ALCOAST 126/24 - MAR 2024 2023 USCG CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER (CFO) AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE WINNERS

R 151311Z MAR 24   MID600117278313U
FM COMDT COGARD WASHINGTON DC
TO ALCOAST
BT
UNCLAS
ALCOAST 126/24
SSIC 1650
SUBJ: 2023 USCG CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER (CFO) AWARDS FOR
EXCELLENCE WINNERS
A. COMDT COGARD WASHINGTON DC 081651Z NOV 23/ALCOAST 442/23
1. The USCG Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Awards for Excellence
recognizes individuals and teams who demonstrated outstanding
performance, innovative thinking, and improved methods in
financial management.
2. I am honored to announce the 2023 Coast Guard CFO Awards for
Excellence Winners:
    a. Enlisted Personnel E-6 and below: SK1 Emily Neilson, Base
Boston, Boston, MA. SK1 Neilson spearheaded the EZ Supply
initiative, transforming an initial concept into a hallmark of
logistical innovation and efficiency. EZ Supply revolutionized the
Coast Guard's approach to procuring standardized items. She
enabled "ask and get" convenience, reducing procurement volumes
and lead times from an average of 10 days to immediate
availability. Her skilled management streamlined the execution of
strategic contracts worth over $1.5M for essential equipment and
reduced over 100 required contracting actions to seven. EZ Supply
has laid the groundwork for enhanced operational readiness and
financial stewardship across the Coast Guard, establishing a
scalable model for future logistics and supply chain endeavors.
    b. Enlisted Personnel E-7 and above: SKC Robert Thomas, Finance
Center, Chesapeake, VA. Supporting Financial Systems Modernization
Solution (FSMS) accounting processes, SKC Thomas reduced suspense
balances, late payments, and erroneous obligation entries to
ensure the Coast Guard continued on-time payments to personnel and
vendors. His efforts directly affected the payment of over 5,000
travel invoices, 725 Permanent Change of Station payments, a
reduction in $145M from Treasury suspense balances, and an overall
reduction of processing times of 75% to complete payments.
Additionally, he performed research, conducted in-depth analysis,
recommended solutions, provided training, developed business
processes, created job aids, and managed teams to ensure the Coast
Guard continued to chart towards FSMS sustainment.
    c. Chief Warrant Officer: F&S2 Matthew Wernicke, USCGC BERTHOLF,
Alameda, CA. As the Supply Officer and Support Department Head,
CWO Wernicke adeptly led Medical, Culinary, and Admin & Supply
Divisions across the ship. Further, he served as Financial &
Accountable Property Officer, managing a $1.6M budget and $743M in
property, and successfully advocated for the highest amount of
backlog funding across the fleet though detailed justifications.
As a Physical Inventory Control Officer, he oversaw a $3.5M OM&S
inventory, and flawlessly completed all contracting, funds
certification, survey, and travel management actions. Under his
leadership and expert financial stewardship, CGC BERTHOLF won the
Forrest O. Rednour Galley of the Year Award, was awarded a
Meritorious Team Commendation, and their Medical Training Team
received a score of 99.5% at Command Assessment of Readiness and
Training (CART).
    d. Civilian Employee GS-8 and below: Heidi Chappell,
COMDT (CG-8), Finance Center, Chesapeake, VA. During the 2023
Personally Procured Move (PPM) peak season, Ms. Chappell's efforts
were noteworthy in leading the team to successfully process over
5,000 PPM and Temporary Lodging Allowance (TLA) claims, which
resulted in 86% of all member focused claims being paid within
30 days. She developed daily charts for tracking incoming claims
and the team's production. Ms. Chappell charted all claims submitted
via the portal and mail and reported to management the daily volume,
which was used to make critical decisions on staffing and use of
overtime to maintain timely payments. She assisted as a Lead
Accounting Technician and Authorized Certifying Officer by
monitoring the number of claims technicians were working and
assisted them with resolving obstacles preventing timely payments.
