REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. –
Christina Spradlin enjoys making life easier for others, which is key when you are the team lead for support agreements with the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command.
Support agreements allow government agencies to acquire skill sets outside of their core mission by exchanging services and funds. Similar to a contractual document, support agreements outline the general terms and conditions for the trading partners.
“For example, with AMCOM, we are not rich in engineers so we have to go to our government trading partners that have a lot of engineers and buy engineering services from them,” Spradlin explained. “There are other government agencies who don’t have a lot of security specialists, so they come to AMCOM to get the services they need to accomplish their mission.”
Spradlin said one of the most requested services she sees is for logisticians, because of the AMCOM Logistics Center. Rather than add a job position outside of its core function, an agency will buy that service from the ALC through a support agreement.
“An agency might be great at designing new weapons systems, but they need a logistician familiar with databases who can track those systems,” she said. “It’s all about teamwork. It requires teamwork to accomplish the mission and the ultimate mission is our warfighters.”
Supporting the warfighter is near and dear to Spradlin. A self-described Army brat, she considers Huntsville, Alabama, home because her parents retired here when she was in high school.
Spradlin joined AMCOM six years ago as a contractor and became an Army civilian last year. She lives on a seven-acre farm with her husband and four children, along with some miniature donkeys, goats, chickens, turkeys, cows, pigs, cats and dogs.
She describes the farm as the best of both worlds — close to town, but in the country. The peace and quiet came in handy during the past 18 months while she teleworked and dealt with major revisions to the support agreement process.
“Over the last year and a half there were an incredible amount of policy changes regarding support agreements,” Spradlin said. “When policies change, a lot of times our processes have to change, our business rules have to change and, in this case, a lot of information had to be added to the support agreement form.”
Some of those changes will help the AMCOM community smoothly transition to the new G-invoicing standardized support agreement system mandated for use this year by the Department of the Treasury.
Spradlin said G-invoicing will allow all federal agencies to trade with each other without running into compatibility issues due to agency-specific forms. The new system is a big change, but Spradlin said she and her team are up to the challenge; she understands her piece of the puzzle helps with the overall big picture.
“Everything AMCOM does is to help develop and maintain weapons systems and readiness,” she said. “When we accomplish our mission with support agreements, then the people have what they need on their team to accomplish their mission, which all eventually supports the mission of our warfighters.”