Finance Officer Marooned In HI

“Marooned” in Hawaii for Nearly a Decade Working for the Navy

(by Colonel (Retired) Mark L. Brown, U.S. Army Finance Corps)

1.     Introduction.   

First I wish to thank COL (Ret.) J. Claud Wallace and COL (Ret.)Richard (Robby) Robsonfor encouraging me to write this article.  Had Claud and Robby not given me a gentle nudge or two, I probably would have never taken the time to write about my experiences with Navy financial management.  Once I got started, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to reflect upon (and write about) what was by far my most professionally rewarding, most enjoyable, and most extended tour of duty.  I hope those who read the article find it interesting and enjoyable as well.  As part of the article I answer the two questions most commonly asked when I encounter former Army colleagues – What did I do in Hawaii and how in the heck did I manage to homestead there for nine straight years? and Why was I the only Army Finance Corps officer to be able to enjoy this unique assignment?

2.     A Joint assignment opportunity.  Following my consecutive tours as the  Commander of the 107^th Finance Battalion (at Fort Bragg, NC) and 176^th Finance Battalion (in Seoul, Korea) 1992-96, I had the opportunity to attend the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) at Ft. McNair, Washington DC, 1996-97.  I requested ICAF over other War College alternatives because I was interested in seeking a joint (multi-service) follow-on assignment.  By statute, at least half of all ICAF graduates must go to joint assignments following graduation.  Also, the services tended to assign a high proportion of ICAF graduates to requirements in the Washington DC area to save on Permanent Change of Station (PCS) costs.  My wife (Molly) and I, therefore, resigned ourselves to an extended stay in the Capital region.  However, when the Comptroller Assignments Officer contacted me to ask if I would be interested in an opening at the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) in Hawaii, I responded “YES!!!”  Molly and I had vacationed in Hawaii several times over the years but had never been able to wrangle an assignment there.  The assignment would be as Chief of the Security Assistance Budget/Programs Division, Office of the Comptroller.  When we arrived in Hawaii, government quarters were not available so we stayed at the Hale Koa resort Hotel on Waikiki Beach (and on Temporary Lodging Allowance (TLA) status) for 45 days while we sought suitable housing on the economy.  From the beginning, our assignment to Hawaii seemed too good to be true.       

3.     The PACOM Mission and Organization.  PACOM is the Joint Unified Combatant  Command responsible for all U.S. military forces and operations in the Pacific Area of Responsibility (AOR).  The Pacific AOR is the largest and encompasses 51% of the globe, from the West Coast of the USA to the East Coast of Africa.  Since the  overwhelming majority of the Pacific AOR is covered by ocean, with blue sky above, most PACOM exercises (and operations) tended to be sea service (USN & USMC) and USAF intensive.  The only exercises where the Army had a leading role where those involving the defense of South Korea.  The PACOM organization included four subordinate Service Component Commands (the U.S. Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT), U.S. Pacific Air Forces (USPACAF), U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) & U.S. Marine Forces Pacific (USMARFORPAC)), four subordinate Unified Commands (U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), U.S. Alaska Command (USALCOM) & U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific (USSOCPAC)), four direct reporting units (Asia Pacific Center for Securities Studies (APCSS), Joint Intelligence Operations Center - Pacific (JIOC-P), Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) & Center for Excellence in Disaster Management), and one standing Joint Task Force (Joint Interagency Task Force – West (JIATF-W)), which dealt with counter narcotics operations.  Since the command’s earliest origins, under Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in World War 2, PACOM has always been commanded by a Navy 4-star admiral.  The PACOM Deputy Commander is an all-service nominative billet ordinarily manned by either an Army, or USAF, 3-star.  Most of the principal staff billets at PACOM were usually occupied by USN, USAF or USMC flag officers.  The only (1-star) staff positions most commonly occupied by Army officers were the Deputy J-3, J-4, and J-6.  Most likely because PACOM had always been funded by the Navy, the PACOM Comptroller position was a Navy Captain (O-6).  Since the Navy did not have a military comptroller career field, the position was coded as a Navy Supply Corps billet.  The PACOM Office of the Comptroller included a GS-14 civilian deputy and three subordinate divisions: the Operations & Maintenance, Navy (O & MN) Budget Division (headed by a Navy Supply Corps O-5), the Security Assistance Budget/Programs Division (headed by an Army Comptroller O-5), and the Special Programs Division, which managed representational and classified program funds (headed by a Navy Supply Corps O-4).  The PACOM Headquarters is located on U.S. Marine Camp H.M. Smith, overlooking Pearl Harbor.       

