Despite declining budgets and resources, the Army continues to actively do business with industry partners, with the Army Materiel Command (AMC) procuring one out of every six dollars in the federal budget.Lt. Gen. Patricia McQuistion, AMC’s deputy commanding general, addressed the command’s business opportunities with more than 200 professionals at the Association of the United States of the Army’s Huntsville – Redstone Chapter Update for Industry, Jan. 16, at the Jackson Center."We have fewer dollars available, but there are still a lot of numbers going into these business opportunities," McQuistion said.AMC executes two-thirds of the Army’s contracting budget through its Army Contracting Command (ACC).The largest percentages of contracting dollars go to weapon systems and knowledge-based services.As one of AMC’s nine major subordinate commands, ACC has about 6,000 contracting professionals across the world who conducted more than 170,000 contracting actions totaling $50 billion last fiscal year.They did this while managing $184 billion in existing contracts.As contract specialists operate under the pressures of a changing fiscal environment, initiatives like Better Buying Power 3.0 are intended to be warfighter-focused and encourage a culture of cost consciousness, professionalism and technical excellence."We need to think about how we do things differently than we have done over the past 15 years to make sure we aren’t just maintaining the edge, but that we maintain our superiority and capabilities," McQuistion said.She said partnership and collaboration with industry are key to finding value, services, and equipment that our fighting forces must have to conduct operations and missions."We must continue together to find opportunities to do better with these constrained resources," McQuistion said.She also discussed small and large business opportunities with AMC, outlining how large the business is, how to engage with AMC and where else to go for information.She explained that every contract is different, noting the importance of finding a balance between customer requirements and the type of contract best suited to deliver results."We are an Army in motion," she said.Adding, "It takes a huge community to make those operations occur around the world every day in support of our nation and our allies. And, we thank you for your participation."