WASHINGTON (Dec. 7, 2022)—The Army claimed three winners in the 2022 Defense Acquisition Awards, announced last week, recognizing individual and collective contributions to the defense acquisition mission.
Army Acquisition Workforce members took home top individual honors in the Financial Management, and the Acquisition in an Expeditionary Environment categories, and Program Executive Office for Soldier’s Next Generation Squad Weapons Team was one of five teams that earned a David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award.
The Defense Acquisition Workforce Awards recognize individual and team accomplishments that support secretary of defense priorities through excellence in acquisition. These 25 prestigious awards honor the achievements of more than 187,300 civilian and military professionals from across DOD, including the 32,000 members of the Army Acquisition Workforce.
The Defense Acquisition Individual Achievement Award was established to encourage and recognize excellent performance in acquiring products and services for DOD across 19 acquisition workforce disciplines. Representing the Army among this year’s honorees are Kathleen Single and Maj. Timothy Keilty.
Kathleen Single received the award for Financial Management, recognizing her management of over $65 billion in funding for contracts in support of the president’s COVID-19 response. As finance manager for the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense’s Joint Assisted Acquisition Team, Single’s efforts supported the production of more than one billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, 19 million therapeutics doses, over two billion needles and syringes, over 890 million over-the-counter COVID-19 rapid tests, and the development of domestic diagnostic and testing production facilities.
Maj. Timothy Keilty, assistant product manager for Program Executive Office Missiles and Space’s Search, Track, Acquire, Radiate, Eliminate Project Office, received the award for Acquisition in an Expeditionary Environment. Keilty is credited with building and leading a multi-discipline expeditionary team to prepare for North Atlantic Treaty Organization contingencies, and directly support the presidential drawdown authority for military assistance in Ukraine. His efforts resulted in the successful upgrade of the Sentinel radar software and firmware across the XVIII Airborne Corps prior to deployment, and across the European Command area of operations. In addition to the Sentinel software upgrade, Keilty was the key force in the planning and transfer of the two Sentinel radars to Ukraine.
The Next Generation Squad Weapons Team, from Program Executive Office for Soldier, took home a David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award, which recognizes DOD acquisition programs and teams that have demonstrated excellence and innovation in developing, acquiring and sustaining operational capability that supports the National Defense Strategy.
The Next Generation Squad Weapons Team structured an innovative selection and contracting approach to identify and deliver technologically advanced small arms and ammunition that provide overmatch against peer and near peer threats. Subject matter experts from Product Manager Next Generation Weapons, Product Manager Small Caliber Ammunition, DEVCOM Armaments Center, the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team and Army Contracting Command–New Jersey were instrumental in developing a streamlined prototyping and downselect approach, while setting the conditions to quickly produce and field the newest small arms weapons and concurrently establishing the required ammunition stock. The team’s work represents a fundamental shift in how the Army acquires new small arms modernization capabilities.
The 2022 Defense Acquisition Workforce Awards will be officially presented in early 2023 in a ceremony hosted by The Honorable William A. LaPlante, Ph.D., undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment.
For more information about the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Awards, go to: https://asc.army.mil/web/acquisition-awards/.
