Friday, March 27, 2009
Vice Admiral Alan S. Thompson, a 30-year careerist who has quietly held numerous commands involving supplies for the US Navy, assumed the role of director of the Defense Logistics Agency on November 19, 2008. He is in charge of procuring and distributing to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps a wide variety of products and services, including food, clothing, medical supplies, construction material, spare parts and fuel.
Thompson, who traces his family’s military roots to the Civil War era in Pennsylvania, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in economics from UCLA, where he received his commission through the Naval ROTC program in 1976. He later earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Florida and completed the Columbia University Graduate School of Business Senior Executive Program.
Thompson’s ship assignments have included assistant supply officer aboard the destroyer USS David R. Ray (DD 971), and supply officer for the missile destroyer USS Chandler (DDG 996) and the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69).
Ashore, he has served at the Naval Supply Systems Command, formerly located at the Naval Aviation Supply Office in Philadelphia; as commander of the Naval Air Force for the US Pacific Fleet at the Naval Air Station in Miramar, CA; and in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
Thompson’s ship assignments have included assistant supply officer aboard the destroyer USS David R. Ray (DD 971), and supply officer for the missile destroyer USS Chandler (DDG 996) and the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69).
Ashore, he has served at the Naval Supply Systems Command, formerly located at the Naval Aviation Supply Office in Philadelphia; as commander of the Naval Air Force for the US Pacific Fleet at the Naval Air Station in Miramar, CA; and in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
In July 1998, Thompson was appointed the commanding officer of the Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Norfolk, the Navy’s largest supply center. Later, he was made chief of the Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group and a CNO Fellow at the Naval War College.
In February 2001, he was promoted from captain to rear admiral. That same year he was assigned as commander of the Defense Supply Center in Columbus, Ohio, for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), serving until 2003. He was then Director of the Supply, Ordnance, and Logistics Operations Division (N41) in the Office of the CNO, and later commander of the Naval Supply Systems Command and Chief of Supply Corps, in Mechanicsburg, PA, from March 2007 until taking over the DLA.
Thompson was promoted to vice admiral and President George W. Bush appointed him director of the DLA in November 2008. In charge of 23,000 civilian and military personnel, Thompson is responsible for providing the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and other federal agencies with a variety of logistics, acquisition and technical services. These services include logistics information, materiel management, procurement, warehousing and distribution of spare parts, food, clothing, medical supplies and fuel, reutilization of surplus military materiel and document automation and production.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Defense Logistics Agency (AllGov)
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