JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas (Sept. 9, 2021) -- Members from across the Mission and Installation Contracting Command won a record 11 award categories as part of the fiscal 2020 Army Contracting Command Annual Awards for Excellence in Contracting.
The awards were announced to the command during a MICC-wide town hall Sept. 2 conducted virtually from Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
Of the 20 nominations submitted by the command for the awards, MICC Soldiers, civilians and teams came away with more winning entries than any other ACC subordinate contracting organization.
“These outstanding MICC contracting and support professionals demonstrate this command’s effectiveness in overcoming the uncertainty and disruption brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic in fiscal 2020,” said Clay Cole, the deputy to the MICC commanding general. “Their extraordinary efforts in support of our installation and garrison mission partners evidence not only recognition by our higher headquarters but also their dedication to ensuring the needs of our Soldiers and their families are met.”
MICC members earning the excellence in contracting distinction include:
Karina Haddix, MICC-Fort Sam Houston, Texas
Outstanding Contract Specialist
Haddix executed the full food service portfolio of contracts at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and Fort Bliss, Texas, enabling more than five million meals annually for Soldiers across the Army. She helped pioneer the centralized execution of approximately $2.4 billion worth of Army full food service contracts across the continental United States in support of Army’s category management initiatives, which saved an average of 17% compared to the previous FFS contracts. Haddix also assisted with the award and administration of the high visibility Mobile-Federal Law Enforcement Enterprise Technical Services contract, which ties into the FirstNet wireless network enhancing Installation Management Command emergency response communications capabilities for Army public safety officers, first responders and emergency officials during national emergencies when wireless services may be impacted.
Staff Sgt. Igor Malyshev, 925th Contracting Battalion, Fort Drum, New York
Outstanding Contingency Contracting NCO
While assigned to Regional Contracting Command-Afghanistan as a contract administer, Malyshev administered a $1.4 billion portfolio consisting of Enhanced Army Global Logistics Enterprise, National Afghan Trucking 3.0, and personal security contracts supporting operations throughout the Combined Joint Operational Area and in excess of 15,000 Soldiers, civilians and coalition partner forces. These contracts proved critical to the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan commander’s lines of effort and force protection priorities across 10 forward operating bases in the CJOA. When COVID-19 led to personnel shortages, Malyshev was hand selected to mitigate those shortages at Bagram Airfield by accomplishing the duties typically accomplished by two senior civilian employees. His background in maintenance, property and surveillance aided the work required for the largest maintenance and trucking contracts in Afghanistan.
Angela Piekielko, MICC-Fort Campbell, Kentucky
Outstanding Intern of the Year
Piekielko immediately identified procedures that increased efficiency and provided a recommendation to the Virtual Contracting Enterprise-Paperless Contracting File helpdesk to improve the functionality of the gatekeeper role across the contracting enterprise. Her idea was recognized and incorporated into VCE-PCF. She developed a gatekeeper continuity book and trained new personnel to successfully perform gatekeeper responsibilities. During the fourth quarter of the fiscal 2020 year-end surge, she served as the primary point of contact for all Fort Campbell mission partners, facilitating the successful contracting packet submission from resource managers into PCF that enabled MICC-Fort Campbell to meet all end-of-year contract requirements. Piekielko completed more than 400 blanket purchase agreement call closeout transactions, de-obligated almost $347,000 in unliquidated obligations and completed 96 closeouts of other contract types in the Standard Procurement System Procurement Desktop-Defense and VCE-PCF.
Angela Chaplinski, MICC-Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington
ACC AbilityOne Award
Chaplinski crafted acquisition solutions through the award and administration of contracts that leverage the AbilityOne Program in direct support of all Army and Air Force organizations on the joint base including I Corps, 593rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, 7th Infantry Division, and the 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings. Chaplinski's AbilityOne Program contracts portfolio consists of dining facility attendant, central issuance facility, laundry and dry cleaning, vehicle maintenance, custodial services, and barracks maintenance at a cumulative value more than $133 million, which also supported five deployable teams from the 902nd CBN providing support to regionally aligned forces in the Pacific Command area of responsibility. She also executed an unanticipated contract extension for dining facility attendant services to support a fellow office, completing the extension within 15 days of receipt, to ensure uninterrupted service and continuity of support to the warfighter.
Gregory Davidson, MICC-Joint Base Lewis-McChord
Outstanding Mission Support Business Operations (non-acquisition category)
As an operations and training specialist with the business operations division, Davidson improved training, fixed staffing anomalies, and provided information technology support to in-bound forces. He arranged for two mass training sessions for Unison Marketplace Services and established workflows to allow both supervisors and specialists and Soldiers in the 51 Charlie military occupational specialty to have visibility of ongoing procurements via dashboards, contributing to improved accuracy and throughput. As a result, awards increased from 59 in fiscal 2019 to 83 in fiscal 2020; cost avoidances increased from $500,000 in fiscal 2019 to $712,000 in fiscal 2020, with 76% going to small businesses; and contracting officers achieved a 14% average cost avoidance – 4% higher than the average cost avoidance for all of the Army. Davidson also volunteered to fill a personnel void and assumed the role of primary strength report keeper, responsible for verifying and maintaining accurate accountability of the contracting office’s civilian personnel movements. Following the departure of the sole IT specialist, he maintained the connectivity and computing needs for MICC-JBLM and 902nd CBN, plus supported the arrival of an Army Reserve contracting team assisting with FEMA and COVID-19 operations in the Seattle area.
