T-AKE Team is Candidate for Packard Award

Nominees for the 2001 David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award include NAVSEA's Lewis and Clark Class (T-AKE) Project Team. The team was one of five Navy candidates recently announced by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN RD&A) John Young. The T-AKE Program accounted for two of the nine environmental awards given for FY 2001 by the Secretary of Defense. The David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award, the Department's highest acquisition award, recognizes DoD civilian and/or military organizations, groups and teams who have made highly significant contributions and demonstrated exemplary innovations in the Defense acquisition process. It is named for the late David Packard, deputy secretary of Defense during the Nixon administration and co-founder and chairman of the Hewlett-Packard Company and chairman of the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management chartered by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. This year's winners are scheduled to receive their awards in June of 2002. The T-AKE Class ships are designed to provide a two-product shuttle ship replacement for the aging Combat Store (AFS) and Ammunition (AE) shuttle fleet ships. Late last year, NAVSEA announced the awarding of a $406.9 million competitive contract for the detailed design and construction of the lead ship of the T-AKE Auxiliary Cargo and Ammunition Class to National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) of San Diego, CA. The vessels will be built almost entirely to commercial ship standards, manned by Government civilian mariners, and operated by the Military Sealift Command. The ships will have the capacity to handle ammunition and combat stores-including dry, frozen and chilled products, spare parts and consumables. Designed to operate independently for extended periods at sea while providing replenishment services to U.S. and NATO ships, the Lewis and Clark class ships will directly contribute to the ability of the Navy to maintain a forward presence. These ships will provide logistic lift from sources of supply either in port or at sea from specially equipped merchant ships. They will transfer this cargo (ammunition; food; limited quantities of fuel; repair parts; ship store items and expendable supplies and material) to station ships and other naval warfare forces at sea. As a secondary mission, these ships may be required to operate in concert with a T-AO class ship as a substitute station ship to provide direct logistics support to the ships within a battle group.