Marine Corps logistics commander emphasizes readiness, stewardship at Blount Island
The visit in northeast Florida began at dawn as Collins ran with Marines on the facility’s blue track, which encircles an obstacle course built from logs, lumber walls, climbing ropes and steel pipes. Temperatures approached 80 degrees, with humidity above 90%, as the St. Johns River flowed beyond the track.
“Thirty-six years and counting, this is the best part of every day,” Collins said after running several circuits alongside Sgt. Maj. Marshall H. Gregg, the command senior enlisted leader. “The best part of being your commanding general is I just get to show up with the sergeant major and PT with you.”
Collins spoke to Marines assigned to Blount Island Command about teamwork and lessons he learned through sports. He explained that those experiences led him to create the Playmaker Award.
“The playmakers are the ones on the team who make all their teammates better,” Collins said. “They turn their teammates into champions.”
He presented the award, displayed on a black hockey puck, to Gunnery Sgt. David Huckabone, a quality chief for aviation support management, and retired Marine Maj. Thurman Bobbett, head of maintenance.
“When we get a hard problem, we solve it,” Collins said. “When we get a tough, determined enemy, we beat them. We are winners.”
Collins outlined three LOGCOM functions that allow the Marine Corps to accelerate force closure, generate and sustain combat power and regenerate equipment for future operations.
“We do depot maintenance; we do strategic storage and sustainment; and we do prepositioning,” Collins said, gesturing toward the Marines. “That’s what you do.”
Blount Island service members, civilians and contractors use maritime access, heavy-lift capability, maintenance facilities and storage areas to generate, sustain, modernize and distribute ready-for-issue equipment across the Marine Corps’ afloat and ashore prepositioning programs.
“The Marine Corps makes a big investment in us and expects a big return on that investment,” Collins said.
He said that return requires LOGCOM to modernize its workforce, processes and infrastructure while maintaining equipment accountability, audit readiness and disciplined resource management.
Collins also said the command must adapt as technology changes warfare, law and policy.
“We will change with the world around us,” Collins said. “We will evolve with warfare.”
During a command brief later that morning, Collins focused on forward-positioned equipment and supplies, the workforce required to sustain an integrated network of ashore and afloat programs and the use of maritime vessels to strengthen deterrence.
He said the global positioning network must support unit requirements, deliver the capabilities Marines need to fight and reflect a shared vision for sustainment and distribution.
Collins toured maintenance areas and storage lots where personnel inspect, repair, modernize and prepare service-managed equipment and supplies for operational employment. He said Blount Island’s activities, infrastructure and resources should remain tied directly to prepositioning programs.
The commanding general then boarded an Improved Navy Lighterage System craft at Navy Point. The watercraft moved into the St. Johns River before pushing onto a sand ramp near the slipway entrance, demonstrating ship-to-shore movement in degraded or contested environments.
He closed his message along the PT track by emphasizing accountability and stewardship.
“Leadership is about stewardship,” Collins said. “It’s about taking care of the resources that the taxpayers have entrusted into our care.”
LOGCOM must account for equipment, preserve audit readiness and maintain high standards throughout the enterprise, he said.
“We will maintain high standards in everything we do,” Collins said. “Those are nonnegotiables.”
The visit came less than a month after Collins assumed command of LOGCOM during a July 2 ceremony at Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia.
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