Photo By Kari Hawkins | Christina Freese, deputy chief of staff for Resource Management (G-8) at Army Materiel...... read more read more
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REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- An Army Materiel Command senior executive has been recognized for her leadership, commitment and excellence by a long-standing national advocacy group working for the advancement of women employed by the federal government.
Christina Freese, deputy chief of staff for Resource Management (G-8), recently received a “Redstone Women Rock” award in the Outstanding Leader Category from the North Alabama Chapter of Federally Employed Women. Freese, who will be recognized for the local award at FEW’s national level, was honored for her leadership and management of AMC’s day-to-day resource operations involving an annual budget of more than $40 billion, and a team that includes six division chiefs and a staff of nearly 100 civilian and contract employees.
“Being recognized for achievements as a leader is always humbling,” Freese said. “To be recognized by such an outstanding organization focused on women just makes it more special. When women lift up other women it’s powerful.”
Freese is not only grateful for the accolade, but also for her office staff, who nominated her for the FEW award.
“Ms. Freese has received several awards the past few years, but they’ve all been financial-management related. The FEW award is a more people-oriented leadership award,” said Kristin Clark, the AMC G-8’s assistant executive officer.
“She truly cares about the people on our entire G-8 team. She has really tried to keep us all connected as much as possible despite the ongoing telework situation, and she epitomizes the quote/saying ‘good leaders believe they work for their team, not the other way around.’”
Freese leads a diverse team of professionals with skill sets that include resource management, acquisition, budgeting, cost analysis, category management, materiel integration, and analytical and modeling capabilities. The team provides AMC leaders with assessments and recommendations on how best to employ the resources allocated annually, and how to best match available resources to the nation’s sustainment requirements and the Army plan, ensuring the prompt flow of resources to support the Army’s warfighters.
Among her recognitions, Freese was recognized as the Army’s fiscal year 2021 Comptroller of the Year and her staff was recently named the fiscal year 2021 Outstanding Financial Management Organization by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management.
“Group awards like this demonstrate that others see what I already knew -- AMC G-8 is filled with exceptional, results oriented team members, and their achievements are a driving force in AMC and Army readiness,” Freese said.
“Nothing happens at AMC without the financial resources for Army readiness. We advocate and ensure funding levels for critical missions. From the beginning of the process to the end, G-8 is involved in planning, programming, budgeting and execution.”
Freese began her Army civilian career in 1989 as a GS-3 clerk typist with the then Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal. She steadily grew her career, shifting into budgeting, programming and business management.
“Within five years of starting my career, I had transitioned into financial-related jobs at the junior level,” she said. “I enjoyed it as my career evolved and the opportunities came to me.”
Along the way, she gained college degrees in Business Administration, and Management and Leadership, Army acquisition training and experience in a variety of resource management jobs with the Aviation and Missile Command. In 2013, Freese was promoted to AMCOM’s director for Resource Management.
After five years, she further broadened her financial management experience as the business director for the Corps of Engineers, Huntsville. In 2020, she became a Senior Executive Service member and assumed her current position with AMC.
“My career strategy was to focus on possible opportunities one or two levels above my current role, and get training and experiences to help me be competitive at that level,” Freese said.
“For many years I aspired to be a GS-15 and imagined my career culminating there. Once I reached that level, I continued to look upward as I had done for decades. Achieving my current position as a senior leader has made me grateful and thankful for all the outstanding mentors and teammates that lifted me up. What it really means is that I owe so much to them, which keeps me engaged and grounded.”
Her strategy also involved juggling demanding work while also earning both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and raising two sons.
“Having a strong family network was foundational for me,’ she said. “Also actively prioritizing those things that were essential. It is not possible to do everything and, to be successful, we must learn where to spend our energy and where to take risk or even when to say ‘No.’ This can be challenging for highly motivated and competitive people but I believe it must be done to stay healthy and achieve goals.”
Despite challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting Operation Allies Welcome, Freese and her team have consistently met AMC’s financial goals while also pinpointing process improvements and new approaches to operations that have led to nearly $100 million in savings in the AMC budget.
“Our team is expanding the use of data analytics for decision making, and continues streamlining for efficiency and effectiveness in all our processes. These objectives keep us focused on improvement,” Freese said, adding that initiatives like Category Management, which leverages strategic contract vehicles for best value, and the Service Contracts Requirement Tracking Took, which provides visibility for contract spend, have saved money while achieving mission objectives.
With the recent closeout of the 2022 fiscal year, Freese is once again proud of her team’s work commitment to ensuring AMC’s financial records are sound and its budgetary obligations complete for the year. During end-of-year reporting, G-8 employees validate all financial systems reports as accurate and complete, which requires a multi-level review, archiving of data and footnoting reports to ready them for Freese’s final certification in early October.
“September is the countdown to year end close out within G-8, requiring longer staff work hours to complete time sensitive actions to receive, issue and obligate funds before they expire,” she said. “The outstanding dedication of the team ensured more than $22 billion in expiring funds were spent across the AMC enterprise to support critical Army missions.”
As she has been mentored, Freese also hopes to mentor her employees, encouraging them to take advantage of opportunities, and to participate in professional organizations such as FEW to build networks and develop capabilities.
“There is nothing more professionally fulfilling than inspiring others to grow and achieve more than they thought possible. I also always learn new things from my mentees. It’s rewarding and essential in succession planning,” Freese said.
“With G-8 employees, I like to reinforce their strengths and challenge them to take on assignments that broaden their experience of fill in the gaps. My expectations of the AMC G8 workforce are to be respectful, leverage diverse viewpoints, hold ourselves and others accountable, continue to grow professionally, stay agile, and always strive for resourcing excellence.”
Under her leadership, numerous G-8 employees have received major awards, experienced career-broadening developmental opportunities, and been selected for positions of increased responsibility both inside and outside of AMC.
“AMC is successful, G-8 is successful and every G-8 employee is successful because we have built this team based on trust, transparency, accountability and commitment to the mission,” Freese said.
“I remind employees all the time that what we do to realize the mission of the Army has nothing to do with our proximity to the battlefield. What we do really makes a difference for AMC and the Army. The vast majority of our workforce won’t deploy to the tip of the spear. But what they do does affect what happens at the tip of the spear.”
| Date Taken: | 10.14.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 10.13.2022 17:28 |
| Story ID: | 431264 |
| Location: | REDSTONE ARSENAL, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 304 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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