INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Special Operations Technology
Richard Cheek, DSL Director Business Development Deployed Resources LLC long-term lease facilities via O&M [operations and maintenance] funds to enable a site to be active while waiting for MILCON funds to become available.
Richard Cheek is the business development director of Deployed Resources and a demonstrated senior logistician. He retired from the U.S. Army after serving in infantry, airborne, civil affairs and special forces assignments throughout his career.
Q: Are there any new services DR is developing that will benefit the warfighter?
Q: Please provide some background on Deployed Resources. A: Deployed Resources [DR] is a warfighteroriented, safety based, quality driven, veteran-owned small business that has been the premier provider of turnkey temporary life support areas for over 10 years. Our full time, licensed, certified staff is sourced from the military, construction, engineering and hospitality industries, designing and implementing the latest innovations in temporary life support services. Operating in strict adherence to our ISO 9001:2008 certification and in concert with Army Net Zero initiatives, we strive to set industry trends in safety, performance, and sustainability. Currently performing in compliance with ISO 14001, we will be the first “green” base camp provider in the fall of 2012. Continuing to do more by using less, [we are] always on alert about our environmental impact. Q: How does DR work with and support the special operations community? A: From concept to completion, we provide comprehensive life support services to include mobile laundries, mobile showers and restrooms, command centers, billeting facilities, and temporary water, power and sewer systems to the special operations community. This augmentation to their organic life support has kept this highly skilled, highly specialized community mission focused, increasing warfighter morale and training retention. Q: Can you describe some of the unique products and services DR provides? A: DR manufactures our equipment based on the ISO CONEX [shipping container] platform to include showers, kitchens, laundries, 28 | SOTECH 10.5
berthing, latrines, sinks and boiler plants. This creates a modular, scalable, quickly deployable approach to whatever our customer’s requirements may be, in whatever the timeframe, as we organically maintain assets to accommodate 25,000 personnel, CONUS-wide. DR can custom-fabricate containerized support equipment to meet our customer’s ever-changing needs. DR also provides turnkey support services to handle all logistical aspects of a mission, such as operations at FOB Freedom at Camp Mackall or showers and latrines delivered to Bagram Air Base to support the facility build up. Q: As our military faces the prospect of significant budget cuts, how can DR help its customers find cost-saving solutions to fulfill their mission? A: We own all of our equipment and selfperform our work; we are not a broker. This means there are no unneeded layers of cost or overhead added to our pricing. Additionally, this independence allows our customers to turn us on, turn us off, ramp us up, ramp us down, only paying for the days used and numbers served. This organic capability and organic manufacturing allows us this flexibility. We have the long-term philosophy of developing sustainable relationships and we practice this by being proper stewards of our customers’ assets and working with them in developing cost efficient and highly proficient support. Another unique aspect of DR is our ability to be a cost-effective bridge to training and operations locations MILCON [military construction] delays. We can provide
A: At DR, we enhance the training experience by improving the morale of the warfighter via hot showers, nutritious meals, climate controlled billets. Our mission as a company is a simple one, yet an important one: to be the premier provider of life support services. We handle these needs so the warfighter can focus on what’s really important: the mission at hand. Q: What has DR done to differentiate itself from your competition? A: In addition to our personnel and equipment differentiators, at DR we do not hesitate to invest in developing technologies to integrate into our systems. We have developed a proprietary Integrated Field Reporting System [IFRS] that enables immediate reporting capabilities from the field to all management and customer stakeholders via the internet. IFRS allows selected personnel to easily monitor staff, suppliers/subcontractors, site weather data, material deliveries, and facility capacity and occupancy status of ongoing projects. New directives, requirements, and changes to all staff on both the contractor and client side are logged here, ensuring real-time communication with no lag time. IFRS identifies safety meetings and incidents [if any] and environmental compliance activities. IFRS is fully integrated with our asset tracking software, Deployed Resources Asset Tracker [DRAT] to provide detailed information in each daily report regarding physical assets on site including quantities, descriptions and individual asset identification codes. Daily interaction with IFRS and DRAT allows all personnel to stay abreast of the latest information available and is truly a communication tool of exponential value. O www.SOTECH-kmi.com