EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AND MODERNIZING THE ARMY
could better understand part of what the cyber team does. “Over- all, this experience has helped me strengthen my professional network and relationships along with a firsthand understanding of the many aspects of a CIO job through the rotation. I learned a great deal about cross-functional teams and how to effectively manage projects within our organization.”
Te projects she has taken on, along with valuable training, have built upon her existing experience.
BUILDING FROM SCRATCH
Patil seated at one of her custom woodworking creations—a 9-foot-long wooden farmhouse table with built-in bench seats that she built in January 2022. When she’s not at work building Army infrastructure applications, Patil is passionate about woodworking projects like these in her spare time. (Photo courtesy of Sona Patil)
for eliminating more than 200 spreadsheets and back-and-forth emails, boosting efficiency and saving time.
“Prior to this, employee data was not structured. It was all over the site. One of my colleagues asked if we could create a site where employees have all the important information located in one portal.” And that’s exactly what she did. “Tis assignment helped me get recognized and show others the potential I had in building, taking up new challenges and seeing them through,” she said. “At this point I am pursing what I really like to do— gathering requirements and building websites.” She said the tool was first adopted by her organization, and then forwarded to PEO Ground Combat Systems to be implemented by them.
She also became a chief information officer (CIO) mentor, which provided her the opportunity to meet new people and expand her network to the other PEOs. “I got to meet a spectrum of groups with different areas of focus,” Patil said. As a mentor, she met with the cyber team and worked with the IT lead on help desk proj- ects. She even took risk management framework training so she
“Te latest career program I was involved in was learning Micro- soft Power Suites. I started learning it in 2022 using Udemy, which helped me a lot,” she said. “Te classes I took helped me understand how to create a Power App and Power Automate. I would highly recommend taking courses through Udemy due to the self-paced learning setup. It’s a great learning tool.” Te other program she took was Carnegie Mellon’s Artificial Intelli- gence and Machine Learning course, which motivated her to use Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in a few of the applications she is building. RPA is a process that uses automation technolo- gies to perform repetitive office tasks like data extraction, filling out forms or moving files. “By doing this I was able to eliminate human error and optimize the process,” she said.
To Patil, it’s all about building on your experience and implement- ing what you learn along the way, then sharing that knowledge with others. “I was a mentor to an Army Contracting Center user from Alabama, and my main advice to her was to try and learn new tools as much as possible,” she said. “Te more knowledge you acquire, the more you can help our Soldiers/clients. Other tips I provided were to always use Microsoft One Note to docu- ment all the information and new details that you gather. It’s always best to have everything easily accessible when you need it.” Lastly, she said, never procrastinate: Tis can result in chal- lenges down the road.
“Respect and communication are the two most important things in any job,” she said. “If you do these two things you have almost done 50% of your job.” She said she will always respect everyone no matter who they are, and that you should always be learning and bettering yourself as a person. “Just because you know the work well doesn’t mean you should stop trying to improve your- self as an employee. Listen to people’s opinions, use your own strengths to help them with their projects and problems, and learn what they have to teach you.”
—CHERYL MARINO
https://asc.ar my.mil
31
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120
