019, as part of a restructuring to become the Army’s primary medical logistics and sustainment command, responsible for managing the global supply chain and medical materiel readiness across the total force.

The headquarters was charged with overseeing three existing units, including the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency, U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center-Europe and U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center-Korea.

A formal activation ceremony followed on Sept. 17, 2019, as Gen. Gus Perna, then commanding general of Army Materiel Command and the Army’s senior logistician, presided over AMLC’s assumption of command and activation ceremony.

“This AMLC team is ready to attack our mission,” said Maj. Gen. (then-Col.) Michael B. Lalor, when he stepped into the role as AMLC’s first commander. “… Both now and in the future, we will be called to deliver, to execute, and we are ready to go.”

The Unexpected

Less than six months later, Lalor’s prediction would ring true.
AMLC — along with the rest of the world — encountered an enemy they never expected: the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was pretty scary at first,” said Candace Harriday, AMLC’s labor management employee relations representative. “Being told to build a new command from scratch felt overwhelming, and then COVID hit, which was just mind-blowing.”

AMLC teams quickly issued equipment and supplies for Army field hospitals set up in badly hit urban centers, sourced and shipped ventilators to help those struggling to breathe and procured personal protective equipment, or PPE, to keep medical professionals healthy while treating the sick.

During the whole-of-government response to COVID-19, USAMMA, a direct reporting unit to AMLC, procured over 25,000 medical equipment repair parts, accessories and consumables, resulting in the rebuild and repair of over 2,600 medical devices that included ventilators, clinical analyzers, oxygen generation equipment, patient monitors and infusion pumps.

“In the beginning stages, it was very chaotic,” said Lt. Col. Janessa Moyer, AMLC’s assistant chief of staff for operations. “It was a lot of work looking across the force to determine what ventilators were in our inventory, the status they were in, and if the condition was safe for patient use.”

Using innovative contracting vehicles, USAMMA was able to place over 300 legacy ventilators back into service. USAMMA also assisted the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the procurement and assembly of 165 ventilator resupply kits.

USAMMA also took the lead for COVID-19 vaccine ordering and distribution throughout the Department of Defense, working in collaboration with the Defense Health Agency’s Immunization Health Care Division.

USAMMA collected COVID-19 vaccine orders from all service branches and submitted them to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tracking shipments from the vendor to each military site and managing redistribution of vaccines to additional sites throughout the military.

In total, the USAMMA team tracked and distributed more than five million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, valued at over $126 billion.

Liz Serra, deputy director of USAMMA’s Distribution Operations Center, called it a “total team effort.”

“We are just honored to be a part of this whole-of-government campaign,” she said at the time.

Embracing Change

COVID-19 not only affected the MEDLOG mission, it also transformed the way many workplaces operate.

“Before COVID, we all reported to the office; only a small portion of the staff had situational telework,” said Jason Gatti, AMLC’s G-6 director. “It got to the point during COVID where over half of the staff teleworked full-time until guidance changed almost two years later.”

These changes required leaders to balance flexibility with mission requirements.

“From an IT perspective, we went from storing files on a server and communicating through email to managing data in the cloud and conducting meeting on Teams fully online,” Gatti added. “Completely different environment. And we had to keep up with it.”

Despite the many challenges and growing pains of AMLC’s first five years, command leadership commend the workforce for its dedication and commitment to ensuring a medically capable operational force.

“I think AMLC is really fortunate to have such a passionate and dedicated workforce that will see to it to support the force in whatever way they can,” Moyer said. “And when crisis occurs, they are ‘all hands on deck,’ whatever is needed, whatever time of day, they’re going to make it happen.”

Humanitarian Support

While the battle against the coronavirus dominated the AMLC’s first year-plus in existence, the high operational tempo continued through support to several real-world missions and numerous training exercises in the years that followed.

In 2021, AMLC supported Operation Allies Refuge and Operation Allies Welcome, including sending out nearly $1 million of medical materiel to support medical screening and vaccine efforts for Afghan families during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The command later received a meritorious unit citation for their support to the missions.

In 2022, AMLC was called to support presidential drawdowns designed to bolster Ukrainian defenses against Russian aggression. From March 2022 to April 2023, AMLC — as an enterprise — rapidly and effectively assisted Ukraine by providing life-saving medical equipment, supplies and services valued at more than $200 million.

AMLC ensured deliveries were “configured for combat” and functional, planning for additional requirements, such as voltage converters. AMLC’s experts also advised key leaders on potential operational health care requirements, ensuring Ukraine had the resources necessary to deliver combat casualty care.

Throughout these real-world missions, AMLC also participated in key readiness exercises around the globe. According to leaders, AMLC’s ability to swiftly respond to the requirements demonstrated the command’s resolve and tenacity to deliver readiness and project combat power at the speed of war.

“Through it all, our military, civilians and contractors around the world never hesitated,” said Harriday, who has been with the command since its inception. “We pulled together every single day, supporting the mission, the warfighter, and each other.”

Capability Development

In 2022, AMLC marked a major milestone in its capability development with the creation of its Integrated Logistics Support Center.

The ILSC holds the critical role of synchronizing acquisition and sustainment activities throughout the medical materiel life cycle to ensure fielded systems are sustainable, supportable and affordable.

“The ILSC is really the key piece of being a life cycle management command,” ILSC Director Leigh Anne Alexander said at the time. “The whole reason the Army stood up LCMCs about 20 years ago was to synchronize sustainment throughout the acquisition lifecycle, which is how the DOD makes decisions on what to develop, procure and field to the force.”

