700 CONS is ATLAS Strong

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Joshua Nabors
  • 700th Contracting Squadron

I vividly remember my family and I being welcomed to the 700th Contracting Squadron in June of 2022 when I took command last summer. It was such a humbling experience, and I felt an enormous responsibility being tasked to lead the largest contracting squadron in United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa. As soon as I arrived, I knew I was joining something special and my appreciation for the team has only grown as we continued to move forward together.

The 7000th Procurement Squadron, now known as the 700th Contracting Squadron, was activated on Feb. 1, 1974. We are coming up on 50 years of acquisition support in the Kaiserslautern Military Community. The team is built with 88 Military, Local National, and U.S. Civilian contracting professionals that support over 1,000 organizations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This team makes huge lifts year after year, we executed $188 million in fiscal year 2022 for the 86th Airlift Wing and mission partners, our largest spend in history and breaking the record we had just set in 2021.

Our team is called upon to turn dollars into warfighting capabilities providing our mission partners with mission inorganic execution capabilities. We are tasked with understanding the regulations that govern our acquisition processes and navigating them to propel the mission forward. Just like a regulator that controls the pressure of fuel supplied to an engine, our job is to control the pressure of executing money at the speed of relevancy.

This is why we call ourselves, The Regulators.

We are guided by our mission, “Buy to win!” and our vision “It’s your Squadron, own it,” to deliver innovative mission-focused business leadership enabling power projection for the Global Gateway and our mission partners. We execute mission requirements to ensure our USAFE-AFAFRICA team has what it needs when it needs it to win the fight and are empowered to own our battlespace and execute for the team of teams in the 86th Mission Support Group.

We are a remarkable team with an incredible story that is often behind the scenes. We award contracts for information technology equipment, furniture, vehicles, building renovations and updating roundabouts like the famous bronze boar. Our support doesn’t stop there as we also cover grounds maintenance, recycling, contract support for 37th Airlift Squadron field exercises, contracts for staffing some of our medical professionals in the Military Treatment Facilities. Still our reach goes further, executing non-appropriated funds contracts for events like Freedom Fest or the Ramstein Bazaar, firefighter and defender equipment, aircraft arresting systems, remote control aircraft towing equipment, and many others not named. The team also helped turn an old high school into a contingency quarter in just 72 hours that could bed-down up to 2000 forces, providing laundry service and 24/7 care of deployers while they transitioned through Ramstein. Our members also deploy and support contingency and humanitarian operations across three areas of responsibility. We buy it all.

However, as a lot of you know this process is not always easy and requires projection of needs, communication, and teamwork. That’s why as Regulators, we will continue to embrace change and work with our mission partners to navigate the many roadblocks that arise in the world of spending money.

The 700th Contracting Squadron is more than just a squadron, it’s an incredible and resilient family that enables the 86th Airlift Wing and our mission partners to execute our vital mission every day. I am proud to lead a team of so many selfless individuals with amazing stories that all come together to Buy to Win! I am excited to continue writing this ATLAS STRONG story by finding ways to buy faster and equip our team of teams here at the 86th Airlift Wing with the resources needed to continue to “Build Airmen, Project Power, and Support Partners.”

REGULATORS…MOUNT UP!