Supply Chain Frontiers issue #22. Read all articles in this issue
The United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), which provides air, land and sea transportation for the Department of Defense, and MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL), have joined forces to create a fellowship program that will generate military leaders with an MIT education in supply chain management and logistics. USTRANSCOM recently joined CTL’s Supply Chain Exchange program.
The year-long fellowship sponsored by the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) is part of the military’s United States Army War College’s (USAWC), Senior Service College Fellows (SSCF) program, in which top officers are selected to attend a masters or fellowship program at colleges and universities across the U.S. While SCC fellows have attended MIT in the past, this is the first such fellowship through CTL. It loosely parallels CTL’s one-year Master of Engineering in Logistics (MLOG) program.
The first fellow is Lieutenant Colonel (Promotable) Stephen E. Farmen. Farmen recently completed a three-year tour in Germany as Commander of the 28th Transportation Battalion and Commander of Logistics Task Force 28 in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has earned a BA in History at University of Richmond, Virginia, and an MA in National Securities and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
Farmen sees the fellowship as an excellent opportunity to build on his more than 20 years of experience in military transportation and logistics. “As a commander, leader, and manager of an organization that is part of the overarching Department of Defense supply chain – that is, sea lines of communication, en route infrastructure, and shipping of cargo, material, and supplies – this fellowship will allow me to learn and understand how supply chains are fundamentally planned, designed, and operated, so I can better apply the right technical solutions and concepts to the challenges we face and gain the right efficiencies to enhance effectiveness in our daily missions,” said Farmen.
After he completes the SDDC fellowship in June 2008, Farmen is slated to take command of the 598th Transportation Group in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he will be responsible for the port and surface distribution operations for a region that includes Europe, the Mediterranean, western Africa, and the Azores.
For more information about the SDDC/SCS fellowship or the MLOG program, contact Chris Caplice.