2015 Award Winners | asmc-alamo-city

Congratulations to our 2015 Chapter Award Winners

Accounting & Finance Category:

 Distinguished Award for Accounting and Finance (Installation Level): MSgt Diem T. Scott. MSgt Scott, 502d Comptroller Squadron, was recognized for her efforts in successfully consolidating three installation Accounting offices into one centralized office, the largest and most diverse in AETC. She also provided support for the short notice West African Ebola Relief mission, certifying funding support for more than $300M for equipment, supplies, and travel.

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 Distinguished Award for Accounting and Finance (Major Command Level): Ms. Isabelle M. Brentson. Ms. Brentson, U.S. Army Medical Command was recognized for her work initiating several highly successful initiatives which placed MECOM in the top 5% of Army Commands in Accounts Payable and Wide Area Workflow performance, saving the command significantly in interest penalty payments.

 Meritorious Award for Accounting and Finance (Major Command Level): Ms. Debra A. Cervera. Ms. Cervera, Air Education and Training Command, was recognized for her efforts coordinating JBSA tenant reimbursements. With her efforts, reimbursement identification and processing methods were established and allowing all three Joint Bases to improve their reimbursement rates significantly, freeing command funding for other important priorities.

Acquisition and Cost Analysis Category:

 Distinguished Award for Acquisition and Cost Analysis (Installation Level): Mr. Christopher M. Underwood. Mr. Underwood, 502d Air Base Wing, was recognized for his work in identifying and evaluating multiple cost savings initiatives across Joint Base San Antonio. His efforts led to $25M in savings in FY14, allowing the 502d Air Base Wing to put the funds to use in critical infrastructure projects, runway repair, road maintenance, and custodial support. Additionally, his development of software tools automated many financial reporting features saving several man-hours daily for multiple analysts and resource advisors.

 Distinguished Award for Acquisition and Cost Analysis (Major Command Level): Ms. Mary Ann Casillas. Ms. Casillas, MEDCOM, was recognized for her work in developing, analyzing, and presenting baseline data for the MEDCOM Commander’s executive workgroup on Standardizing Executive Leadership for developing standardized leadership structures for five regional medical commands and 60 plus medical treatment facilities. Her work will allow the Work Group to make key decisions and establish key command structures across MEDCOM organizations.

 Meritorious Award for Acquisition and Cost Analysis (Major Command Level): Ms. Kelly J. Rivero. Ms. Rivero, US Army North, was recognized for her work in the Program Objective Memorandum development for her command. Her in depth analysis of lease requirements resulted in $1.1M in savings across the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) for the Installation Program Evaluation Group to support other Army priorities. Additionally, her analysis of US Army Corps of Engineer charges for lease management is leading to an Army level MOA with USACE with the potential for several million dollars in additional savings across the Army.

Auditing Category:

 Distinguished Award for Auditing (Installation Level): Mr. Anthony Holden. Mr. Holden, Air Force Audit Agency South Central Area Audit Office, was recognized for his audit of the Joint Base San Antonio refuse and recycle collection contract and proper usage of containers. Mr. Holden reviewed contract obligations and unexpended funds and verified usage. From the audit, potential savings in excess of $600K across the FYDP were identified, as well as improved safeguards for Personally Identifiable Information.

 Distinguished Award for Auditing (Major Command Level): Ms. Theresa Von Staden. Ms. Von Staden, Air Force Audit Agency, was recognized for her audit of Air Force landfill management for the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, and Logistics. Ms. Von Staden’s audit reviewed landfills and records at 85 installations and identified potential savings of $26 Million across the FYDP. Additionally the audit will lead to much improved records and future management processes for Air Force landfills.

 Meritorious Award for Auditing (Major Command Level): Mr. Jonathon A. Moore. Mr. Moore, U.S. Army Audit Agency, was recognized for his work in developing and carrying out an audit of Army Dining Facility contracting and operations. Mr. Moore’s findings will lead to $11M in savings across the FYDP, with potential additional savings should the Army choose to evaluate additional DFACs.

Budgeting Category:

 Distinguished Award for Budgeting (Installation Level): Ms. Angelita Vasquez. Ms. Vasquez, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, was recognized for her work with the Air Force leases and disposals program. With the assignment of this mission to AFCEC, Ms. Vasquez led a team to research and develop a comprehensive database to consolidate information from numerous commands and to track collections, disbursements, and vouchers for the K1/K2 accounts. Her efforts led to $5.3M in distributions to the commands. Additionally, Ms. Vasquez managed the Summerfield Enhanced Use Lease for Joint Base Andrews; collecting, accounting for, and depositing more than $12M in housing leases funds from tenants.

 Distinguished Award for Budgeting (Major Command Level): Capt Howard S. Antoine. Capt Antoine, Air Education and Training Command, was recognized for his efforts in execution of AETCs command budget. His reviews of contracts identified $5.1M in savings for AETC. Additionally, he was critical in building command budget metrics for use in meeting the Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) mandate. His work secured an additional $9.5M for building repairs, technology refresh, and command priority requirements for FY14.

 Meritorious Award for Budgeting (Major Command Level): Mr. Clinton E. Tribble. Mr. Tribble, US Army North, was recognized for his efforts managing US Army North’s Theater Support Cooperation funding, combining Army TSC funds, Combatant Commander Theater Security Cooperation and Traditional Commander’ Activity funds, DoD Counter-Drug funds, and Headquarters DA Latin American Cooperation funds. Additionally, Mr. Tribble deployed in support of two Defense Coordination Elements for training and exercises, managing more than 75 mission assignments and task orders totaling more than $100M.