4.     The differing philosophy and procedures for financial management in the  Navy. 

In my observation, the Army and Navy almost couldn’t be more different in their philosophy of support (and resources management) and how they help subordinate commanders (and principal staff officers) to succeed.  In the Army our focus for the most fundamental level of command is the company where a company commander can count on two (or more) levels of higher command, with increasingly large staffs, located in close proximity that provide routine oversight and other “help” (both wanted and unwanted).  These staffs are organized along lanes of responsibility to help manage overall training readiness, materiel readiness, pay & personnel document processing timeliness and so on.  This means that nearly all commanders (at company level & above) can count on a very busy schedule of training evaluations, compliance inspections, and multiple unit performance statistics, which will be the basis for a conclusion regarding their ultimate success or failure.  In the Navy, the fundamental focus for command is the Captain of a ship.  Since ships, to include submarines which the Navy refers to as “boats”, commonly go on extended (6 to 9 month) independent deployments where the vessel will be thousands of miles from their parent squadron or fleet headquarters, the Navy support philosophy is much more about giving subordinate commanders (and other responsible officers such as principal staff members) the maximum flexibility to exercise independent judgment.  As long as the responsible officer consistently acts in accordance with the law and public interest, in the interest of the command/Navy, and in accomplishment of the assigned mission, their area of responsibility is considered to be in ”ship shape”.  To provide a contrasting example, when I served as a command budget chief at the Army installation level and received my annual allocation of Operations & Maintenance, Army (OMA) funds, the allocation came with numerous stipulations and sub-limitations which restricted the amount of OMA funds I could spend for certain elements of expense (such as civilian pay, training, travel, office furniture, etc.) unless I obtained a special exception from my Major Command (MACOM) headquarters and, in some instances, Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA).  Not so in the Navy.  At least for PACOM, when the Navy allocated Operations & Maintenance, Navy (OMN) funds to me, the funds came with no Servicelevel restrictions or sub-limitations.  Our only restriction was to use the funds within the limits of the law.  The applicable statutes included the statutory definition for OMN, any restrictions included in the Defense Appropriations Act for the current year, plus any other legal restrictions that could apply in some situations (such as those imposed by the Foreign Assistance Act or Fly American Act, etc.).  This meant I spent comparatively more time consulting with our Fiscal Law Counsel at PACOM, but it also meant I had far more flexibility and empowerment to expeditiously fund almost any requirement or mission that came our way.  Although the Navy was more flexible in their ways, they were also quick to deliver swift and severe punishment in response to any mishap.  For example, should any harm come to a vessel or crew, the Navy’s first reaction is to fire the Captain, and then investigate the particulars of the incident later.  

