LOOKING BACK, MOVING ON


It takes a long time to see the results of career development efforts. You don’t get to see how some of your efforts have made a differ- ence until they’ve been in place for a few years. Or sometimes, it takes a few years to realize something doesn’t work the way you’d expected it would. And then you have to regroup and try again.


Here’s an example: When I became the USAASC director in 2005, we looked at how many in the workforce had completed their required Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certification training. In some Army acquisition communities the certification rates were in the high 30 percent range. Tat had to improve.


RECOGNITION


Spisak's all-hands meetings included recognition and hails and farewells. Keith Butler, G2-6 communications branch chief at USAASC, received a service award.


We realized we had to get back to basics. First and foremost, we needed to clean up our data. We introduced a number of processes and methodologies to not only ensure we were using accurate data, but to clean up the data that we had. We had to ensure we knew what we knew, not what we thought we knew. Tere’s an old adage: “What gets measured gets done.” It wasn’t until the team and I put a lot of focused effort on creating that measure- ment—and then reporting that data to the whole community in a transparent way—that things really started to change dramat- ically. No senior leader of any acquisition organization wants to look at that report and say, “Oh, I’m in last place.”


We went from high 30s percentages into the 60s in just a short couple of years, and now we’re well into the upper 90s. It became a point of emphasis throughout the organizations within the acquisition community that things like certifications, individ- ual development plans, continuous learning points, senior rater potential evaluations and other tools were important to building a more professional workforce. And our partners in the acquisi- tion community, our organizational points of contact and senior leaders were all instrumental in moving the needle of our progress. Partners and stakeholders were the critical component because the whole team knew that not every process or solution would work


RETIRING BUT NEVER SHY


After 35 years of public service, Spisak is retiring. He looks forward to more golfing and time with his wife.


We have used our experience and our creativity to find incredible innovative solutions of some of our most difficult problems.


98 Army AL&T Magazine Summer 2021


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  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124