ALL ABOARD


Matthew Maier, product director for Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care in PEO for Enterprise Information Systems, second from the right, visited Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook plant in Philadelphia, PA, along with other students at the Senior Service College. (Photo courtesy of Matthew Maier)


Did a mentor or mentors (or being a mentor) make a big difference in your career advancement? If so, how?


I would say that informal mentors did indeed influence my career growth and help me make decisions on the education and career opportunities available to me. Mike Whitaker, who I worked with at NAWCAD, was a technical expert and informal mentor. He helped me plan a lot of my early career growth in the Navy’s Junior Professional Engineer program, and that helped accelerate my advance- ment in the acquisition workforce. He was also instrumental in helping me through the process of my first DAWIA [Defense Acquisition Workforce


Improvement


Act] certification. During Senior Service College (SSC) in 2013-2014, Barbara Panther, the director of the Civilian Human Resources Activity at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, was assigned as


my mentor. In addition to providing me with guidance on my SSC senior research project, she also provided a detailed men- toring plan for my career. Together, we planned out a timeline to apply to CSL lists, pursue advanced education and so forth, which helped lead to my selection as a product director.


Were there career-broadening experi- ences that helped in a critical way?


To be selected as a project manager, prod- uct manager or product director in the Army, one must have a well-rounded experience base of different aspects of the acquisition life cycle. I began my career in test and evaluation and later on moved to both systems engineering and program management. I was able to support multiple programs of varying ACAT [acquisition category] levels in all stages of the acquisition life cycle, from


materiel solution analysis all the way through to operations and support.


What has been your biggest surprise as a member of the Army Acquisition Workforce?


It was a surprise to me how different the acquisition career tracks are for the military versus civilian workforce. Military officers are not only encouraged to participate in training and education opportunities but are also forced into rotational, career-broad- ening experiences with increasing levels of complexity. On the civilian side, this is often the result of personal career manage- ment and selection into offered programs. It requires significant effort on the part of the DA civilian to ensure competition with military backgrounds and experiences for the same command-selected positions.


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WORKFORCE


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