Contractor Support Category:

 Distinguished Award for Contractor Support (Major Command Level): Ms. Erin P. Lynch. Ms. Lynch, a contract auditor supporting US Army North’s, was being recognized for her support of ARNORTH’s audit readiness program. Ms. Lynch is responsible for testing more than 60 key fiscal controls, to ensure compliance and aid in the development of mitigation strategies to address shortfalls. Her efforts enabled ARNORTH to identify

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statement of budgetary resources control deficiencies and implement corrective actions. Subsequent DA testing corroborated that ARNORTH’s audit readiness preparations are on track.

Financial Systems Category:

 Distinguished Award for Financial Systems (Installation Level): Mr. Gordon R. Allen. Mr. Allen, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, was recognized for his efforts in the creation of the AFCEC dynamic financial reporting system. His development of the system uses data from both legacy accounting formats and standard fiscal information structure to develop cohesive financial reports for all organizations working with AFCEC. His development included a detailed execution dashboard providing the AFCEC Comptroller with a macro view of operations, as well as more specific reporting for branch chiefs and program managers.

Intern/Trainee Category:

 Distinguished Award for Intern/Trainee (Installation Level): Ms. Brittany Niland. Ms. Niland, 502d Comptroller Squadron, was recognized for her exceptional work as an Air Force intern. Her efforts included identifying funding sources to clear nearly $1M for Wing Commander use for top priorities, assisting in ensuring collection of more than $30M in reimbursements, and clearing more than $600K of old reimbursables.

 Distinguished Award for Intern/Trainee (Major Command Level): Chanda L. Ramey. Ms. Ramey, U.S. Army Medical Command, was recognized for her work in MEDCOMs Contract Payable Support Section. Ms. Ramey’s efforts resulted in a significant reduction of accounts payable backlog and streamlined procedural methods to increase efforts and a 95% reduction in IDOC error rates.

Resource Management Category:

 Distinguished Award for Resource Management (Installation Level): Ms. Denise E. Perry. Ms. Perry, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, was recognized for her work in leading financial management operations for more than 180 contracts across 43 installations conducting Environmental Quality Fence-to-Fence environmental support projects. Her efforts resulted in the reduction of overall contract costs by 35% in FY14, saving more than $30M. Her work in development of a single standardized funding document also reduced man-hours on indirect support contract teams by nearly 25%.

 Meritorious Award for Resource Management (Installation Level): Senior Airman Brandon L. Gibbs. Senior Airman Gibbs, 502d Comptroller Squadron, was recognized for his work with the Air Force’s centralized TDY to School program. His efforts in auditing over 45 thousand travel orders identified more than 2,000 erroneous travel advances and recovery of more than $1.2 M for Air Force use on other critical requirements. Additionally, due to computer error, several hundred basic trainees would have gone without pay. SrA Gibbs found a solution, and manually computed over 300 pay advances in under 48 hours to prevent the trainees from going without pay and having to visit the finance office, losing valuable training time.

 Distinguished Award for Resource Management (Major Command Level): Ms. Dora I. Zabava. Ms. Zabava, US Army North, was recognized for her performance in providing successful resource management support to the ARNORTH Staff, Joint Chiefs of Staff Exercises, and ARNORTH’s ten Defense Coordinating Elements providing nationwide support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Ms. Zabava’s duties include serving as the lead Defense Travel Administrator providing assessments and recommen-dations on travel. Additionally she is responsible for DTS cross-orgs, processing and tracking over 4,000 cross orgs annually.

 Meritorious Award for Resource Management (Major Command Level): Mr. Arturo Rivas, Jr. Mr. Rivas, Air Education and Training Command, was recognized for his work in the standup of the 19th Air Force and identification of $125K in reduced costs, and develop-ment of AETC’s FY15 $2.4B execution plan. Additionally, he played a critical role in building a $448M funding and personnel briefing for the transfer of resources to the Air Force Installation Mission Support Center.

Team Awards:

 Distinguished Team Award: The DOD Financial Management Certification Team: U.S. Army Medical Command. Team Leader: COL Derrick Flowers; Team Members: Mr. Roger A Casillas II, Dr. Robert Griffith, and Ms. Kathleen Scott. This multi-disciplinary team worked on developing MEDCOM FM certification job aids providing simple, just-in-time training and tools to save individual and supervisor time require-ments processing certification, and coordinated for a DOD training team for CAs/CCAs at Joint Base San Antonio, saving in excess of $100K in potential TDY training costs during implementation. The team’s efforts will result in MEDCOM meeting the DOD suspense for FM Certification for more than 200 Financial Management personnel.

 Meritorious Team Award: The Base Realignment and Closure Team, Air Force Civil Engineer Center. Team Leader: Mr. Richard L. Baltes; Team Members: Ms. Georgianna Luther, Mr. Larry Stoops, Mr. Jonathan Thomas, Mr. Clay Middleton, and Ms. Deborah Ritchey. The BRAC team developed and implemented a transformational process to meet NDAA 14 requirements. This new process identified nearly $100M in unexpended BRAC funding over 2 decades and scrubbed the funds to identify must pay bills in current and future Fiscal Years, freeing up funds to avert a 3 year delay in environmental funding, saving millions of dollars in potential obligations due to contract delays, fees, permits, and penalties.