With five members of the Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors receiving 2013 Excellence in Federal Career Awards sponsored by the Baltimore Federal Executive Board (FEB), they have continued a recent run of PEO IEW&S members that have been recognized during the past few years.
The purpose of the program is to honor outstanding federal employees, who have performed exceptional and meritorious work with high standards of performance in the Federal government. Mary McEntee, Samantha Venetz, Karen Foley, Michael Madden received Bronze level awards from the FEB while Rachel Tomlinson was honored with a Silver level award. This group was amongst the more than 200 Federal employee recipients throughout the greater Baltimore are that were honored on May 3.
“Receiving these five awards from the Baltimore Federal Excellence Executive Board is extremely special given the fact that PEO IEW&S has only been fully operational for about two years here at Aberdeen Proving Ground following BRAC,” said Stephen Kreider, Program Executive Officer for IEW&S. “These awards not only highlight the accomplishments of the great individuals and teams within PEO IEW&S, they also recognize the life saving systems that we provide our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines that are serving in harm’s way.”
McEntee, a Security Manager, received a Bronze Award in the Outstanding Para-Professional Administrative/Management category. During 2012 McEntee served as the sole individual assigned to the oversight of physical and information security within the Project Manager Airborne Reconnaissance and Exploitation Systems office. She enabled the secure management of classified Army programs without restricting the high operations temp involved in the programmatic operations that field and sustain critical intelligence assets for deployed forces.
Venetz, an Administrative Officer for PEO IEW&S, earned the Bronze Award in the Outstanding Administrative Assistant category. Within the award period Venetz was recognized for providing support to the PEO’s Chief Financial Officer and at times for the organizations commander ensuring there were no deviations from the daily operations/duties of the PEO. The business Management Division relied on her support to review and process Foreign Military Sales Budget Execution Status Reports, Army Budget Office data calls and she assisted in the use of the Defense Travel System by PEO members.
Foley, a Program Analyst serving the Business Management and Contracting division (BMC) of PEO IEW&S, won the Bronze Award for the Outstanding Professional (Non-Supervisory) Administrative, Management category. Foley’s experience ensured a successful crosswalk from legacy systems into the Army’s new business processes and General Financial Enterprise Business System (GFEBS). She championed PEO IEW&S’ exploitation of the GFEBS system’s industry wide best practices, scheduling of training for PEO end users and provided knowledgeable contributions to system troubleshooting which paved the way to execute millions of dollars immediately in the new system. Due to Foley’s completion of GFEBS training, she single-handedly processed all required year end transactions not only for the PEO HQ budget office, valued at over $19M, but for the supporting six Program Managers.
Madden, who retired as the Director of Contract Planning for PEO IEW&S, was honored with the award for Distinguished Public Service Career. Madden recently retired after serving the federal government for 32 years in positions of Deputy Test Manager for Aerial Common Sensors (ACS); Product Manager for Robotic Unattended Sensors; Lead Engineer for Test Manager Firefinder; Deputy Product Manager Combat Identification; Deputy Product Manager for Forward Area Air Defense Sensors and Deputy PM for ACS.
Tomlinson, Program Analyst for BMC division for PEO IEW&S, was recognized with the Silver award within the Rookie of the Year Administrative/Management Analyst category. Due to the confidence leadership had in her abilities, Tomlinson was assigned the role of Foreign Military Sales (FMS) point of contact for the PEO. This position required her to develop and maintain relationships with the PMs, Army Budget Office (ABO), and the G8 office of the Communications Electronics Command (CECOM). Additionally, she was made responsible for preparing and consolidating the 50/50 Depot Maintenance Workload Distribution Report which after finding discrepancies, Tomlinson independently set up an internal process team where the Director of Logistics and she met monthly to review the 50/50 report for completeness and accuracy from the PMs. Since implementing the internal process team, PEO IEW&S has continually produced accurate monthly reports for HQ AMC up to the Army.