5.     The PACOM long-term programmatic underfunding challenge. 

During my first  year or so at PACOM my work was focused on the Security Assistance (SA) budget and program.  This is a resource provided by the Defense Security Cooperative Agency (DSCA) to PACOM to support the twelve in-country Pacific region Joint U.S. Military Assistance Groups (JUSMAGs) and Security Assistance Offices (SAOs) that assist in the military readiness (and modernization) of our regional allies.  The SA funds also supported about 15 SA funded billets in the PACOM headquarters.  For the most part, the level of SA funding was balanced to our mission requirements and we had no insurmountable issues.  However, I became increasingly aware that was not the case on the O&MN side of the house.  PACOM had suffered a number of significant budget cuts in the force (and headquarters) drawdowns of the mid to late 1990s and was left in a sorry state financially.  In Fiscal Year (FY) 1999 the PACOM O&MN budget amounted to only $137.1 million, and that was to fund the PACOM headquarters, two sub-unified commands (USALCOM & the service common costs for USSOCPAC), all four direct reporting units, and the one standing Joint Task Force (JTF) which was later increased to two.  When both a new commander (Admiral Dennis Blair) and a new Deputy Commander (Army LTG Randy House) arrived in late 1998, they set high standards and expectations for PACOM but soon found that every stride for progress was frustrated by a lack of resources.  They made fixing the funding problem a top priority, with LTG House taking the senior leader level lead.  In my observation, LTG House was the finest officer I have known to wear Army green.  He was the best leader and cared about the mission and his people to the maximum.  He also had a very direct communications style that commanded undivided attention.  My boss, the PACOM Comptroller (Captain Jay Koehler), was soon under immense pressure to fix the problem.  LTG House also had a well-seasoned familiarity and preference for Army resources management practices and terminology.  During a meeting where LTG House was particularly frustrated by the absence of familiar means for him to more directly control resourcing priorities, for example, he barked – “Where in the hell is my PBAC?”  When we returned to Jay’s office, the Chief of the O&MN Budget Division (Commander John Roggen) asked “What foreign language was LTG House speaking and what the heck is a PBAC?”  I translated some of the unfamiliar Army lingo and then explained that a PBAC (Program Budget Action Council) was a common Army (and USAF) method where a monthly decision briefing was held, chaired by the commander or deputy, to review the status of funds and make any current decisions (for funding allocations or cuts, etc.).  I then helped Jay and John set up a PBAC which we had up and running within a couple weeks.  Since I had formerly taught the Department of Defense (DoD) Planning Programming and Budget System (PPBS) process as part of the PPBS course as an instructor with the Resource Management Department of the U.S. Army Finance School in 1986-87, I understood how the PPBS system was supposed to work and helped Jay (and John) put together a campaign plan to engage the Navy and work toward a permanent baseline funding fix.  Jay was a great mentor (and close friend) to me and taught me much about the Navy’s culture and staff organization.  Together, before his departure in June 1999, we walked the halls of the Pentagon pleading our case and positioning PACOM on the offensive start line for the long battle ahead.  To briefly review, the DoD PPBS process entails the management of five consecutive program years, followed by the budget execution year (where the program/budget numbers, if enacted by Congress, finally become appropriated funds).  The main (5-year) programming submission is called the POM (Program Objective Memorandum).  When submitting new POM requirements, the most open year is the most distant year that is still in a formative state.  To make gains in any of the nearer POM years, the Navy has to displace (or terminate) previously established requirements.  An important part of all of this was our being prepared for the important influence points and meeting milestones in the Navy’s PPBS process and to ensure Admiral Blair had the opportunity to exert his influence (as a Navy 4-star) when appropriate.  In late 1999 we made some significant initial gains but most of these were in the POM out-years.  That meant each successive year involved both an offensive and defensive effort.  Offensive to get our requirements into the next (most distant) POM year as well as any “adjustments” we had for the nearer POM years.  Defensive to protect the gains we had made to date from any Navy temptation to use them as bill-payers for emergent Navy requirements (which understandably tended to be more precious to the Navy than any Joint requirements, like PACOM’s).  It was soon evident that ultimate success on our part would be a five to six year effort, where continuity for the PACOM Comptroller would be key.  Ultimately, we were successful beyond our expectations and succeeded in tripling PACOM’s permanent budget baseline (from $137.1 million in FY 1999 to $412.3 million in FY 2005).  I would like to acknowledge one Navy officer who was of particularly significant help to us and that was Rear Admiral (1-star) Jonathan Greenert who was the Navy’s O&MN manager from 1999-2002.  Admiral Greenert was a longtime Pacific sailor who understood our dilemma and genuinely lent a helping hand to steer us through the reefs and shoals of the Navy’s very competitive financial environment.  Despite my conspicuous presence (in Army green) at several Navy Service-level program/budget sessions, Admiral Greenert always showed respect for my efforts which he repeatedly described as “relentless” when commenting to my leadership at PACOM.  Admiral Greenert’s talents as a fair minded professional have not gone unnoticed because, as of this writing, he serves as the (4-star) Chief of Naval Operations and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.          

