Photo By Lt. Col. Ruth Castro | Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Reinert, 88th RSC commander, poses with his ACOE team with their...... read more read more
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ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army Communities of Excellence Award Ceremony (ACOE) for Army National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve occurred at the Headquarters, National Guard Bureau to recognize exceptional achievement of National Guard and Army Reserve units, May 23. The 88th Regional Support Command and the 1st Mission Support Command were recognized for outstanding achievement and received top honors for the Army Reserve. Fifteen Army National Guard units from across the U.S. were recognized with the South Dakota National Guard receiving top honors for the Army National Guard program.
The ACOE Program was created initially established with the purpose of improving the quality of life for Soldiers and their families. Today, with Guardsmen and Reserve Soldiers continuously deployed worldwide, the ACOE program contributes to continuous improvements to the training and readiness of organizations, installations, units, and Soldiers.
The competition uses the Malcolm Baldrige criteria to measure performance through written and site assessment of top organizations that competed in 2016.
During the last year, 35 Army National Guard communities and four United States Army Reserve Commands participated in the Army Community of Excellence program. Each community went through a rigorous internal and external review process from which one organization was selected to represent the Army National Guard, and one was chosen to represent the Army Reserve.
Maj. Gen. Timothy McKeithen, deputy director Army National Guard and host for the ACOE awards ceremony, thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication to ensuring their organizations run efficiently. “As we continue to face challenges of increased readiness issues, constrained budgets and everything that goes into making us more efficient, you’re making a difference every day with what you do,” said McKeithen. “I want to thank you for what you do for your States, for the community, Soldiers, and families. That is the underlying message here today. Everything you do makes a difference, and we appreciate it. We lean on our organizations to become more mission effective not only through our warriors, families and communities and our nation as a whole. We are proud of everything you do every day.”
The Army National Guard Communities of Excellence program recognized units from 15 states based on capabilities and scope of the mission. The South Dakota Army National Guard took overall honors for the Army National Guard program. Maj. Gen. Timothy Reisch, adjutant general, South Dakota National Guard, accompanied by numerous senior staff members responsible for the South Dakota’s National Guard’s outstanding effort in the program and winning submission, received the award.
Lt. Gen. Tracey Thompson, deputy commanding general- support, U.S. Army Reserve Command, presented awards to the 88th Regional Support Command and the 1st Mission Support Command. Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Reinert, commanding general, 88th Regional Support Command, accepted the award for the 88th Regional Support Command and Mr. Jose Burgos, civilian executive officer, 1st Mission Support Command, received the award for the 1st Mission Support Command on behalf of Brig. Gen Alberto C. Rosende, the commanding general.
“There are barriers that you have to overcome to be successful and get to here,” said Thompson. That barrier isn’t resistant to change; I think that we know that we are in a changing organization and most of us wouldn’t be here if we couldn’t adapt to change. This barrier is workload and time. You have to market your case and get more people involved to help improve your processes and make your organization more efficient.”
“I have been part of the ACOE program and served as the program manager for the past four years,” said Lt. Col. Carlos Alvarez, force development officer assigned to the 1st MSC. “Being here means that we are improving our processes and enhancing the way we do business. We have the opportunity now to see where we have deficiencies and work on doing better in the future.”
Since Alvarez has been the program manager, the 1st MSC has received the Silver Award three years in a row. “This is my last year as ACOE program manager since I am retiring, but I have faith and know that the 1st MSC can achieve first place. We just have to work hard and see how we can improve our deficiencies and increase our customer service to benefit our units and allow us to provide ready units and ready Soldiers when needed.”
The 88th RSC provides exceptional base-operations support to Army Reserve Soldiers, civilians, Families, units, and facilities.
Mr. Thomas Helgeson, 88th RSC deputy director of public works and ACOE Program Manager, stated that their organization strives to improve but not because of the award. “Receiving first place for ACOE is recognition of what we are doing in the continuous improvement world is working,” said Helgeson. “Our end state is to improve the organization continually and if we all make small incremental changes within our area, it helps makes us a more efficient, innovative and overall better organization.”
“This helps the 88th and hopefully the whole Army Reserve because we share all those best practices with other RSCs,” continued Helgeson. “I am proud of our organization. The general and chief of staff believe so much in the continuous improvement, and that has nothing to do with the award for us; it is about the actual improvement.”
“We are honored to be here today and represent the Army Reserve,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick J. Reinert, 88th RSC commander. “Over the years we have had multiple winners from the Army Reserve at the ACOE including Fort McCoy. Right now in there are about 10 Army Reserve entities that can compete in ACOE, we encourage the Baldrige method to be used in all of the Army Reserve units because we think it gains efficiencies and that can help effectively.”
“I don’t care if we win or lose, what I care about is improving the processes,” said Reinert. “Getting us down to the customer focus, making it right, making it better for our customers. If we do that and we get an award for it, then that’s good, but that’s not the purpose. What we do when we try to build our workforce is a culture that focuses on processes, results and continuous improvements. The best that I get out of it is the opportunity for improvement.”
The overall winner, 88th RSC, and the runner-up, 1st MSC, will receive a monetary award of $100,000 and $60,000, respectively, for funding organizational programs that enhance program management, process improvement and benefits their commands as a whole.
| Date Taken: | 05.26.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.26.2017 10:37 |
| Story ID: | 235444 |
| Location: | DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, US |
| Hometown: | GUAYNABO, PR |
| Hometown: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 533 |
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