Contracting provides base 'buying power' Published July 27, 2006 By Staff Sgt. Bryan Bouchard 447th Air Expeditionary Group SATHER AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- When Airmen deploy they quickly find there are differences from how they do their job at their home station. At a deployed location, if something needs to be purchased, built or serviced, chances are the contracting office has a hand in it. According to the 447th Air Expeditionary Group chief of contracts, Air Force contingency contracting officers are in demand."Ask any commander in the field who he or she wants as their (contingency contracting officer). Every branch of service will answer Air Force," said contracting chief Capt. Rick Barnhart, deployed from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. "They all know the Air Force grows contracting professionals within their ranks as its own specialty. The (contingency contracting officer), both enlisted and officer, brings the most highly trained procurement skill sets to the fight of all branches of service." Contracting superintendent Master Sgt. Steven Turner, deployed from Luke AFB, Ariz., said the key to contingency contracting is flexibility. "Usually, with limited numbers (of vendors) we have to be able to award a wide variety of contracts to support the base," Sergeant Turner said. "They can range from laundry services and building construction to renting vehicles. Typically we have a great opportunity to work hand-in-hand with foreign firms and experience great opportunities to learn the culture." Sergeant Turner added that business abroad is usually conducted quite differently than in the states, which can cause some challenges. For example, it is quite common in the Arab culture to enjoy coffee, tea or a meal before discussing business."Sometimes a simple transaction can take hours," he said. "Also, many other cultures do not have the same standards with timeliness of orders as you may be accustomed to in the states. In Iraq, due to the high security risk, we do not have the opportunity to go downtown, which really ties our hands. In other locations, we are downtown for the majority of the day meeting vendors and making purchases from a wide variety of vendors versus the few vendors here." Regardless of the challenges, Captain Barnhart said that at the end of the day, the bottom line is providing support to the warfighter, which is something the four-person contracting shop finds rewarding. When a customer works through the contracting office and gets the product or service he or she needed to do their jobs, Captain Barnhart said the satisfaction is like "a parent watching their children opening Christmas presents."