Photo By Scott Sturkol | Fort McCoy Garrison Commander Col. Sheyla Baez-Ramirez speaks to installation...... read more read more
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Fort McCoy Garrison Commander Col. Sheyla Baez-Ramirez, along with other garrison command team members, held a pair of town hall meetings Oct. 24 in building 905 at Fort McCoy.
This was the second town hall meeting for Baez since taking command of the garrison in July.
During the meeting, Baez reviewed a variety of subjects and news. One of the first items discussed was about an upcoming Defense Organizational Climate (DEOC) survey for the workforce.
“You will receive an email (soon) with our DEOC survey. Does everybody know what a DEOC survey is? Who does not know? All right, so for the benefit of everybody, just going to throw it out there,” Baez said. “Our DEOC survey is the tool, the mechanism that the Army utilizes to get a sense for how the environment and units are working.
“So even though the DEOC surveys are volunteer, I am asking please and encouraging everybody to participate in the DEOC survey,” Baez said. “This is one of the methodologies that I have, and the command team have to see what is happening around the workforce. I know that a lot of time people do not feel comfortable coming forward and bringing up concerns, and the DEOC survey is one method that you can use to do that.”
Baez then discussed “no fail” missions for the garrison.
“When I assumed command in July, and I talked about my leadership philosophy, one of the things that I cared the most, and I told you that up front, is the workforce,” Baez said. “The workforce, whether civilian or military, I cared about people. And because I cared about people, there are certain behaviors that we cannot allow. We cannot allow it by regulation, and we cannot allow it because we need to treat people with dignity and respect.
“As you look at the no-fail missions that we have here, the very first one that we have on the board is sexual harassment and sexual assault,” Baez said. “I will not allow that in this garrison. And if we get any complaint of sexual harassment or sexual assault, we will attend those complaints rapidly. We are as good as the environment that we work in, and we need to make sure that we keep everybody around us safe.”
Baez said her commitment to the workforce from the day she assumed command has not changed.
“These are some of the no-fail missions,” Baez said. “And the only way that I can protect you, and you can protect a lot of the other employees within your sections, is if you follow those rules and you are vigilant of those types of behavior. I cannot do this on my own, so I am relying on you to be my eyes and ears and report anything if you see it. The second one that we have here is identifying any individuals who might have suicidal ideation or any type of behavioral health issues. Something that I like to bring to your attention is that we need to stop marginalizing people that have behavioral health issues.”
“People could have problems and need help,” Baez said. “We have to be vigilant for those who are vulnerable at some point of their life. And we have to give them the tools and the resources so they can get help. Here at the installation, we have multiple services to help people that have any type of behavioral issues. And we can look at those from the spiritual fitness dimension.”
Baez also discussed why ensuring equal opportunity (EO) is important.
“Here at the garrison, I am taking a different approach as far as how we look at observances and heritage observances and things like that because I want to make things have value,” Baez said. “I want to make things to be fun. I want to make things, so people want to participate. Last month at the end of September, we did a launch for Hispanic Heritage Month, and it was very last minute because our EO person is still in school.
“But even though it was a last-minute event, we had really good participation,” Baez said. “I want to make sure that every event that we have here in the garrison is well attended like that one was, and that people get value out of this event.”
Baez also handed out several time in service awards during both town hall meetings. She also officially presented a recent Army Superior Unit Award to the garrison. The award was given to Fort McCoy Garrison for its work during the COVID pandemic.
Maj. Randy Downs, company commander for U.S. Army Garrison-Fort McCoy, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, read the citation for the award.
“Army Superior Unit Award. By order of the Secretary of the Army, United States Army Garrison-Fort McCoy, demonstrated superior performance and devotion to duty from Feb. 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2021. United States Army Garrison, Fort McCoy, conducted an exceptionally difficult and challenging mission under extraordinary circumstances that resulted in safe communities and preservation of lives across the Coulee region, including Sparta, Tomah, Black River Falls, and Fort McCoy, consisting of 37 tenant units and 1,500 Soldiers and Department of Army civilians.
“The collective effort and selflessness of each individual and unit to serving Soldiers, civilians, families, and retirees will have a lasting impact for years to come. The dedication and outstanding performance of United States Army Garrison-Fort McCoy is in keeping with the finest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon themselves and the United States Army.”
Baez said the Fort McCoy team “is an awesome team,” and the award reflects that.
“As you look around, we have civilians that have been here for a long time because they love their job, and they do it very, very well,” Baez said. “Thank you for your service. … As an organization, the Army changed in their practice, in their policies. … Many installations across the globe shut down and closed and stopped doing what they were doing. … Fort McCoy continued to work. We had some diminished capacity in some sections, but Fort McCoy did not shut down.
Fort McCoy did not close the gates, did not close the door. Why?” Baez said. “Because we have people who are committed. Because we had the space to take the measures that we could take to do the separation between people. … This award is for every one of you. So a big round of applause.”
Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Calarco, garrison command sergeant major, also discussed several items. One of the top things he addressed was resiliency and encouraging people to take care of themselves.
“First, I want to remind you all to just work on trying to be resilient,” Calarco said. “Resiliency is an essential tool. In the Army, it’s a requirement for us to train ourselves to be resilient. Physical fitness is one of those tools.
“We call it Holistic Health and Fitness, which we've transitioned into,” Calarco said. “I think it’s health and fitness for the civilians, but it looks really similar with the same pillars. Our food, our diet, the way that we train, the way that we go to leadership development courses, it’s all to develop us into individuals who can handle very difficult times. It's really easy when the path is clear, it’s well-groomed, it’s super clean, there’s no potholes.”
Calarco used a skiing analogy to further explain his point on resiliency.
“If you throw in a double black diamond to moguls in front of you, that’s a pretty difficult task to come down that hill,” Calarco said. “And I will tell you, it doesn't matter how great you are, how wonderful things are going, things are going to happen in your life. And you're going to have to be resilient in order to overcome that.”
Other topics were also addressed by Calarco as well as Deputy to the Garrison Commander Cameron Cantlon. All were focused on offering an open door if workforce members needed to talk with them as well as other garrison specific items, such as changes in Triad Nights activities.
Baez, in ending, thank all of the Fort McCoy workforce once again for supporting the Army and the garrison.
“I’m really proud of this community at Fort McCoy,” Baez said.
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
(Greg Mason with the Fort McCoy Multimedia-Visual Information Office contributed to this article.)
| Date Taken: | 11.05.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.05.2024 16:59 |
| Story ID: | 484706 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 8 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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