Dellamonica winner humble in his accomplishments

By AMY GUCKEEN TOLSONMay 30, 2013

Scott Phillips
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- When Scott Phillips first heard the news that he was a 2012 Dellamonica awardee, he almost didn't believe it.

"That was quite a surprise," said Phillips, branch chief for Army, Interservice and FMS aircraft components at AMCOM. "I didn't even realize I had been nominated for that. I first found out about two weeks ago when ALC published a notification, but I wasn't sure until after I saw the official AMC article. There's a lot of Scott Phillips. I just thought, 'Oh it's a mistake. That's not me.' I always try to do a good job, but I'm not doing it to get plaque on the wall. It is a tremendous honor."

Phillips was selected for a 2012 Louis Dellamonica award, an honor given out by the Army Materiel Command to its top employees who have given significant contributions to AMC's mission, goals and objectives. While humble in his accomplishments and the contributions he has made to the Army in his 10 years as a civilian, his selection as an award recipient is no mistake. Recipients of the award are chosen based on their efforts to not only improve AMC's mission and their own work, but their ability to motivate other employees to improve their own work, as well as how their peers, subordinates and supervisors view them.

"Scott is very deserving of this recognition," said Chris Pegues, chief, Aviation Industrial Operations Division, AMCOM Logistics Center, Phillips' supervisor. "He has that ability to take complex concepts and put them into action. Depot operations is a huge business, and through LMP we now have access to an enormous amount of management data. The issue was how to sort through all of that data and then to be able to make good and timely business decisions. Scott developed a tool that gave us that ability. Thanks to him, it really has put AMCOM in the forefront of how industrial operations should be managed in an enterprise resource environment."

A graduate of Alexandria High School, Phillips studied management at Jacksonville State University and spent eight years working as a deputy clerk to the circuit clerk of Etowah County before following in his father's footsteps and pursuing a career as a civilian with the Army. Knowing how happy his father had been in his 30-plus year career with the Army, Phillips applied for six different intern positions, and was selected as an AMC fellow in October 2002.

While he loved his job with Etowah County, Phillips knew he had found his calling with the Army.

"I love what I do for the Soldier," Phillips said. "As a fellow we'd go on 'greening' assignments, where we'd have the opportunity to meet Soldiers and get feedback for what AMC was doing to support them. I was about the same age as some of the folks we got to meet. I just thought, 'Man, if I could just do a good job and do all I could to support that person who's in harm's way, so the last thing on their mind is where am I going to get the aircraft part, or the piece parts I need to stand up whatever vehicle I'm in, I'd be doing a great service to them and the scheme of things on the whole.' I love helping people. It's very rewarding."

One of the greatest rewards over the past year, which Phillips credits for the Dellamonica distinction, has been transforming the way the industrial base operations business operates, making it more efficient and cost-effective. By creating a common operating picture for program management, Phillips helped to create a program snapshot view of every item that goes through a depot to be repaired or overhauled, allowing his office, the depot and the customer to easily find out things like an item's schedule, funding, earned value, how it's performing, as well as its criticality.

"It puts all that information in one place," Phillips said. "When I took the job people had the information, they were just looking at it in different ways from different systems in different points in time. We pulled everything together and created that common look, one place you can come and get that info. We use that to guide our reviews with the customers and monthly reports on how things are going. That has become a benchmark for how we manage components."

It took approximately a year to perfect that common look, but now that it's in place it not only makes more sense, but it's actually saving the Army dollars and cents.

"We've always sat down for quarterly reviews where we've discussed performance, and it used to be if something needed to be cut or increased you would mention that action in a meeting and it could be several weeks before everybody came together with the information needed to make a decision," Phillips said. "Now we can go into a room with a customer or depot and we can make million dollar decisions on the spot, where we couldn't do that before because we have that information readily available.

"Over the last year we've been able to return funds from the depot where there had been savings. Previously that was done closer to the end of the fiscal year, but we got over $80 million back from depot in just a couple quarters. It gives us better resource utilization and certainly has improved the way that we handle our money. It has certainly improved our ability to use our resources in a more timely fashion."

The new system also allows each member of the process to focus solely on their mission, making the process "almost seamless."

"We try to make it as easy for them as possible and as error free as we can so our data is right," Phillips said. "We don't need the depot or the customer to worry about all the widgets and stuff that we're doing. Whatever they need, just tell us. We'll make it happen."

Phillips is quick to credit the people he works with, the customers and the depots for his success.

"It's very rare to fall in with the kind of work with the kind of people that I fell into," he said. "It's the best of both worlds. I love what I do. I love the people I get to work with very much. I love the analytical and even the supervisory work -- it's challenging, which is good. I think I found my niche."