The Navy officially opened a travel processing center (TPC) with a ribbon cutting held at the newly renovated office aboard Naval Support Activity (NSA) Mid-South.

The new TPC will be the consolidated travel claim processing center for the entire Navy, other than travel processed inside the Defense Travel System (DTS), and will ultimately be responsible for processing approximately 110,000-140,000 claims per year.

"The goal of the travel processing center in Millington is to streamline the travel claim process to hopefully half the current turnaround time of travel claim processing, [and] at the same time increase the accuracy of travel payments," said Capt. Steven Friloux, commanding officer, Navy Pay and Personnel Support Center. "Another goal and hopeful outcome of the streamlining is to train Sailors to better understand the travel process and their entitlements, while providing a single point of contact for travel claim issues."

In October 2013, Navy Personnel Command (NPC) stood up the Pay and Personnel Department and took over the responsibility of pay, personnel and transportation management across the Navy.

"As part of the effort to standardize process and program management the decision was made to consolidate the travel claims process into a center of excellence-type setting," said Jerry Sides, director, TPC Memphis. "TPC's workforce will be trained subject matter experts for the performance of travel claim processing only.

The effort required to establish the command was an extensive process, two years in the making.

"The stand-up process has involved everything from the human resources structure development and hiring, to contracting out the construction team to refurbish the office space," said Sides.

The TPC is slated to be fully manned and operational by January 2018.

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