KINGMAN – On July 7, the National Purchasing Institute (NPI) announced that Mohave County’s Procurement Department will receive its fifth consecutive Annual Achievement of Excellence in Procurement (AEP) Award.
“NPI is a leadership alliance of the most important professional public procurement organizations in the country,” Procurement Manager Travis Lingenfelter said Wednesday, July 15. “The award will be presented on September 14 in Scottsdale, Ariz., at the organization’s 41st annual conference.”
Mohave County is one of “only 31 counties out of the 3,141 counties nationally to receive this prestigious award for at least five years,” Lingenfelter said, “which is impressive when you consider that it places Mohave County’s Procurement Department into the top one percent of all county procurement agencies in the United States.”
The Procurement Department is “small and contains only two divisions,” he said. “The Contracts Division handles all contracts, solicitations, administration, amendments and settles disputes. Central Services Division handles warehousing, deliveries and the online surplus auction program. Contracts Division includes Annie Newton-Lawson and Terri Williams, procurement officers, supported by Evelyn Orozco, secretary, and me. Central Services has one part-time storekeeper, John Schneider, and a full-time storekeeper, Jill Zimmerman.
“I couldn’t be more proud of my staff,” Lingenfelter said.
“Since July of last year, this small department, with the continued support and confidence of the Board of Supervisors and County Manager Ron Walker, has been able to save the taxpayers of Mohave County over$3.4 million, which can be used to bolster existing programs and services and assist the Mohave County through tight budget times. I am lucky to have such a dream-team staff.”
Although the criteria that the award is based on changes every year, Mohave County has consistently scored well, he said. “AEP Award criteria are not static. Items we may have scored five or 10 points on last year may be gone this year with new criteria to deal with. These criteria are dynamic and are modified annually in order to reflect current changes in the public procurement profession and in the governmental arena.”
In addition to the National Purchasing Institute (NPI), the AEP Award is sponsored by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), National Institute of Governmental Purchasing (NIGP), National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO), National Association of Educational Buyers (NAEB), California Association of Public Purchasing Officers (CAPPO), Florida Association of Public Purchasing Officers (FAPPO), Texas Purchasing Management Association (TPMA), Airport Purchasing Group (APG), The Innovation Groups (IG), and U.S. Communities.
“By winning this honor for five straight years, we are showing the citizens of Mohave County that we benchmark our performance on professional criteria and we are consistently ranked in the top one percent of counties nationwide,” Lingenfelter said. “Only two other counties in Arizona earned the AEP Award for 2009 – Pima and Cochise.
The AEP is an opportunity to compete and continuously improve, not against other public procurement agencies, but against a set of internationally recognized professional standar ds that define public procurement excellence. The award is open to all levels of government and all sizes of public agencies. Some individual procurement agencies receiving the AEP, such as Miami-Dade County, Fla., or Los Angeles County, Calif., have over 100 procurement employees.”
Kingman resident Lingenfelter said he is very proud of his family.
“My wife, Alison, works at Kids Little Smiles Dentistry in Kingman,” he said. “I have three children – Christian, 11, Kiara, 7, and Kaden, 1.”
He is also working on achieving his Master’s of Public Administration online through Norwich University of Vermont.
“I will graduate in June, 2010,” he said.
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