1999 - StarForce Proof of Concept Established with Great Lakes Recruiting Route System
In the mid 1990s, the individual recruiting commands of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard procured ground passenger transportation the old fashioned way - they used cost-adding travel and ticketing agents to book individual passenger fares on existing carriers which served the general public, rather than the specific needs and interests of the recruiting mission.
Where no commercial carriers could be booked, the recruiting commands frequently had no choice but to deploy their own personnel and government vehicles to do the work, draining vital resources away from the primary mission of recruitment.
StarForce's founders felt that in most cases there was a better way. The recruiting commands and MEPCOM generated substantial and predictable daily passenger flows to and from the nation's 65 MEPS, and often these flows were large and consistent enough to justify economical systems of routes, fleets, and drivers which could be built around the needs, calendar and geography of the recruiting mission.
Where no commercial carriers could be booked, the recruiting commands frequently had no choice but to deploy their own personnel and government vehicles to do the work, draining vital resources away from the primary mission of recruitment.
StarForce's founders felt that in most cases there was a better way. The recruiting commands and MEPCOM generated substantial and predictable daily passenger flows to and from the nation's 65 MEPS, and often these flows were large and consistent enough to justify economical systems of routes, fleets, and drivers which could be built around the needs, calendar and geography of the recruiting mission.
In 1999, StarForce's predecessor company implemented its first system of overland recruiting routes in Michigan on behalf of the Amry Great Lakes Recruiting Battalion, the Air Force 339th Recruiting Squadron, and the Marines 9th MCD Michigan Recruiting Station -- combining the passengers from three branches of service onto 8 daily routes. These routes directly or indirectly connected 32 Armed Forces Recruiting Centers to two MEPS, and captured the vast majority of Recruits needing transportation to and from those MEPS as they processed.
The net benefits for the recruiting commands in Michigan proved to be remarkable:
The net benefits for the recruiting commands in Michigan proved to be remarkable:
- a net reduction of over 1 million miles per year logged on government vehicles previously used to move applicants or Recruits when no commercial carriers could be arranged.
- a net reduction of over 20,000 thousand hours of "windshield time" spent by recruiters driving individual applicants and recruits to and from MEPS.
- the complete elimination for recruiters and command admininstrative personnel of the burden of arranging, booking, and accounting for thousands of individual fares.
- the provision of dependable, daily, door to door service, built around the operational tempo and calendar of recruiting, ,and delivered by a driver team and organization working exclusively on behalf of the military and the military's recruiting mission.