Photo By Michael Strasser | Sgt. 1st Class Roxanne Nissen, a Career Skills Program intern, is working with the...... read more read more
FORT DRUM, N.Y. (March 21, 2025) -- Nearing her retirement from the Army, Sgt. 1st Class Roxanne Nissen has already gained invaluable experience in the civilian workforce while interning with the Fort Drum Soldier and Family Readiness Division.
Nissen, who served as the sexual assault response coordinator for the 10th Mountain Division (LI), started her internship last year to fulfill a requirement for her master’s degree in social work.
She worked with members of the Army Substance Abuse Program and Family Advocacy Program to learn the administrative and operational functions of those departments. Nissen also supported SFRD staff at events to include the Month of the Military Child carnival, Exceptional Family Member Program horseback riding, and FAP cooking classes.
“It’s exciting to see the teams set up these events, where their creativity really shines,” she said. “Then you get to see it in action, and how they engage with community members. It’s rewarding for me to see how Soldiers and family members respond to all the resources available to them.”
Nissen said the internship aligned with her career goals, and gave her insight into how civilian employees and contractors work cohesively to support Soldiers and families.
“My master’s degree in social work is more toward organizational leadership and management,” she said. “My educational background set me up to either start my own non-profit and do program evaluation and policy, or managing a program which is what I really got set up for success to do.”
Nissen said she received approval from both the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention Program (SHARP) and division leadership to complete her master’s degree while serving as SARC.
“It was really hard to do a master’s level internship here, learn all of the program within SFRD, and still working SHARP in the background,” she said. “It was a full-time internship so there were times when balancing the two was challenging. But I wanted to finish, and I had the leadership support from SHARP and my unit to do this.”
Amanda Mason, SFRD chief, said she had previously met Nissen at community-based meetings, and they worked together when ACS and SHARP teamed up on events such as Mountain Wellness Month.
“She approached me to intern within the FAP program, and I was happy to support Roxanne in her education goals,” Mason said. “She learned FAP inside and out and showed great leadership and program development skills.”
After earning her degree, Nissen wanted to build her resume further while continuing her work at SFRD. This led to a Career Skills Program internship.
Soldiers who complete the Transition Assistance Program pre-retirement requirements can apply for different job training opportunities and CSP internships before leaving service.
“I knew that this would help make myself more competitive in my field,” she said. “I’ll say this about the CSP internship – you have to want to work and contribute, and you have to want to work autonomously. I like that because it’s what I was doing in SHARP, so I was able to come in and sort of fill in gaps where I could be helpful.”
Nissen said interning at SFRD and assimilating into a civilian employee organization has been transformative.
“This has been a learning experience on how to navigate situations that, as an Army leader, I might do differently, or communicate things differently,” she said. “Coming from Army SHARP to ACS has been a culture change, almost like learning a different language. But the people here brought me into the team, accepted me, and made me part of the ACS family.”
There are more than a dozen programs that fall under the SFRD umbrella, which Nissen became acutely familiar of while assisting with the ACS certification process.
“Our ACS programs have been working for months to prepare for certification by updating documents – standard operating procedures, memorandums for record, memorandums of understanding – and they have gathered program records, training documents, signing logs, and everything that shows proof of the work they have completed over the last year,” Mason said. “During this process, the certification team reviews ACS programs to ensure they are meeting all regulatory requirements.”
Fort Drum participated in the certification pilot program in 2020, which is now the official process that all ACS centers undertake every three years. Mason said they do not have the capability to assign one person to oversee the certification workload, so Nissen provided much-needed assistance.
“Roxanne has reviewed all the documents, assisted with writing MFRs, reviewed the SOPs to ensure they met the regulatory requirements for the specific program areas, collected all the documents from the program leads and then uploaded more than 500 documents in preparation for our upcoming certification evaluation,” Mason said. “I have worked with her to ensure the information from the programs are on point and we have all that we need, but she has spent hours with the programs and reviewed all the documents before she brought them to me.”
Command Sgt. Maj. Jeremiah Larson, Fort Drum garrison senior enlisted adviser, commended Nissen for making the most of her internship.
“When I look at the number of things she has accomplished, it goes a little further than all the administrative tasks she has done,” he said. “It’s the personal connections she made with the team, and with the Soldiers that we provide these services for. She has shown commitment, leadership, ownership and just being incredibly self-driven.”
Larson applauded her work on a leader professional development for 1st Brigade Combat Team’s home station mission command team.
“This really set the standard for the rest of the division on how to communicate Soldier and family support resources and prevention programs,” he said.
Nissen also worked on the Installation Prevention Council briefing, where representatives from all the prevention programs present data, trends, and statistics to garrison and division command teams.
“Anyone who has prepared for the IPC or observed one, you know there’s a staggering amount of data,” Larson said. “Sgt. 1st Class Nissen was hands-on in the IPC process. I watched how she engaged brigade commands and provided them with information that is vital to really understand what is going on in their formation.”
Larson said the Career Skills Program is designed to give Soldiers some forward momentum heading into their post-Army careers.
“The Army came up with the CSP program for a reason,” he said. “And this is the perfect example of it. Sgt. 1st Class Nissen has taken the skills she developed as a Soldier, honed them while working with our civilian professionals, and at the same time her efforts will directly contribute to the success of our programs.”
Nissen said her plan is to remain in the North Country after her retirement, and she has begun applying for positions in the community. She hopes to eventually enter the federal workforce at Fort Drum – and rejoin the SFRD team – if the opportunity arises.
“My ultimate goal is to come back here because I have the education that fits, and it has really been a great experience working with this team,” she said.
For more information about the Fort Drum Transition Assistance Program and CSP internships, call (315) 772-3434 or 772-3286. The TAP office in Room C2-14 inside Clark Hall, Bldg. 10720 on Mount Belvedere Boulevard.
| Date Taken: | 03.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.21.2025 08:44 |
| Story ID: | 493423 |
| Location: | FORT DRUM, NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 148 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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