Jeffrey Parry, MICC-Fort Knox, Kentucky
Outstanding Quality Assurance Administrator
Parry applied a collaborative approach to quality assurance and customer interaction to produce better contract administration, including contractors meeting requirements while ensuring contractors maintain effective quality controls. His training and mentoring approach set the standard for long-term mission achievement. Parry’s proactive customer interaction increased contractor oversight and offered supported mission partners insights, lessons learned and best practices. He developed the majority of a seven-step acquisition training method offering back-to-basics instruction on many acquisition duties, benefitting both acquisition professionals and 245 personnel from supported mission partners. In response to COVID-19, Parry seamlessly transferred to Microsoft Teams video teleconferencing, continuing to share his training and expertise with units supported by the MICC.
Jennifer Hastedt, MICC FDO-Fort Sam Houston
Outstanding Mission Support Business Operations (other than major weapons systems)
As a supervisory procurement analyst, Hastedt managed the business operations division that supports three geographically separated offices and the FDO-Fort Sam Houston staff with personnel actions, logistics support, training guidance, management of the government purchase card program, quality assurance oversight, and operational direction. Having filled a position that was vacant for almost a year, Hastedt immediately implemented systematic processes and procedures ensuring the timely completion of weekly headquarters significant action reports, standardized bi-weekly director update briefs, and taskings. The implementation of business process improvements resulted in the timely completion of 100% of mandatory training and continuous learning points, and review of 99% of individual development plans. She also served as the procuring contracting officer for a vital COVID-19 contract that provided government agencies the ability to contract for logistic and medical support under one contract.
MICC-Fort Stewart/904th Contracting Battalion, Georgia
Contract Closeout (team award)
After the establishment of priorities to include identify and de-obligate excess funds as well as contract closeout by the ACC commanding general, the team of Maj. Paul Kilgore and the 24th Financial Management Support Unit’s Sgt. 1st Class Mayda Rivera and Spc. Dylan Livingston, on a developmental assignment, accomplished immediate and measurable impacts on those priorities. Kilgore trained the finance Soldiers on closeout procedures as contract specialists. The team generated detailed reports from the General Fund Enterprise Business System’s Procure to Pay to enhance and streamline efforts to acquire fully paid contracts. They helped MICC-Fort Stewart close out 549 contracts in 10 months, and the team administered more than 900 Procure to Pay reports that were uploaded into acquisition management systems. The team also discovered several older contracts closed out with outstanding unliquidated obligations and simplified the time-consuming process to resolve and close out contracts, often collaborating directly with unit resource managers to de-obligate more than $1.84 million in prior year funds.
Three additional MICC nominees who won at the ACC level but have moved on to different positions include Lt. Col. James Burkes, Master Sgt. Adela Tacla and Emory Cowan.
Burkes, the former commander of the 918th Contracting Battalion, was named the ACC Outstanding Contingency Contracting Officer. He served as the chief of contract support operations in support of the Joint Forces Land Component Command-Army North COVID-19 response mission. His expertise in contingency contracting and skills in leadership and collaboration across the spectrum of operational contracting support contributed to the planning and acquisition of critical life support services to forces providing medical care across the nation.
Tacla earned the ACC Outstanding Active Duty NCO award category for other than major weapons systems. As a former member of the 902nd CBN at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, she led the unit in conducting multi-national joint exercises throughout the Indo-Pacific Command area of operation while serving as the rear detachment battalion sergeant major during the unit’s deployed. She now serves with the 409th Contracting Support Brigade in Germany.
Cowan, assigned to the 410th CSB at JBSA, is the ACC Outstanding Workforce Development Specialist. While previously serving as an IT specialist with FDO-Fort Sam Houston, his technical knowledge led to the selection to support the Army North COVID-19 mission, where he designed a dual-purpose SharePoint portal for contract requirements submission and tracking as well as a training and reference repository for the Defense Support to Civil Authorities mission. He also volunteered to assist in the onboarding and training of the ARNORTH operational contract support integration cell, developing a career-broadening program to standardize training for Soldiers in the 51 Charlie contracting MOS and record their progress.
About the MICC
Headquartered at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, the Mission and Installation Contracting Command consists of about 1,500 military and civilian members who are responsible for contracting goods and services in support of Soldiers as well as readying trained contracting units for the operating force and contingency environment when called upon. As part of its mission, MICC contracts are vital in feeding more than 200,000 Soldiers every day, providing many daily base operations support services at installations, facilitate training in the preparation of more than 100,000 conventional force members annually, training more than 500,000 students each year, and maintaining more than 14.4 million acres of land and 170,000 structures.
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