Director, Office of Small Business Programs
DLA Land & Maritime
Kreston Harris is the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Land and Maritime Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) Director. As the Director, Mr. Harris serves as the Chief Advisor to the Commander and Deputy Commander on all issues related to Small Business for DLA Land and Maritime. Mr. Harris oversees more than $2.2 billion of annual awards to small businesses that includes in excess of $900 million to socioeconomic program small businesses. The primary responsibilities of his office are to provide training, advice, and guidance for small businesses and DLA Land and Maritime personnel to maximize small business’ opportunities to participate in DLA acquisition programs. DLA has $39B in annual revenue with $15B awarded to small business and over 12K suppliers. DLA has a workforce of 27K, manages 6 million items, and supports 15,000 customers at 38 locations around the world. Mr. Harris has spent his entire 33-year career with DLA.
Prior to serving as the Director of the Land and Maritime OSBP, Mr. Harris served as the Land Supply Chain Integrated Supplier Team (IST) Chief over the Armaments Branch. In this role he was responsible for the supply chain functions for over 40K NSNs and more than $90M in annual sales of spare parts supporting guns up to and over 150mm. In the role prior, he served as the IST Chief over the Land Supply Chain Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) and Transparent Armor Branch and oversaw the supply chain functions of greater than 50K NSNs and $100M in annual sales supporting MRAP vehicles and all transparent armor for ground vehicles.
Prior to serving in the Land Supply Chain, Mr. Harris held several roles in the DLA Land and Maritime Strategic Acquisition Programs Directorate and most recently as the Branch Chief over the Special Programs Directorate that issued and awarded long term and Performance Based Logistics contracts with individual contracts up to and exceeding 20K NSNs and values up to $2B.
Mr. Harris began his civil service in 1991 as an Acquisition Specialist Corporate Intern at Defense Supply Center Columbus (DCSC), which was later renamed to Defense Supply Center Columbus (DSCC), and then to DLA Land and Maritime. He progressed through successfully more challenging acquisition roles to a Multi-Functional Supervisor in the Maritime Supply Chain over the Maritime 21N, ALRE, and Marine Hardware Team.
Mr. Harris received his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Operations from DeVry University in 1991 and his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Arkansas Grantham in 2017. Mr. Harris is certified DAWIA Level III/Professional in both Contracting and Life Cycle Logistics.