Commander's Blog

It's April 15, and Tax Day is here again! If you haven't done so already, please don't forget to submit your tax paperwork by midnight tonight, to avoid any penalties or problems with the IRS. More important, however, we should always keep in mind that as stewards of taxpayer dollars, we must remain committed to managing our budgets efficiently to support the Department of Defense and Army priorities. At the same time, as acquisition professionals, we have to continue to do our business as intelligently as possible, to meet the intent of what the taxpayers expect from us.

April is National Internship Awareness Month, and here at USAMMDA, we certainly believe that internships provide an effective way to share a great deal of knowledge with dedicated candidates. Soon we'll be graduating another class of interns in our Program Management–Acquisition Internship Program, with five Soldiers completing the program. We recognize the value in maintaining this program, and we consider it part of our investment in our future leaders. By providing these candidates with the educational experience to obtain their acquisition qualifications, we can help to ensure they are fully prepared to lead critical efforts in the future, for both USAMMDA and other organizations across the Army and DOD. I've spoken with a few candidates of the PM–AIP, and they all had great things to say about their experiences with the program. In fact, intern Capt. Gerrod Gomez recently told me that the PM-AIP offers "positive potential for growth as a medical officer." He went on to say, "This opportunity allows junior military officers to gain an overarching visual of how Big Army acquires and fits Soldiers on the battlefield with what they need to win the battle!"

April is also Stress Awareness Month, and given the type of work we do, stress is usually unavoidable. However, you can't let stress dominate your life and overwhelm you. It's important to quickly mitigate the effect of stress, and the Performance Triad is a good place to start. We should make sure we have the proper amount sleep, exercise and nutrition every day, but we also need to keep things in perspective, and do fun activities as well. Be sure to take your leave time, and schedule time with family and friends as often as possible to unwind and relax. Also, if you notice that a co-worker may be having a difficult time dealing with stress, please reach out to see how you can help. We're a family here at USAMMDA, and we should support each other always. Together, as a team, we can get through anything.

I'd like to thank everyone for supporting the transition of our USAMMA team members as they joined our USAMMDA family last month. By all accounts, the feedback indicates this has been a great success! Numerous staff members invested a great deal of time and effort to ensure the transition went smoothly, and we truly appreciate their dedication in making this happen. By combining our talents and expertise in product development, we're certainly a much stronger team going forward, to fulfill our mission of developing and delivering critical medical solutions to our Warfighters throughout the world.

And finally, what's April without a plethora of sporting events? We had an amazing Master's golf tournament with Tiger Woods winning his fifth green jacket yesterday, and last weekend we had the Men's Final Four college basketball championship, with an exciting overtime win for the Virginia Cavaliers. And we're just starting baseball season, so if you're an Orioles fan, or like the Nationals, let's hope that both teams have a great summer. As for my Atlanta Braves, hopefully they'll go deeper into the post-season this year! Well, regardless of the outcome, I know that watching these games will be a good way to relax a bit!

Thanks for all you do, and remember that we're saving lives with our work here at USAMMDA!

COL Ryan Bailey