Red Ball Express awardees honored at Tactical Wheeled Vehicles event
From left: James Boozer, NDIA's chief of staff; Eugene Morin of PEO Land Systems, Marine Corps Base Quantico; Eddie Garcia, chairman of NDIA's Tactical Wheeled Vehicle division. Morin was one of two awardees of the division's 2019 Red Ball Express awards.
MONTEREY, CA -- Eugene Morin, product manager for light tactical vehicles for the Marine Corps, and Allison Transmission of Indianapolis are the recipients of the Seventh annual Red Ball Express Awards, presented by the Tactical Wheeled Vehicles division of the National Defense Industrial Association Monday, Feb. 4.
Morin is honored for “his superb endeavors and outstanding service” to the Marines through his work as the product manager for Legacy Fleet Systems, said Barry Tyree, the division’s vice chairman and president and chief executive officer of BNT Consulting LLC of Rockville, Md. Morin is now the product manager for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle project at PEO Land Systems, Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. PEO Land Systems is expected to field JLTVs to the Marines beginning this month at Camp Pendleton in California.
Allison Transmission is honored for its “significant and steadfast contributions over the past 100 years to the U.S. armed forces and the tactical wheeled vehicle community,” Tyree said. Ken Adgie, director of North America and U.S. government defense business for Allison Transmission, will accept the award.
Allison Transmission is among the world’s largest makers of commercial automatic transmissions and a leader in electric hybrid propulsion systems. More than 300 vehicle manufacturers in about 100 countries use the company’s products in everything from buses to defense automotives.
The awards were given Feb. 4 during the 2019 Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference at the Monterey Conference Center in California, by retired Army Maj. Gen. James Boozer, chief of staff for NDIA of Arlington, Virginia; and Eddie Garcia, division chairman and senior director of business development for the Global Integrated Product Support, Oshkosh Defense of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
The Red Ball Express awards are presented annually as a tribute to those who serve and support the military transportation industry. The awards are named after the renowned World War II transportation unit that founded an enormous truck convoy system to stock allied forces with fuel, ordnance and supplies as they moved quickly through Europe after breaking out from the D-Day invasion in Normandy in 1944. Marked with red balls, the trucks moved along restricted routes that also were marked by red balls, and delivered to about 28 allied divisions which each required at least 700 tons of supplies per day to operate. Staffed primarily with African-American soldiers, at its peak the Red Ball Express operated almost 6,000 vehicles and moved about 12,500 tons of supplies per day.