6.     Buying time with Congressional inserts. 

Since in late 1999 it was increasingly  clear that programmatic success to significantly increase the PACOM budget baseline would take years, we looked for ways to gain short-terms increases for each FY to help fund PACOM’s increasing operational tempo and to buy time.  Fortunately, Hawaii’s senior United States Senator (Daniel K. Inouye) was the ranking member (and later Chairman) for both the Defense Sub-Committee of the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC-D) and the overarching Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC). 

During several of Senator Inouye’s visits to the PACOM headquarters during Congressional recess, we presented the details of our budget woes (and corrective programmatic efforts in-progress) to the senator and his SAC-D staffers.  Since nearly all of the PACOM budget was spent in Hawaii, Senator Inouye quickly viewed the issue as having both a negative impact on PACOM’s mission capabilities and the local economy.  We were soon the recipient of multiple SAC-D inserts in each subsequent Senate version of the annual Defense Appropriations Act.  Nearly all of these inserts were very welcome but some presented an unexpected challenge.  For example, soon after the infamous events of 11 September 2001, Congress rushed through an FY 2001 emergency appropriations act to cover some of the immediate costs.  I received word (via our Congressional Liaison Office) that the lead SAC-D staffer had called and wanted me to know he had just inserted $38 million (in O&MN funds) into the conferenced bill for PACOM.  At that point we had less than two weeks remaining in FY 2001 and there was almost nothing useful I could do with the money.  I immediately contacted the USPACFLT Comptroller and learned that they had a backlog of ready to contract minor construction projects awaiting funds.  Soon after, in coordination with our Fiscal Law Counsel and the Fiscal Law Counsel for Navy N8, we agreed to my proposal that I would transfer the $38 million in FY 2001 O&MN funds to USPACFLT in exchange for their transfer of $35 million in FY 2002 O&MN to PACOM in early FY 2002.  This exchange gave PACOM an extra $35 million and a full fiscal year to make wellreasoned use of it.  Fortunately, the funds became available when our force protection and War On Terror efforts (and $ requirements) were increasing rapidly (like everywhere else) so the funds couldn’t have come at a better time or have been put to better use in accordance with the intent of Congress.  Sadly, Senator Inouye passed away in 2012.  He was a pleasure to work with and one of Hawaii’s greatest heroes, who earned the Medal of Honor for his service with the famous 100^th “Go for Broke” (Japanese-American) Battalion, 442^nd Regimental Combat Team in Europe during World War 2.  Senator Inouye had served in the U.S. Senate continuously since 1962.

7.     An Army Comptroller for a Navy funded command?  Following mypromotion to  

Colonel in October 1998, and when we came within six months or so of Captain Jay Koehler’s end of tour date in June 1999, Jay very kindly recommended that I “fleet up” to be his replacement for at least the remaining 12 months of my tour in Hawaii, and then be replaced by an in-coming Navy Supply Corps O-6 when I departed.  Both Admiral Blair and LTG House endorsed the idea and the Army Personnel Command (PERSCOM) reluctantly agreed to leave me in place even though I was an Army O-6 slotted in a Navy O-6 position.  I don’t believe any of us expected at the time that my longevity to last longer than one year.  However, several months after I assumed the position of Comptroller, the window of opportunity opened for the PACOM Commander to nominate any positions he wished to have managed as “all Service nominative” positions (vice having the billet coded for a single Service).  Both Admiral Blair and Lt. Gen. House supported my recommendation that the PACOM Comptroller billet be so nominated to ensure the position could be filled by career resource management officers in the future.  All four Armed Services subsequently concurred with the PACOM nomination and the Joint Staff approved the conversion soon thereafter.  The PACOM Comptroller billet was then recoded to be an Army Comptroller (Specialty 45) authorization for the remainder of my longevity.          

8.     “Homesteading” in Hawaii for a worthy cause. 

