Written BY:

Chels Chae -
President & CEO

Chels Chae

I am serving as the President and CEO of Dynamic Planning & Response.  My identity is based on what is unchanging.  I am a Jesus follower, husband, father, and immigrant to our great Nation.  I stepped off a jet airplane at John F. Kennedy International Airport at New York City in July 1972 as a 12-year boy.

I got my first job as a paper boy at 13 years old with 200 customers.  The first time I got fired was working at Mr. G’s Groceries at 16 years old and I deserved it for not following instructions in moving crates of glass bottles on the conveyor belt.  A McDonald’s restaurant gave me my first enduring employment and I was offered an opportunity to attend the McDonald’s University to become a manager.  I chose to accept an appointment to the United States Military Academy. 

I studied and worked for ten years until I was commissioned as an Army officer in the United States Army in 1982 and retired in 2011 after nearly 30 years serving in the US Army.  During that time, I married a beautiful girl from Hawaii and raised three sons who are all grown.  Two of our three sons served in the Army.  After my retirement and unsuccessful job hunting, I started a consulting company in the same year and had an amazing experience for the past 12 years, working with incredible people with a common set of values and goals.  There are some life lessons that I hold close and put into practice daily: 1) placing my faith in God who is faithful and unchanging and eternal is a great way to build my life; 2) keep my priorities straight – faith, family, and work; 3) when you need a friend, it’s too late to make one – so make friends every day; 4) improve my foxhole daily – seek those challenges that only I can tackle and overcome and then get to work to solve them; finally, 5) it is more blessed to give than to receive – always look for ways to give.

Written BY:

David Ngo -
Director of Operations

David Ngo

Aloha everyone, here’s a little bit about myself. 

I’m a native Angelino, born and raised in Southern California.  The youngest of the five with four sisters, I am the baby in the family. My parents migrated in the early 1980’s from Vietnam primarily raising the five of us, working in multiple sweatshop factories providing for our family.

Growing up in Los Angeles in the early 80’s into 90’s was dangerous with the drug epidemic and gangs. My childhood was mostly staying indoors or playing in the backyard to avoid gang drive-bys. My parents knew they had to take us out of that environment, so they continued to work hard and saved to move us out of LA to the suburbs.

After moving to the suburbs in the mid 90’s to a city called Alhambra, my interest in baseball grew and grew. Understanding the discipline and love of the game made me enjoyed watching and playing it even more. I played high school baseball for all four years and graduated in 2000 and attend a semester of college playing Division I ball. I enlisted into the U.S. Army in the early winter of 2000.

After retiring in 2022 form the Army, I immediately went back to work where I joined the DP&R team as an Area Facility Operations Specialist at Fort Shafter Flats. After a year, I then moved to the corporate office where I am now serving as the Director of Operations, managing day to day operations, along with supporting Logistics and Human Resources.

Brittany and I have been happily married for over eleven years. We both share a son Xaiden, who is a wild one.  

Written BY:

Desiree Marts -
Director of Human Resources

Desiree Marts

Having been a part of the DP&R Team this month for 7 years, I am excited to continue to provide professional services with unmatched excellence and innovation to earn our customer’s loyalty and be the best company for our community!

In times past, I’ve wondered where my path would lead me. Never in my life would I have envisioned that life looks as it does currently.

Born and raised in Germany, my path after High School was set on earning a degree in psychology and transitioning into the workforce in Germany.

But as often happens, God had other plans.

After coming to the US as an Au Pair right after high school, God intended for me to stay and go to college here.

During that time, I met and married my husband, Damien and later on we would have 4 children, 2 through adoption and 2 biological kids. They are a joy, even though life is busy at times. Currently, they are 11, 10, 9 and 5 years old and keep us all busy!

When I started with DP&R, I moved from project management to business management to HR management over the past years and it continues to be my joy to support our team members, allowing their experience with us to be one of their best employment experiences they encounter throughout their careers.

It is truly an honor to work for one of the “Best Places to Work in Hawaii” when the culture of family first, excellence in the workplace and work life balance is consistent from the top down.

When I am not working from my home in Texas, I love spending time with my family, going camping, reading, working out and just enjoying life during this season with young kids.

“It generally feels better to run toward something than to run away from something. Focus on what is pulling you in, not what you’re trying to avoid.” – James Clear

Written BY:

Joshua Tyler -
Director of Logistics

Joshua Tyler

Aloha Everyone,

Many of you remember me from past semi-annual training sessions where I talked about CPARS, our past performance in different areas, and how your exceptional performance helps facilitate additional opportunities.  For those of you new to the team please allow me to introduce myself.  I have been with DP&R for 5 years and recently took on the Director of Logistics role.  In this role I perform many of the functions you would expect a logistics director to perform in terms of facility and equipment management while also maintaining some of my contract management responsibilities. Where this new role has really expanded for me is in in our Back To Nature division which has kept me very busy as our efforts locally and overseas our gaining traction with exciting developments in all directions.

When I’m not busy in my new role, I’m working with my wife on our house.  Lately, we have been doing a lot of new landscaping with our most recent project being the addition of several palm tress to our back yard.  If we manage to get the weekend project done in time, then I will usually head out for a ride with some friends around the island or to one of the many benefit rides being held each weekend.

Anyways, that’s me.  Thank you for all that you do and for making DP&R such an amazing company to be a part of.

