Two deployed Middle East District employees received U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Contracting Organization awards, Jan. 5.
MED Commander Col. Ron Light presented the awards on behalf of the Corps of Engineers to Betty Rogers and Leigh Bandy.
The Excellence in Contracting Awards acknowledge and recognize the achievements and contributions of the Corps of Engineers National Contracting Organization’s top performers. Both awardees applied creative approaches to improving customer care.
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| Col. Ron Light presents the Excellence in Contracting Award to Betty Rogers. Photo by Jan Dove. |
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Rogers, a contract specialist, received the Customer Service Award for her work as procuring contracting officer with Operations and Maintenance service contracts. She organized and led multiple weekly meetings to resolve program and performance issues and established monthly performance evaluation boards.
“Betty was instrumental in bringing customer issues to the forefront and resolving them in a positive way,” Light said about her actions to help turn around customer relations. “Being recognized for great customer service is not easy to do. She had to be able to tell the customer ‘no’ when necessary, and Betty had the courage to do that while finding appropriate ways to meet customer requirements.”
According to her nomination, Rogers fostered a climate and spirit of teamwork that yielded unprecedented operational results and significantly streamlined and improved the delivery of contract services. She demonstrated a level of performance and caring which helped avert a detrimental outcome for the customer.
“I was fortunate to work with a team of professionals who were instrumental in the successful delivery of critical services to the service members, civilians and contractors located at Victory Base, Baghdad, Iraq,” said Rogers. “This award would not have been possible without the support I received from my teammates.”
Rogers works on the same projects at MED that she works while deployed.
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Col. Ron Light presents the Excellence in Contracting Award to Leigh Bandy. Photo by Jan Dove. |
Bandy, a supervisory contract specialist, received the Innovation in Contracting Award for his vision in establishing a deployed Service Contract Administration Cell to better oversee service contracts in Iraq.
In response to recommendations to improve how MED manages service contracts, Bandy recommended that the Gulf Region District establish a forward-deployed services cell in Iraq. He then deployed to Iraq to establish and be a part of the cell. Now fully functioning, the forward cell has significantly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of service contract management while providing real-time support to customers throughout Iraq. The approach substantially improved a challenging contractual situation.
“Administration of complex services contracts in overseas contingency operations from Winchester is challenging for many reasons,” said Bandy. “The issues of time difference, workweek schedules and the inability to directly interface with customers on the ground were some that could not be overcome and negatively affected service and customers’ impressions.
“This approach has been proven instrumental in resolving numerous customer service issues in a timely manner with increased customer satisfaction,” Bandy said. “The service cell’s success can be directly linked to command support at both MED and the Gulf Region District.”
Bandy will redeploy the first part of March, bringing some of the contracts with him to continue working from MED.
The Corps of Engineers will publicly recognize the achievements and contributions of the USACE workforce, said Kim Denver, USACE National Contracting Organization Director. “In keeping with this leadership commitment, I have established this program to recognize the contracting professionals within our organization that have singularly or collectively demonstrated a level of excellence and dedication in the performance of their duties,” he said.
“We’re very proud,” said John Roberts, deputy chief of Contracting Division. “These two were selected from among the whole Corps of Engineers’ National Contracting Organization -- somewhere between 900 and 1,200 contracting specialists worldwide. The Corps’ Contracting community of practice is actually bigger than the Army’s contracting community of practice.”
“I too am so proud of these two,” said Darralyn Williams, director of Contracting. “Both Betty and Leigh were also formally recognized by the Director of the NCO at the NCO Senior Leadership Conference held in December, their awards and accomplishments acknowledged by their peers. Since both of them were deployed at the time, the TAD deputy commander, Col. Steve Roemhildt, accepted the awards on behalf of the employees, the Transatlantic Division, and the Middle East District.”
Relatively new, this is the second year the Corps of Engineers has presented Excellence in Contracting Awards. Each award category has clearly defined guidelines for nominations: Leadership in Contracting, Innovation in Contracting, Mission Execution, Customer Service, and the newest, Rock the Castle Award.