    e. Civilian Employee GS-9 to GS-12: Anna Joy LaPolt, GS-12, COMDT
(CG-833), Washington, DC. Ms. LaPolt employed innovative solutions
to overcome challenges associated with the FSMS transition. She
learned UiPath to automate time-intensive and repeatable FSMS
tasks, ensuring prudent use of financial resources and significant
manpower savings. This led to the development of two Robotic
Process Automations (RPA) to improve FSMS functionality; the De-
Commitment RPA alone processed 11,225 requisitions, resulting in
3,000 Procurement Requests (PRs) cleared and returned $31M for
repurposing to higher priority enterprise needs. She identified 7
PR error categories, then worked with Deloitte and DHS to
implement system-wide fixes to correct $11M in errors and mitigate
future system failures and a reduction of suspense balances.
Through her efforts, the FY23 commitment balance at year-end was
below $700K and 200 PR line items.
    f. Civilian Employee GS-13 and above: Cheryl Berry, GS-13, CEU
Juneau, Juneau, AK. As the Senior Field Contracting Officer, Ms.
Berry exhibited exceptional leadership in the face of a 60%
vacancy shop rate for over 6 months. She successfully onboarded a
new team and oversaw the team's award of 86 contracting actions
totaling $48M. Her team obtained a Defense Priority Allocation
System (DPAS) rating for a vital electrical power transformer at
Base Ketchikan. The DPAS rating reduced procurement time by 60%
and allowed the transformer to be replaced a year earlier than
expected and significantly improved electrical stability for six
remote Coast Guard units. She also created a paving IDIQ contract
for annual recurring maintenance to save $100K/year; positioning
CEU Juneau to execute $3M in additional fallout funding for the
SILC enterprise.
    g. Commissioned Officer up to O-3: LT Jeremiah Savali, Finance
Center, Chesapeake, VA. LT Savali oversaw the efforts of the
Finance Center (FINCEN) general accounting team to resolve a
backlog of intra-governmental transactions amounting to a $730M
mismatch between Coast Guard and U. S. Treasury accounting.
Identifying bottlenecks, he advocated for a standardized
procedure, engaged all fuel program stakeholders and addressed
missing elements in the fuel guide to resolve over $230M in
fueling transactions. He led the Intra-Governmental Payment and
Collection surge team, handling over 25,000 transactions exceeding
$500M. Implementing measures like FINCEN automation, SharePoint
development, and transmittal worklists for high-risk vendor teams,
he significantly improved audit performances related to FINCEN's
financial service delivery.
    h. Commissioned Officer O-4 and above: LCDR Chris Pappe,
COMDT (CG-831), Washington, DC. LCDR Pappe overcame significant
challenges associated with the FSMS transition and led the way in
troubleshooting critical problem-sets, developing new policies /
methods / processes, resolving hundreds of service tickets,
leading specialized emergent action teams, unlocking system
errors, instituting complex posting logics, and ensuring accurate
financial reporting was maintained between the Coast Guard, DHS,
OMB, Treasury, and Congress. His efforts were critical to the
efficient use of $70B of budget authority across 12
appropriations, 67 treasury symbols, 106 programs, 1,500 accounts.
He freed up $100M to support operations, maintenance, support, and
investment, including a total $2B infrastructure program and the
acquisition of new classes of cutters, including the Polar
Security Cutter. He also overcame myriad system issues to enable
$75M in payments for Fast Response Cutters, C-130J aircraft, and a
$30M first-in-class award for the Waterways Commerce Cutter. His
dedicated efforts to improve FSMS functionality directly supported
the Coast Guard's ability to close FY 2023 within $1M of target on
a $14B annual budget and begin FY 2024 by loading $7B with minimal
downtime. He was instrumental in instituting the FSMS Pain Point
Index, an improved method of identifying/executing interrelated
system resolution plans, which is critical to ensuring FSMS
remains on track to achieve full operational capability. He also
spearheaded internal control updates to ensure the Service's
financial statements were accurate, which contributed to DHS's
11th clean audit.
