Commander's Blog

It feels like this past year flew by, and we should be very proud of our accomplishments as we kick off the new fiscal year. Although we'll still face many of the same challenges -- funding alignment, space constraints, communication gaps, to name only a few -- this is still an exciting time for the USAMMDA team, because our mission to serve and save our Warfighters remains our daily focus. We have gained a great reputation as a high-performance, ready workforce throughout the command, and this is all due to our tremendous work in taking a critical concept and turning it into a life-saving resource for our Service Members throughout the world.

As we head into another great year, we should keep in mind the core values which keep us tightly bound and moving forward: Integrity, Respect, Selfless Service, Innovation and Collaboration. Personally, I see these qualities in every member of our team, and this energizes me each day as I carry out my tasks as well. While these are all extremely important factors in our success, I believe selfless service truly embodies who we are as an organization. We place others -- particularly our Warfighters -- above all else, and will not stop until a given task is accomplished. Your dedication is amazing to me, and it is certainly the lifeblood of our unique mission. All five of these critical core values play a large part in our new strategic plan, which we will be rolling out soon, and you'll find that this updated blueprint will help guide us toward a very bright future at USAMMDA.

Also within our strategic plan, we highlight our four core capabilities. Among these is our Business Operations component, and ensuring that we adhere to best practices at all times as we navigate matters involving business processes, financial obligations and information technology. Optimizing business processes is our first line of effort, and to achieve this, we will develop and implement various methods and initiatives that will greatly increase our efficiency, predictability, transparency and readiness throughout the command -- which will make us a much stronger organization as a result.

As we move into this new fiscal year, effective and efficient business operations will be crucial in helping us meet all of our obligations and disbursement targets each quarter. Great confidence is placed upon our exceptional team, and it is extremely important that we always maintain due diligence to best utilize the taxpayers' dollars. This is how we do our business, and it helps us remain the premier developer of world-class military medical capabilities.

To achieve our goals in improving USAMMDA's business operations, we will be developing a new electronic handbook that will allow users to search business process documents that have been created and/or revised for our particular field of advanced development. Our objective is to capture all of USAMMDA's business processes, and document these electronically so they may be uploaded to our future internal SharePoint site. We have recently awarded a contract for this effort, and the process will be completed within six months. In light of this, be aware that many of our team will be contacted to help with this task, so please be very cooperative to avoid any delays in completing this critical project on time. The end result of this effort will greatly enhance our daily workflow processes going forward, which will only increase our readiness when called into action.

As we talk about a new fiscal year, and budgets, timelines, and due dates, we must recognize those that work behind the scenes to make sure our funds are distributed properly and on time. Handling all of the budgetary work for our five project management offices and four divisions, along with the Office of the Commander, are three remarkable people who never drop the ball: Stacey Brook, Tina Huff and Susie Miller. I am so impressed by the job they do every day to make sure things not only run smoothly, but "by the book" as well. I am sure everyone understands the scrutiny we face as a DOD entity with funding dollars, so we can all appreciate the diligence and dedication that must go into "managing the checkbook" for an organization as large as USAMMDA. So again, I say thank you to our entire budget and finance team members who keep us "in the black" every year. We couldn't do it without you!

Finally, keep in mind that Business Operations is only one of four primary initiatives within USAMMDA's new strategic plan, and I look forward to sharing the entire plan with all of you later this month. Once we roll out our new strategy, I believe you will share the same excitement I have when I look at all of the great things that lie ahead for our organization.

It's truly amazing that we get to do this every day!

Hooah!

COL William Geesey