On behalf of the Logistics Officer Association, it is my pleasure to welcome our LOA Family to celebrate 42 years of premier professional development at this year’s symposium March 26-29, 2024.

LOA’s vision is to Provide the arena that connects logisticians to ideas and each other and you will see that displayed throughout this week at #LOA2024. This symposium is a culmination of work in line with our mission, To collaborate and grow logistics professionals across the DoD, industry, and academia through professional development opportunities.

This week and throughout the year, we seek to achieve this mission with a focus on W.I.S.E.: warfighting, innovation, sustainment, and education. Logisticians play a crucial role in strategic competition and integrated deterrence, so these focus areas guide how LOA cultivates professional development opportunities across our community.

We are exceptionally fortunate to welcome many phenomenal speakers from across the Department of Defense, industry, academia and our allies and partners, including the U.S. Transportation Command, General Jacqueline Van Ovost, Commander of Air Mobility Command, General Michael Minihan, Commander of Space Command, General Stephen Whiting, and Director of Joint Logistics, Lt Gen Leonard Kosinski, Deputy Chief of Staff Logistics, Engineering & Force Protection, Lt Gen Tom Miller. We look forward to all of our distinguished speakers who will focus on this year’s symposium theme: Logistics: Driving Integrated Deterrence.

I would like to thank all of our corporate partners, especially our platinum-level sponsor Boeing, our diamond-level sponsors Dot AI, Lockheed Martin and Mass Virtual, our gold-level sponsors GE Aerospace, IBM, Salesforce, and Systecon, and our silver-level sponsor Pratt and Whitney. Our industry partners make this symposium possible.

The symposium kicks off Tuesday with LOA University. Under the leadership of our Chief Learning Officer, Jerry Ottinger, LOA-U will feature six graduate-style professional development courses focused on supply chain challenges and opportunities, contested logistics, as well as soft skills through discussions about coaching and the language of leaders. Among these are the return of Tesseract’s Advanced Theory of Constraints Practicum, the language of Leaders led by Ms. Kylene Ruth, the University of Tennessee’s supply chain team, and Digital Transformation with Linquest. 

I would like to extend special thanks to our dedicated strategic planners Robert Campbell (The 21A one), Armando Kraynick, Marcus ‘Cus’ Carrion, Hunter Kalin, and the entire EventPower team for making this symposium a reality. These and other selfless volunteers power our organization.

I hope you enjoy reconnecting with friends and mentors and take advantage of this opportunity to grow professionally as we consider our critical roles as logisticians in mission generation.

JASON M. KALIN
President, Logistics Officer Association