{"id":39624,"date":"2017-08-25T16:02:06","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T16:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2017\/08\/25\/a-contracting-official-grew-a-beard-to-help-get-an-air-force-one-deal-seriously\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:59:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:59:16","slug":"a-contracting-official-grew-a-beard-to-help-get-an-air-force-one-deal-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/2017\/08\/25\/a-contracting-official-grew-a-beard-to-help-get-an-air-force-one-deal-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"A contracting official grew a beard to help get an Air Force One deal. Seriously."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 It\u2019s common for the Defense Department to tout the innovative contracting mechanisms or acquisition strategies to procure expensive weapon systems, but rarely does that involve one of the negotiators vowing to grow out his beard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, that\u2019s exactly what happened in next-generation Air Force One program, which the Air Force calls Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization or PAR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a rather unusual news release from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which hosts the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center\u2019s PAR directorate, the program office was having trouble figuring out how to drive costs down on the two Boeing 747-8 aircraft that will be heavily modified to become new Air Force Ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So James Patterson, a contract officer, decided to grow out his facial hair until his seven-person team reached a deal with Boeing on the planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe realized early in the process that this was taking longer than we thought, and I decided I could probably grow a pretty sweet beard in that amount of time,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cWe began to treat it as a team incentive and a way to mark the progress of the aircraft purchase. People would pass me in the hall and instead of asking, \u2018Are we there yet?\u2019 they\u2019d say, \u2018Oh are you going to shave the beard this week?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patterson grew out his \u201cpretty sweet\u201d beard for a seven month period, according to Brian Brackens, a spokesman for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. <\/p>\n\n\n\t