Soon after it was decided   that I would succeed Captain Koehler, it became readily apparent that it would take more than one year for me to achieve even the initial objectives in our efforts to substantially increase the level of PACOM funding via the Navy’s POM process.  I therefore submitted a 12-month tour extension request in May 1999.  The PERSCOM Comptroller Assignments Officer (LTC Dwayne Houston) advised approval (or disapproval) would take a couple of months because he had to ensure all Army requirements were covered before he could recommend approval.  Fortunately, Dwayne was able to accomplish this and the extension was approved in July 1999 to extend my tour to August 2001.  In the following year we made significant initial gains in our Navy POM campaign but it soon became painfully apparent that ultimate success would require a sustained offensive of five years duration (vice two).  I therefore called Dwayne’s successor at PERSCOM to inquire about the feasibility of PERSCOM approval of an In Place Consecutive Overseas Tour (IPCOT).  The Comptroller Assignments Officer politely explained that, as of August 2001, I will have been stabilized in Hawaii for four years despite the fact that the normal tour length for a colonel was about two years.  Accordingly, it was already past my time to move and the prospects for approval of an IPCOT request were therefore near zero.  Although the prospects appeared slim, given the important mission considerations for PACOM, I decided to give the IPCOT request a try.  LTG House favorably endorsed my request directly to the PERSCOM Commander (MG Thomas W. Garrett) and then penned two exceptionally kind sentences below his signature block that changed the prospects for approval from highly unlikely to nearly certain – “Tom, This is the Most Important Exception to Policy I have requested as a 3-star.  Mark Brown is making a “HUGE” difference & has Admiral Blair’s total confidence & support.”  The IPCOT request was approved only eleven days later and my end of tour date was extended three years to July 2004.  By July 2004 I was within less than two years of my (30-year) Mandatory Retirement Date (MRD) for a colonel.  This fact, combined with my declaration of intent to retire in Hawaii, made the next two (12-month) tour extensions comparatively easier because I was able to make the case that it made little economic sense to move my family and me to Washington DC, for example, and then have the Army go to the expense to ship us all back to Hawaii only a year or so later (upon retirement).  In the end, my much extended tour of duty in Hawaii ran nearly nine years (from 5 July 1997 to 1 June 2006).            

9.     Humanitarian Operations in the Pacific Region.  In addition to the PACOM Office  of the Comptroller’s role in the program and budget dynamics previously described, we also had a leading role in the financial aspect of any military operations.  In support of these we obtained and managed more than $125 million in Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster and Civic Aid (OHDACA) funds to support three major disaster relief operations: Philippine Typhoon Relief, Asia Tsunami Relief (Operation UNIFIED ASSISTANCE) and Indonesian Earthquake Relief.  We were also responsible for the funding of peacekeeping operations in East Timor and the support of Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) operations in the Republic of the Philippines.  Suffice it to say these operations could change our lives in an instant.  One moment I’d be water skiing on Kaneohe Bay Sunday morning and the next, following tsunami in the Indian Ocean, on 7 X 24 watch working as part of the team effort to surge the immense capabilities of our four Service Components Commands toward tens of thousands of people in desperate need.  It was hard (and always unexpected) work but I take great satisfaction in thinking that I was able to contribute in some small way to PACOM’s saving of hundreds of lives.      

10.A future assignments opportunity lost. 

