Photo By Robert Timmons | Col. Stephen Aiton, Soldier Support Institute commander, hands the Financial...... read more read more
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The leadership of the Financial Management School on Fort Jackson, which graduates roughly 3,000 financial management technicians each year passed from Col. Eric F. Zellars to Col. Richard Hoerner in a ceremony on Victory Field Oct. 27.
“I can’t think of a better leader fresh out of the fight to take this great team to a higher level,” Zellars said in his farewell remarks. Zellars, who is retiring after 33 years in the service that started as private, also handed over the responsibilities as Chief of the Finance Corps to Hoerner.
Hoerner, who enlisted in the Army in 1985 as an infantryman, has spent “32 years of remarkable service and (has) a wealth of experience in the operational force and enterprise level of the financial community,” said Col. Stephen Aiton, the Soldier Support Institute commander, as he welcomed him to Fort Jackson.
The new FMS commandant’s most recent position was as the XVIII Airborne Corps Assistant Chief of Staff for Finance, and as director of finance for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve. Hoerner’s operational leadership started early in his career when, as a staff sergeant, he led a Ranger squad in a night combat parachute jump into Panama during Operation Just Cause.
Hoerner said after taking over the FMS reins that he plans to ensure financial Soldiers will be ready for combat.
These Soldiers need to be “physically fit, mentally tough and prepared to execute our wartime mission,” Hoerner said. “We will train every day to execute our wartime mission.”
Hoerner takes over a team that had accomplished many feats under Zellars including training 6,000 military and civilian finance personnel. Aiton lauded Zellars and his team for recognizing and redesigning the curriculum for all courses, instituting a mentorship program, and “leveraging partnerships with the University of South Carolina” to create basic and graduate data analytics courses. Over the past two years, FMS has also designed a game-like platform to deliver realistic training that uses the “exact form procure to pay processes” used in the field.
Along with the creation of FMNet and FMTube to reach financial management professionals across the force, Aiton also praised Zellars for working with the Adjutant General School to develop processes to transfer military pay from the Finance Corp to the AG Corps.
Aiton added he will miss Zellars whom he characterized as a consummate team player who never talked about his own accomplishments, but was quick to “talk about the many things his team did together.”
| Date Taken: | 11.01.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 11.02.2017 14:00 |
| Story ID: | 253882 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 57 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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