WORTH IT
at Ford Motor Co. in Detroit. At first, Ford didn’t quite know what to do with him, but after looking at all the acqui- sition certifications on his resume, the company zeroed in on Monaghan’s status as “a former mechanized Bradley guy” with experience in rail operations. Ford assigned him to work shipping and receiving and physical shipping prob- lem sets, and to visit plants to look at the internal processes and see where they could develop efficiencies.
“And that was my first day. Te first couple of hours I was there, there was a complete shift on what they thought I was supposed to do,” Monaghan said.
REMEMBERING THOSE WHO SERVE
Lt. Col. Thomas Monaghan poses with Ford’s Wounded Warrior Support vehicle at a Veterans Day celebration. Ford employees and celebrities alike sign the car as a gesture of thanks to service members. (Photo courtesy of Lt. Col. Thomas Monaghan)
“Some of the key things that Army Soldiers and all of our fellows bring to the program are leadership, community and curios- ity,” said Sarah Martin, military affairs program manager for Amazon. “Tey are great additions to their teams because they know how to establish connections and community very quickly. We enjoy learning from their leadership skills just as much as they learn from us.”
Martin manages the defense and govern- ment fellowships and exchanges for Amazon; her responsibility is to make sure fellows are set up for success from their first day through the end of their program.
“Te goal for their fellowship is to learn innovative best practices from Amazon that they can apply when they return to their military or government organization,” she said.
Typically, fellows are placed on teams across the company so that they can learn by doing, she added, and there are regu- lar events where fellows can interact with company leadership. Each program partic- ipant is given a specialized treatment, she said. “Tere is really no one-size-fits-all solution. Te scope, scale and rotation of projects in the fellowship program truly depend on the fellow,” Martin said. “For example, some fellows are strategic lead- ers in supply chain or logistics, and it may make the most sense for that fellow to work on one large program or project for the whole year.” Other fellows may bene- fit from multiple projects to give them greater perspective on emerging technol- ogy or leadership development, she said.
THE FORD EXPERIENCE TWI graduate Lt. Col. Thomas Monaghan was the first fellow placed
156 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2020
As a car enthusiast, the assignment with Ford was “pretty cool” for Monaghan. He spent roughly three months help- ing to improve the build process at the Mustang plant, and he was able to test a GT350R right off of the assembly line— in fact, Monaghan became certified to test vehicles at Ford while completing project rotations.
“I rotated around, working with what they called problem-solving teams. So I went to the different plants—I did 187 individ- ual projects over the year,” he said. Some projects were short, maybe a few hours in duration, while others were longer, span- ning months.
Since Ford started sponsoring TWI fellows, it has hosted Soldiers consis- tently. Lt. Col. Christopher Orlowski is on assignment with the company now.
“I was placed into engineering manufac- turing operations for North America, which is primarily responsible for Ford’s engine manufacturing operations in Canada and the United States,” he said. Orlowski is the first Army officer to work in engine manufacturing, and the third TWI fellow placed at Ford. With
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