Late in 2004 I was advised by our J-1 that  the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) had made a decision to significantly reduce the number of all-service nominative billets, especially at the grades of O-6 & below, on the Joint Staff and combatant command staffs.  The decision was the result of Armed Service push-back over the administrative burden (and assignments turbulence) created by the high number of such billets in existence at the time.  With a few selected exceptions (executive assistants to 4-stars and other senior officials, or where required by statute or DoD direction), combatant combats were asked to either recode their allservice nominative billets to a single service specialty code, or civilianize them.  At first the (all-service nominative) PACOM Comptroller billet I occupied was slated for civilianization.  However, the PACOM Commander (Admiral William J. Fallon) who arrived in 2005 wanted his comptroller to remain military.  It was therefore decided that the PACOM Comptroller billet would undergo one more cycle under the all-service nominative process, and then be permanently coded to the service (and specialty) of the new selectee.  Since the PACOM Comptroller’s duties encompassed nearly all facets of DoD resources management (programming, budgeting, accounting, contracting support, pay, travel & disbursing), especially during humanitarian operations, I recommended that nominees only be solicited from the two services (Army & USAF) who developed officers in the resources management field over a full career (from 2LT to COL).  The Army & USAF nominees could, therefore, offer at least 20 years of experience.  The Deputy Commander (USAF Lt. Gen. Dan Leaf) was a strong advocate for a USAF selectee and motivated the USAF officer personnel center to submit not one but four highly-qualified nominees, each of which had served in the USAF resources management field since their commissioning.  One of these (a Colonel Joe Ward) was an obvious “rising star” with three below-the-zone promotions and a perfect career progression (which included program & budget experience on the Air Staff).  Joe was also just finishing the very unusual tour (for a career financial type) as the Installation/Wing Commander of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.  Unfortunately, the Army showed much less interest in filling the position.  The one Army nominee was a non-Finance Corps officer with comparatively little previous resource management experience.  Joe Ward was ultimately selected and “hit the ground running” following my retirement in June 2006.  Joe was selected for promotion to Brigadier General the next year and moved on to be the Director of Resources Management for the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command in Dayton, OH.  Since I left PACOM, the Comptroller billet has been filled by four successive USAF officers with two only serving the minimum joint qualifying assignment of two years (with waiver).  I think it is unfortunately unlikely that the PACOM Comptroller position will ever be filled by an Army officer again.     

11.Retired in paradise. 

Mark Twain wrote in 1886 “What I have always longed for,  was the privilege of living forever away up on one of those mountains in the Sandwich [AKA Hawaiian] islands overlooking the sea.” His words more than adequately describe Molly’s and my present circumstances where we live on a 2.8 acre hillside property overlooking Kaneohe Bay.  We grow some of our own food (mostly Pineapples and herbs) but like to spend most of our free time pursuing our passion for volksmarching (aerobic long-distance walking) on the various scenic back roads and trails around our island of Oahu.  We usually walk four times a week, or about 100 miles a month.  As we walk, and gaze into the distant blue of the vast Pacific Ocean, I occasionally reflect on how grateful I am to those (to include members of the Finance Corps/RAFINO/RAFNCO family) who helped and encouraged me over my 30-year Army career.  It was a great experience; topped off by a most rewarding, enjoyable, and extended one-of-a-kind assignment working for the Navy at U.S. Pacific Command.

ooo0ooo

Colonel Mark L. Brown, U.S. Army Finance Corps (Retired), is a native of Pacific Grove, California.  He was an Army ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate and received a regular commission in 1976, and retired following a 30-year career in 2006.  He has a BBA Degree (Magna Cum Laude) from Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA; a MBA

Degree from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA; and a MS Degree from National Defense University, Washington, DC.  Colonel Brown’s military education included the Finance Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Command and General Staff College, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Colonel Brown held a variety of command and staff positions to include: Chief of

Disbursing, Company Commander & Deputy Division Finance Officer, 8^th Finance

Company, 8^th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Baumholder, Germany (1979-1983);

Chief, Program/Budget Division, Office of the Comptroller, 1^st Corps Support Command,

XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, NC (1983-1986); Instructor/Writer, U.S. Army Finance

School and Director, Personnel Service Support Proponent Office, U.S. Army Soldier Support Center, Fort Harrison, IN (1986-1990); Group S2/3 and Commander, 107^th

Finance Battalion, 18^th Finance Group (Airborne), XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, NC (1991-1994); Commander, 176^th Finance Battalion, 175^th Theater Finance Command,

8^th U.S. Army, Seoul, Korea (1994-1996); Chief, Security Assistance Budget/Programs Division, Office of the Comptroller, U.S. Pacific Command, Camp Smith, HI (19971999); and Comptroller, U.S. Pacific Command, Camp Smith, HI (1999-2006). 

His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Defense Meritorious Service

Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (with two oak leaf clusters), Army Commendation Medal (with one oak leaf cluster), Joint Meritorious Unit Award (with five oak leaf clusters) and the Master Parachutist Badge.

Colonel Brown and his wife Molly, a retired elementary teacher, have been married for 38 years.