    i. Team Award: Maui Wildfire Emergency Support Function (ESF) #10
Finance Team, D14, Honolulu, HI. This team successfully executed
all financial actions critical to supporting the most deadly U. S.
wildfire in over a century. They completed an operational
analysis, gained budget approval, and exercised oversight of the
$15M+ project to ensure proper execution of all funds and
necessary cost documentation in accordance with Federal Emergency
Management Agency Stafford Act Mission Assignment (MA)
requirements. The Team pioneered the creation of the first-ever
Disaster Response Funding Agreement, now a best practice to
simplify, streamline, and standardize inter-agency reimbursable
work agreements. They established a full-service Administrative
Support Unit, streamlining the order issuing process and final
claim adjudication for over 250 travel orders. Additionally, they
designed, proposed, and executed a repeatable process to
standardize close-out of reimbursable MAs. These achievements set
a new benchmark for excellence in disaster financial management
and mission support.
The team consists of:
       (1) CDR Bradley Brunaugh, D14
       (2) CDR Michael Cavanagh, D9
       (3) CDR Jeremy Pichette, COMDT (CG-688)
       (4) LCDR Mark Allen, Base Seattle
       (5) LCDR Michael Davis, Sector Honolulu
       (6) Jacqueline Dickson LOGCOM
       (7) Susan Lawson, LOGCOM
       (8) George Amon, Legal Services Command
       (9) Allison Wrieden, COMDT (CG-MER)
       (10) Eric Gilhooley, D14
       (11) CWO Robert Martin, Sector LA/LB
       (12) CWO Jonathan Brooks, Gulf Strike Team
       (13) CWO Michael Zannetti, Sector Ohio Valley
       (14) CWO Gregory Shannon, Base LA/LB
       (15) CWO Clint Pruss, COMDT (CG-MER)
       (16) CWO Cliffton Hendry, Sector Honolulu
       (17) YNC Caeszar Patenio, TRACEN Petaluma
       (18) YN1 Dwayne Browne, Pay & Personnel Center
       (19) MST1 Tonya Mulhern, Sector North Carolina
       (20) MST2 Joshua Monty, Sector North Carolina
3. I want to express my personal thanks to Coast Guard leaders who
took the time from their already busy schedules to recognize the
excellent achievements of their personnel.
4. I most heartily congratulate all nominees and award winners on
their accomplishments. I commend the entire financial management
community for all ongoing work that is improving delivery of CFO
services across the Service and finding better ways to support
operational commanders and mission support professionals. The
innovative and dedicated financial management efforts conducted
every day throughout the Coast Guard were reflected in all the
nominations submitted. Thank you for all you do to ensure we will
be a more adaptive and connected Coast Guard that generates
sustained readiness, resilience, and capability, in new ways, to
enhance our Nation's maritime safety, security, and prosperity.
5. I also want to thank the 2023 USCG CFO Awards for Excellence
Panel, who volunteered to review, sort, and rank all the
nominations that were submitted. The panel took time away from
their already busy days to ensure all nominations and nominees
received the attention they so well earned. Ms. Nichol Nardozzi,
Pay & Personnel Center, Topeka, KS, served as the panel President;
and both CDR Jeremy Pichette, COMDT (CG-688), and CWO Edward
Csech, Base Detachment North Bend, OR served as panel members.
6. The USCG CFO Awards for Excellence Winners will be contacted
individually regarding award presentation.
7. POC: Dr. Dianne Trawick, COMDT (CG-81) who can be reached at
Dianne.S.Trawick@uscg.mil or (202) 372-3722/cell (203) 313-4929.
8. RDML Matthew W. Lake, Assistant Commandant for Resources and
Chief Financial Officer (CG-8), sends.
9. Internet release is authorized.