The e-mail was simple, just eight words: Alex passed away at 8:25 a.m. this morning.

It hit hard that Wednesday, as I had just spoken to him on Monday after he got back from a week's vacation in Bermuda with his wife, Jamie. He called to tell me that our July issue was sitting on top of his desk, and as usual he wanted to discuss several stories in the issue. It's hard to believe I won't be having those discussions with him any more.

When I first met Alex, to get to his office you had to dodge the bricks falling from the crumbling façade of Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, where NRSO, as the Navy Resale System headquarters was called then, was located at the time. On the back of the door at the reception desk — so it was the last thing seen at the end of the workday — there was a sign saying, “What have you done for the Sailor today?”

Alex made that his motto, and one of the guiding principles he lived by.

As his official bio said, he was the liaison for NAVSUP and NEXCOM with the Department of the Navy, DoD, other federal agencies, Congress and the private sector. All that meant to Alex was to make sure that from a quality-of-life standpoint our Sailors are taken care of.

That led him sometimes to cast a wide net, seek solutions in unlikely places and form alliances that people thought were impossible. But make no mistake about it — Alex was Navy through and through. He cast a long shadow (he never took credit for any of his actions; he always let others do that) but was happy in the fact that he (almost) always got the job done. (Through the years, there were a few that got away.)

When he first hit the Washington scene in 1988, it was supposed to be a limited engagement — three years at best — but like a Broadway smash hit, he was held over and held over and held over, and he ended up there forever.

There is so much more you could say about him. He was everywhere in the quality-of-life arena, often as combatant, often as referee. But no matter what role he played, he earned the respect of everyone involved.

In this arena, he was a colossus of a man, but a very quiet one, a gentle one, a caring one, whose like will rarely if ever come along again.

To Jamie and the family ... we share your grief. As you will miss him, so will an industry full of people whose lives he has touched, without many of them even knowing he touched them along the way.

Take care, my friend. God bless.

Although written decades ago, it is uncanny how well this applies to the current ebb and flow of military resale, where numerous personnel changes are the norm at this time of year.

You might well need a scorecard, organization charts and maps this year just to keep up with all of the resale system comings and goings that have occurred during the past several weeks or are in the works.

In fact, some changes already announced will not take place until next summer, providing the market with an unprecedented heads-up on the late-2010 occupants of a number of seats of power.

At the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), two senior-level executive moves that became effective in August saw Thomas Milks, most recently the agency's European Region director, relocating to the States as DeCA's chief operating officer (COO), and Michael Dowling, DeCA East director who has served as acting COO since Richard Page retired in February, returning to his former office in Germany to succeed Milks at DeCA Europe.

A name new to military resale — although very familiar to anyone who has dealt with the Army's Installation Management Command (IMCOM) European Region for the past three years — is JoAnn Chambers, appointed as DeCA's chief of staff, effective this month. With Chambers' appointment, Vicki Archileti, acting chief of staff since last fall, returned to her post as the agency's director of corporate planning.

That leaves two extremely important positions to be filled (though currently acting in those spots are two very capable executives): the directors' chairs of both DeCA East and DeCA West.

The Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), not to be outdone, is also fielding numerous personnel changes — taking place now and into next year — impacting both headquarters and regional leadership. Looking ahead to next year, the exchange service has already announced that the two top positions in its headquarters Sales Directorate (SD) will be filled by new, but by no means unfamiliar, faces.

Dale Bryan, currently senior vice president (SVP), Logistics, was named SVP of the Sales Directorate, effective July 2010. Maggie Burgess, who currently holds that office, is slated to retire at that time.

Effective next March, Ana Middleton, the vice president (VP) of SD's Main Store Hardlines Division, will become the SD's VP and second-in-command, succeeding Karin Duncan, who was named Pacific Region SVP effective July 2010, succeeding Dan Tompkins.

Plugging in the power cord as Main Store Hardlines VP in March 2010 will be John Engroff, currently Consumables Division VP.

In regional personnel changes effective in August 2010, Eastern Region SVP Robert White will exchange positions with AAFES-Europe SVP Jack Morris. White will become the European Region's SVP, while Morris will become SVP of the Eastern Region.

Among immediate personnel changes the exchange service put into motion are Col. Mark K. White, USAF, assuming command of the Pacific Region on July 13, succeeding Col. Steven A. Kimball, USAF, and Sgt. Maj. James A. Pigford, USA, following Sgt. Maj. Ruben Ortiz-Valazquez, USA, as the region's sergeant major.

On the bridge of the Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM), an Aug. 21 change of command had NEXCOM commander Rear Adm. Robert J. Bianchi, SC, USN, sailing across town to become Fleet Forces Command director of logistics and fleet supply officer, handing over the helm of the exchange service to Rear Adm. Steven J. Romano, SC, USN. Romano has just returned to the States after a tour as director of logistics for the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Coast Guard Exchange System (CGES), now part of a separate field command, the Coast Guard Community Services Command (CGCSC), has named Cmdr. William A Fox. USCG, as its executive officer, succeeding Cmdr. Gavin Wente, USCG.

Add to these changes the myriad of other headquarters and region executive, general manager, commissary store director, and other personnel shifts too numerous to list here, and you have a season that is as active as any professional sports league's trading deadline period.

As Brecht aptly summed up the nature of change, military resale will continue to move personnel from one position to another for the remainder of 2009 and into next year — and there's no indication that things will stop there. These moves are not haphazard, but with a notion of providing career opportunities to qualified personnel when they become available, and maximizing and expanding the capabilities, knowledge and experience of the resale systems' most valuable assets — their people.

We wish them all well. As we've said many times, even with all the best policies and plans in the world, if you don't have the right talent in place to execute them, it's just an exercise — you might as well just take up yoga.