Army to create ‘business czar’ post - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Army to create ‘business czar’ post

The Army will soon have a “business czar” to ensure its future fighting force stays in the black.

Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Thursday that the service is in the final stages of establishing a chief management officer as part of a plan to strengthen the service’s business structure.

“We have to manage ourselves better,” Casey told an audience at a speaking engagement for the Association of the United States Army in Washington, D.C.

Choosing the “right business structure” will ultimately affect how the Army “synchronizes the supporting resources to organize, train and equip forces for an Army operating under rotation model. How do you get the people to the right place at the right time for training and deployment? We have been scrambling to make that happen, but there is not a routine system in place that allows that to happen. This is a big internal change for us.”

The Army has not formally announced who will take on the job of chief management officer.

During his speech, Casey also talked about his plans to implement rotational cycles by 2012 that are designed to make specific force packages available at predetermined times in three-year cycles.

Under the three-year cycle, units would have one year to reset after a deployment, and one year to train and prepare for the next one. In the third year, units would deploy — if they have orders — or be in an "available" status for deployment.

Such an endeavor will be difficult to achieve if the Army doesn’t have the right business system in place, Casey maintains.

“This is not two sheets of toilet paper per person,” he said. “These are hundred-billion-dollar type decisions that are hugely important to the future of the Army and that is why we are taking it on.”