LCMCs, short for Life Cycle Management Commands, provide the foundation for sustainable readiness across Army formations. AMLC’s ILSC serves as an end-to-end integrator for medical materiel throughout its life cycle, starting with product development all the way through divestiture as items reach the end of their useful life.

In its development, the ILSC has established a Logistics Assistant Program, or LAP, to provide direct, nested support to Army Field Support Brigades.

“The LAP has really become the tip of the spear when it comes to sustainment support,” said Jason Acevedo, deputy ILSC director. “They serve as a direct link to the units to assist with training, resolving medical maintenance issues and being the eyes and ears for Army MEDLOG in the field.”

Other advancements under the ILSC include the use of data analytics to improve processes and overall asset visibility, as well as the development of more rigorous maintenance support for previously fielded medical devices.

Another key improvement has been the integration of Class VIII (medical materiel) into Global Combat Support System-Army, or GCSS-Army, the system of record for other Army commodities.

Class VIII integration into GCSS-Army helps address a crucial readiness challenge that’s plagued MEDLOG for years, according to Wes Ladlee, a retired master sergeant now working as chief of USAMMA’s Maintenance Support Office.

“MEDLOG has a customer-driven supply chain, accompanied by everchanging patient care needs and a nonstandard catalog,” Ladlee said. “This resulted in a lack of demand visibility and created challenges when forecasting medical materiel demand requirements and understanding the readiness of units.”

Added Ladlee: “With integration comes standardization, providing more accurate readiness operating pictures and a dependable supply chain for medical materiel.”

MEDLOG Integration

Historically, medical logistics has faced challenges, such as lack of a common operating picture, decentralized materiel management, deficient demand forecasting, non-standardized catalogs and reliance on medical treatment facilities for medical materiel and maintenance support.

As a way forward, medical logistics has been directed that it must fully integrate into the Army Sustainment Enterprise as part of the Army Campaign Plan 2023-2030.

To make this happen, AMLC has taken the lead with an effort called MEDLOG in Campaigning, or MiC.

MiC will bring MEDLOG into GCSS-Army, which is the user-level standard sustainment system for supplies and maintenance. This change will reduce systems, training requirements and overall complications with many common medical logistics functions.

MiC will also simplify and standardize the catalog, as well as create a single medical supply and pharmaceutical (e.g., CLVIIIA) catalog, based upon combat requirements.

Additionally, MiC will eliminate process variations so Soldiers train as they fight. One of the biggest challenges in MEDLOG was that the old way of doing business meant doing it one way at home station and a different way in an operational environment. MiC will integrate medical materiel into multiclass Supply Support Activities.

Medical materiel will be received, stored and distributed in the same facilities and platforms as all other commodities. By shifting medical materiel into the regular sustainment infrastructure, AMLC will reduce redundancy and streamline storage and distribution.

The effort also will improve unit access to maintenance. MiC is establishing a home station medical maintenance capability. This will align medical maintenance closer to sustainment processes of non-medical Army equipment. It also enhances unit medical equipment readiness and reduces overall cost. The first capability will be established at Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

“We must integrate into existing structures,” said Derek Cooper, AMLC deputy to the commander. “This is not niche. Some of these current structures don’t accommodate the MEDLOG commodity, so that is what makes this quite an initiative over the coming years and why we are here to get after it.”

AMLC has partnered with many stakeholders, including HQDA-G4; U.S. Army Forces Command; U.S. Army Europe-Africa Command; U.S. Army Materiel Command; U.S. Army Sustainment Command; Combined Arms Systems Command; Special Operations Command; U.S. Army National Guard Bureau; Defense Logistics Agency; Army Shared Service Center; Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command; Non Army Managed Items; Sustainment and Medical Centers of Excellence; U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity; Army Health Facility Planning Agency; and the Defense Health Agency.

The first wave of changes under MiC will begin rolling out in a “proof of concept” phase at several locations stateside and overseas, with a variety of units spanning active duty and National Guard.

People First, People Always

Today, AMLC oversees a medical materiel portfolio of nearly 90,000 pieces of medical equipment, executes annually $300 million in Class VIII medical materiel transactions and centrally manages contingency programs worldwide.

But AMLC leaders said their most valuable commodity is their people.

AMLC’s team includes more than 800 professionals assigned to more than 20 locations in nine countries around the globe. Workforce development remains a top priority.

“We really care about our people and making AMLC a desired place to work each and every day,” AMLC Command Sgt. Maj. Gabriel Wright said.

In March 2022, AMLC headquarters activated its own headquarters and headquarters detachment command to better support Soldiers assigned to the unit.

Additionally, in response to feedback from the workforce, the command rolled out a new headquarters employee onboarding program in April 2024.

Onboarding refers to the process of introducing newly hired employees to an organization — a crucial component to not only help employees understand their new position and job requirements, but also solidify their bond with the organization and set them up for success. Resources include checklists, welcome briefs and a new hire handbook. A key part of the program also includes new sponsorship training for existing employees.

The goal is to recruit the best talent, bring them into the AMLC family and give them the resources they need to be their best and most successful selves, according to leadership.

“From a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic response to support in our withdrawal from the Middle East to ongoing efforts in Europe and Ukraine, AMLC has proved its value time and time again when it comes to medical readiness and enabling combat power,” AMLC Commander Col. Marc Welde said. “But none of this — the real-world missions, exercises, doctrinal changes — would be possible without our people.

“Our people are the reason AMLC exists as it does today and will continue to build out its capabilities to better support the operational force.”