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NEWS | July 16, 2024

LRC employee, lifelong resident of Baumholder says Army is her town’s biggest employer

By Cameron Porter 405th Army Field Support Brigade

Growing up in Baumholder and living in the area her whole life, Christina Dringelstein is accustomed to Americans and the U.S. Army. The dispatcher at the transportation motor pool on Smith Barracks said if you’re from Baumholder, this is normal. The Army is Baumholder’s biggest employer.

“I’ve lived here my whole life. I enjoy working for the U.S. Army. I’ve supported Soldiers and their Families for almost 20 years – first at the PX and now with the 405th. The U.S. Army is my town’s biggest employer,” said Dringelstein, who worked at the Main Exchange for 15 years as a salesclerk and is now with Logistics Readiness Center Rheinland-Pfalz, 405th Army Field Support Brigade.

“I like my work very much. It’s a combination of things. I like the people we support. I like my colleagues, and it’s a good organization. My bosses are always very helpful. If there’s a problem or a concern, it gets resolved every time,” said the 55-year-old resident of Reichenbach, a small village nearby Baumholder.

Dringelstein said her work can be challenging but equally so, fulfilling. She said for the first half of 2024, she was the only person working as a dispatcher at the motor pool. Responsible for nearly 200 non-tactical vehicles, the workload was heavy, she said, but since June there’s now another LRC Rheinland-Pfalz employee assisting her.

“We provide an important quality service to our customers, daily. We renew their dispatches. We take care of their vehicles. If there’s an issue or services are due, we make sure they get into the shop to be looked at. We handle the winter/summer tire program. We complete multiple reports and administrative paperwork on our computers, and more,” said Dringelstein, who has been an LRC Rheinland-Pfalz employee for over four years.

Dringelstein said one of her biggest customers is the Directorate of Public Works from U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz. No longer does the transportation motor pool support vehicles directly assigned to Soldiers. As part of a Europe-wide divestiture initiative last October, these vehicles – once Dringelstein’s responsibility – are now directly assigned to various units stationed in the Baumholder community.

But in a roundabout way, Dringelstein said she’s still helping them and still supporting Soldiers.

 “We support USAG Rheinland-Pfalz, who is the organization responsible for the Baumholder Military Community, and they take care of our Soldiers and their Families, here,” she said.

Dringelstein and her LRC Rheinland-Pfalz coworkers provide installation-level logistics support to USAG Rheinland-Pfalz and multiple tenant units in the Baumholder Military Community. This includes a variety of operations and activities such as supply and services, food services, property accountability, personal property, transportation, transportation quality assurance and quality control, and more.

The LRC Rheinland-Pfalz Baumholder team also integrates with garrison emergency and crisis action operations to support contingencies, severe weather and other requirements. There are currently about 100 employees from LRC Rheinland-Pfalz working in Baumholder. 

LRC Rheinland-Pfalz is one of eight LRCs that report to the 405th AFSB, which is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The brigade provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging 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.