Name: Penny Kos-Williams
Job title: Quality Assurance Specialist
Assigned: Dülmen Army Prepositioned Stock-2 worksite, Army Field Support Battalion Mannheim, 405th Army Field Support Brigade
Location: Tower Barracks, Dülmen, Germany
Experience: I have served at the APS-2 worksite at Dülmen for over four years. Before that I was an International Organization of Standards auditor at Red River Army Depot, Texas, for nearly nine years.
Other service: I served 13 years in the Air Force in Security Forces, including here in Germany at Spangdahlem Air Base.
Hometown: Lancaster, South Carolina
Family: I am divorced, and I have one son. He is 23 years old, and his name is Sheymus Williams.
Q: Can you explain what you do and what you are responsible for at the Dülmen APS-2 worksite?
A: I’m a quality assurance specialist so my job is to ensure that the contract requirements are being met by our contractors. Part of my job includes doing surveillance and briefings, and I talk to the various managers to ensure they are enforcing all the requirements within the contracts.
Q: Why is your team’s work at the Dülmen APS-2 worksite so important?
A: Our mission here at the Dülmen APS-2 worksite is important because this is where we keep the equipment ready and fully mission capable for our Soldiers who will be in need of all this equipment and all these vehicles during a contingency operation or an exercise. Our mission is to help ensure the Soldiers get exactly what they need to fight and win, if called upon. Any time we do inspections on the vehicles, weapons or other equipment pieces – we are helping to ensure they are ready when they are needed.
Q: What do you enjoy about your job, and what motivates you?
A: What I like about my job is the fact that I feel like I am actually doing something for the Soldiers so they’re prepared and ready to defend us as a country. I’m not in the Air Force anymore, but this is my way of serving my country now as well as my way of serving Soldiers. It’s 100 percent self-satisfaction. That’s enough for me.
APS-2 Program and the 405th AFSB: The APS-2 program is a key component of U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s power projection and warfighter readiness missions. The 405th AFSB’s APS-2 program provides turn-key power projection packages – ready to deploy at a moment’s notice – while helping to reduce the amount of equipment needed from the deploying forces’ home stations. Combatant commanders identify their APS-2 requirements, and the 405th AFSB executes and then issues the equipment to the deploying warfighters.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and under the operational control of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa. The brigade is headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. Forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging the U.S. Army Materiel Command’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.