Courtesy Photo | Chief Warrant Officer 4 Kevin Unkel and Staff Sgt. Sasha Zimmerman receive the Army...... read more read more
Cedar Rapids Technicians Receive Prestigious Department of the Army Award
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Kevin Unkel is a numbers guy. A brief look at the ceiling and the computations start rolling.
He has 491 months of service in the Army. He’s accrued over 2,800 hours of sick leave. His fastest two-mile run was 12 minutes, 20 seconds, in Iraq at the age of 43. He’s put 1,000 miles on his bike each year for the last ten years and he hasn’t called in sick to work since 1979.
Unkel’s competitive drive and committed work ethic stretches beyond his personal goals and includes the 23 Soldiers he supervises at the Field Maintenance Shop (FMS) 13 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
FMS 13 is the first field maintenance shop in the Iowa National Guard to win the Army Award for Maintenance Excellence (AAME) at the Department of the Army (DA) level. Unkel and Staff Sgt. Sasha Zimmerman received the award on behalf of FMS 13 at the Sustainment Commanders Conference at Camp Robinson, in North Little Rock, Arkansas on Nov. 14, 2018.
The shop’s journey to this high-level recognition is a story laced with bureaucratic twists and turns that only a federal employee with 35 years of service could tell with a smile.
“In 2016, we won the Shoemaker, the first time Cedar Rapids has ever won the Shoemaker,” said Unkel.
The Colonel George L. Shoemaker Field Maintenance Shop Superior Performance Award is awarded annually by the adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard to the FMS which achieves the highest degree of efficiency in field maintenance operations and support provided to assigned units.
After winning the Shoemaker award in September 2016, Iowa National Guard leaders told Unkel they wanted his shop to compete for the AAME, an award Unkel was already focused on pursuing.
“They want to know how you’re supporting families. What’s different about your maintenance program? What things are you doing different than everybody else? How are you saving money? Are you recycling?” said Unkel. “So I started keeping a journal in November of 2016.”
Unkel continued adding to that journal consistently. Every time the shop locally purchased a part and saved the government money, he annotated it. When his employees worked with high school cross country programs or the Cub Scouts, he documented it. He continued adding to the journal until he compiled over 100 supporting documents.
“I had to have this packet downsized to ten pages and ready to turn in by July 2017,” said Unkel.
The packet had to include endorsements from Unkel as the shop supervisor, the surface maintenance manager, the director of logistics and the adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard, before being submitted to the regional competition.
“In September, it went to regionals which included Indiana, Ohio, Iowa Minnesota and Wisconsin,” said Unkel. “We ended up taking first place in that category.”
With Iowa’s regional win, the packet moved on to nationals.
“It ended up going to nationals out in California and we ended up taking fourth place,” said Unkel. “The top five out of there can go to the DA level to compete for the AAME.”
After going through the results, Unkel discovered the packet had been submitted to nationals without the endorsements attached.
“I corrected the packet again, made sure the endorsements were in and we jumped over a couple of states and ended up in the top three,” said Unkel.
The top three finalists receive an onsite visit, and on April 23, 2018, senior maintenance evaluators from the DA gathered at FMS 13 to see how Unkel’s 23 technicians impact maintenance readiness.
A few months later, FMS 13 was notified that it won the Table of Distribution and Allowances (TDA) Category and would receive the award at a ceremony on Nov. 14, 2018.
“That’s a tremendous award for a group of technicians in an outstanding shop,” said Lt. Col. Chad Stone, director of logistics, Iowa Army National Guard. “I’m really proud of their accomplishment.”
As a former surface maintenance manager for the Iowa National Guard, Stone provided oversight for the field maintenance shops like Unkel’s.
“I’m really impressed with the years of service and the years of knowledge he brings,” said Stone. “He maintains a level of humility that allows technicians to grow within the shop.”
As for Unkel and the 23 Cedar Rapids technicians, they’re continuing to compile supporting documentation. FMS 13 won Iowa’s Shoemaker Award again in 2018, and under Unkel’s leadership the shop is already beginning work on their AAME packet.
Unkel’s commitment can be linked back to his parents. His dad served an enlistment before World War II. “He always talked about the Army, his time at Schofield Barracks and Camp Roberts,” said Unkel. As for the work ethic and the accomplishments of FMS 13, “My parents put a work ethic in me to where if you work hard, good things come to you,” said Unkel.
| Date Taken: | 11.21.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 11.21.2018 16:34 |
| Story ID: | 301001 |
| Location: | CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, US |
| Hometown: | CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, US |
| Web Views: | 478 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Cedar Rapids Technicians Receive Prestigious Department of the Army Award, by LTC Tim Mills, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
