Brett Wood

Purchasing Administrator

Johnson County, Kansas

NOMINATION FOR KAPPP 2007 BUYER OF THE YEAR

I would like to place into nomination for the 2007 KAPPP Buyer of the Year award, the name of Brett Wood, Purchasing Administrator for Johnson County, Kansas.

Brett is in his sixth year as a Purchasing Administrator with Johnson County, Ks. He came to the County in 2002 as a Certified Professional Public Buyer (CPPB) from another metropolitan Kansas City area entity where he also served as a public buyer for three years.

Brett ably combines a technical degree with a love of public purchasing that makes him a highly effective buyer. Although he started at Johnson County primarily as the “go-to” guy for all things technology related including hardware, software and maintenance, his willingness to learn new things and to branch out has lead him into a much more diverse role for the County. He has delved into many other areas including airport construction, juvenile justice grant awards, architectural and engineering services, environmental assessment testing services and benefits brokerage services to name just a few. This ability to handle diverse projects at the same time makes him an extremely valuable asset to Johnson County.

Brett also serves in another very important role for the Johnson County Purchasing Division. He serves as the Purchasing Division liaison for our Oracle ERP financial system. As such, he is regularly involved in testing of upgrades and patches and resolving system issues regarding the purchasing core module, the internet procurement module and the inventory module. This effort assures that the Purchasing Division will have input into all system changes that impact procurement and also assures that we will be well informed about all aspects of the system. He was instrumental in the last year in the successful testing, training and implementation of the County’s automatic purchase order process for procurements under $10,000. The automatic purchase order has vastly sped up our requisition to PO process and improved procurement efficiency county-wide.

Brett works extremely well with his fellow Purchasing Administrators and is always willing to lend his expertise to assist not only the purchasing team but also our departmental clients. He is also known for his courteous and professional approach to customer service and is well respected by County staff at all levels as well as by our suppliers.

He is well respected throughout the County for his knowledge regarding the public procurement process and for his experience and negotiating skills.

Brett provides invaluable service and assistance to his Purchasing Manager in the preparation and maintenance of numerous recurring reports that are utilized by the Purchasing Manager and by Financial Management executive staff in analyzing the progress and growth of the County’s procurement process. He has developed and maintained monthly, an in depth “Purchasing Statistics” report that appears on our internal web page for County-wide consumption. This report monitors our performance measures and analyses the continued growth in the volume of P-card transactions versus purchase order transactions, the reduction in confirming purchase orders, the expansion in use of the automatic electronic purchase orders for low dollar (under $10,000) purchases and the transactional savings of P-card transactions in lieu of purchase orders.

In addition to his normal workload with his primary job, Brett is a member of both KAPPP and MACPP. He currently serves on the MACPP Board as Treasurer. He is a member of the delegate committee with KCRPE and has attended the NIGP Forum two of the past three years. In 2005, he served on the NIGP Forum Quality Control Team.

In conclusion, Brett Wood has been professionally serving Johnson County, its taxpayers, suppliers and departments and management as well as his fellow buyers in an outstanding manner. Most importantly, he enthusiastically serves the profession of public purchasing at all levels. For these reasons, I nominate Brett Wood of Johnson County, Kansas to be the 2007 KAPPP Buyer of the Year.

Sincerely

John M. Mahin – CPPO, CPPB
Purchasing Manager
Johnson County, Kansas