Josh

Written BY:

Maggi Devoto -
Administrative Assistant

Maggi Devoto

I love that God gave us seasons. The Bible tells us in Genesis, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Living in Hawaii for seven years, I almost forgot that seasons, other than summer, exist! I am not complaining – our time in Hawaii will forever be remembered fondly and with amazing doses of vitamin D. Now that I live back in reality in Nebraska, though, and have experienced each season here, I find myself appreciating each one for the gifts that it bestows on us. Those long summer days, the crisp fall air, the white winter snow glistening on rooftops, the beautiful spring blossoms that are eagerly awaiting to burst forth. With each season comes this feeling of great anticipation. And it is not lost on me that, as soon as I grow weary of one season, the next one comes rushing in just in the nick of time. God has designed it all so perfectly. I think we can all agree that not only are there the four seasons – spring, summer, winter, fall – but we also go through seasons of life. Ecclesiastes reminds us that, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die…” Today I would like to focus on the time between the two seasons – a time to be a born and a time to die. Let’s call that season a time to live. As we navigate the four yearly seasons and the ups and downs of the seasons of our individual lives, we must go on living. We have families that need our love and attention, coworkers that depend on us, friends that rely on us for support. Just as God designed the four seasons of the year to create a perfectly functioning ecosystem on our planet that allows for growth and renewal, He has also equipped us in such a way that promotes that same desire for growth and renewal. And He gifted us with the ability to navigate each season of our lives – the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. What a gift. So, I will end with an encouragement. Live your life with purpose and do not grow weary when it seems that a particularly difficult season will never end. Whether it be personally or professionally, you can rest in the promise that it will end, and all the details will be worked together for your good and His glory. As for me, I cannot wait to welcome the gift of Spring and all the beauty and splendor that arrives with it. This Spring, may you feel refreshed and renewed in all you do.

Written BY:

Kelly Byerley -
Accounting Specialist

Kelly Byerley

My name is Kelly Byerley and I recently joined DP&R last month. I am the new Accounting Specialist, responsible for all accounting functions.  I’m still learning the ropes and hope to have a better understanding of my role once I make the trip to headquarters in a few weeks.  I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in person and getting settled in!

I graduated from the University of North Texas with a BBA in Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management in 2001.  My first, and only, interview landed me at Bell Helicopter.  Bell is an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) of Military and Commercial Aircraft.  I started at an entry level accounting position and worked my way up to Sr. Accountant, over my 14-year career there.  I’ve worked in Timekeeping, Labor Accounting, Payroll, Financial Planning and Analysis, Budgeting, Six Sigma, Accounts Receivable, and Cost/Material Accounting.  My husband, Tan, and I met at Bell in 2009 and married in 2010.  He is still employed at Bell as a Sr. Military Contract Administrator.

Our first baby was born in 2012, which prompted me to explore other career avenues, so that I could have the opportunity to stay home with him in the future.  I began dabbling in graphic design and tried my hand at making invitations and paper goods for friends and family.  That venture took off and by the time we had our second baby in 2015, I was able to leave Bell and pursue graphic design full time.  Fast forward to 2022, with both of our sons in school full-time, I began to consider getting back into the corporate world.  I came across DP&R and their need for an Accounting Specialist.  My prior accounting experience working for a government contractor, along with my entrepreneurial background, aligned with their needs.  I am beyond grateful and excited to be a part of the DP&R team.  I really felt the Lord calling me to this place in my life and feel so blessed for this opportunity.

CEO Corner: Year of Transitions

As we continue to strive to achieve normalcy since the Pandemics, I want to thank each and every one of you for being an outstanding professional in your own positions as well as continued demonstration of your teamwork and commitment to excellence.  As our mission statement says, we are providing “professional services with unmatched excellence and innovation to earn our customer’s loyalty.”  We continue to receive timely feedback of your excellence performance from our customers.

While the year 2022 was a transition year for many of us in all aspects of our lives, for DP&R, 2023 is a key and pivotal transition year.  As a company in the Federal contracting space, we will graduate from the Small Business Administration Business Development Program titled, SBA 8a Program at the end of the year.  This is a good news – bad news story in that we have been successful in the past 10 years leveraging no-competition opportunities to be awarded contracts to demonstrate our professional competence and successfully been retained in the 8a Program which required annual review. However, it also means that at the end of the Program, DP&R is no longer eligible for sole source contract awards.

With a post-8a Program season in mind, we have been diligently been preparing to shift our focus to competing for opportunities that are other than 8a set aside contracts.  We have been successful in obtaining competitive contracts as well as subcontract work that are key to our continued growth.  Still, we can always improve.  DP&R will remain a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) company eligible to compete in opportunities set aside for SDVOSBs.

What can we expect in 2024 and beyond?  With our prior planning, DP&R has been intentional about our current 8a contracts and we can expect to continue to perform several of current contracts well into 2024 through 2027.  We are also shifting our business capture energy to look and compete for contract opportunities that are set aside for small Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and general Small Business.  We are continuously teaming with other larger companies to be on their team for future opportunities such companies as Cayuse Technologies, V2X (previous Vectrus) and GDIT.

In all, even though we are in a major transition period, you and I can expect our daily work schedule to remain stable for the foreseeable future.

What can you and I do to prepare for a brighter future?  1) Continue your excellence in your position; 2) Be aware of any similar contract opportunities that DP&R can compete in and share those opportunities with the DP&R Team; 3) Keep our communication channel wide open to help us to provide you all with excellent support so that you can do what you do best, unhindered and well-supported.

Mahalo nui loa!  Our future is bright together!