HUNTSVILLE Ala. -- In a project that would have taken a year, a U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville project manager finished in six months, earning high-level kudos from the stakeholder.
Huntsville Center commander, Col. Sebastien Joly, beamed with pride as David Nieman, Missile Defense Agency Mission Support Facilities director, and Rickie Stanford , MDAMSF facility engineer, presented Huntsville Center’s Tara Clark, Branch Chief, Missile Defense Mandatory Center of Expertise, with a letter of appreciation Nov. 4 at the Center.
“Seeing the appreciation our stakeholders have for our people and the work they do is the best part of my job,” Joly said prior to the awarding of the LOA.
The LOA from Scott Vickers, Missile Defense Agency director of mission support, praised Clark for her management of an MDA Executive Office Renovation Project at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Expected to take over a year to complete, the project was finished in only six months due to her superb project management skills, consistently effective communication and focused prioritization, Vickers wrote.
“These improvements to MDA Headquarters will enhance the operation capabilities within the executive suite for the execution of the MDA mission. You demonstrated ‘The Magic Behind the mission’.”
Headquartered at Fort Belvoir, the Missile Defense Agency is a research, development, and acquisition agency within the Department of Defense. Its mission is to develop and deploy a layered Missile Defense System to defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies, and friends from missile attacks in all phases of flight.
Huntsville Center’s Ballistic Missile Defense Mandatory Center of Expertise (BMDMCX) provides standard U.S. Army Corps of Engineers support and technical expertise to MDA and ensures standardization of design where applicable; maintains technical expertise; leverages technical knowledge; and assures consistency and efficiency in delivery of BMDS facilities and infrastructure.
Although most of the work the BMDCX completes for the MDA is at its many operational facilities around the globe, the work also includes facility improvements even at MDA’s headquarters.
Nieman said knew Huntsville Center had the project management expertise to get the headquarters renovation done quickly while ensuring project quality.
Clark said the project was challenging MDA had a requirement for the work to be complete before July 4, and work had to be completed around the schedules of MDA leadership.
She said the initial site visit to develop the in-house simplified design was made in January with the design completed by February and the construction contract award was made by March.
“The project delivery team was comprised of the BMDMCX team (including engineering, contracting, and project management), the MDA team, and the contractor all working very closely and using daily touch point calls to expedite submittals, track long lead items, and prepare for operational impacts which caused our contract to be unable to work certain days and times,” Clark said.
“Though not technically complicated the team understood from the beginning that failure was not an option and that we all needed to work together to make sure we met the critical timeline.”