Natick team earns SOF Award

By Bob Reinert/USAG-Natick Public AffairsJune 27, 2012

Natick team earns SOF Award
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Forty-five million dollars in forty-five days.

It might sound like the goal of some reality TV show, but it's actually the amount of acquisition activity generated at the end of fiscal year 2011 by Al Chisholm and Mike McMahon.

For their efforts, the two members of the Special Operations Forces Survival, Support & Equipment Systems team at Natick Soldier Systems Center received the 2012 Acquisition Innovator Team Award from the Special Operations Research, Development and Acquisition Center in a June 22 ceremony at NSSC.

(They) truly facilitated our office executing $45 million in that last 45 days of fiscal year (2011)," said Tom Mills, program manager, SOF-SSES. "We couldn't have done it without their support."

Fresh from a visit to Afghanistan, Dr. Jack Obusek, director, Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, saw firsthand how the work of people such as Chisholm and McMahon could affect Soldiers on the ground.

"To me, that is the ultimate of what we're trying to do to achieve our vision, that vision of being a leader in empowering the world's most capable Soldiers," Obusek said. "It doesn't mean you have to be an innovator just at the bench of the scientists that come up with the best widget."

According to the award, "This two-man team orchestrated agreements that established additional strategic contracting capacity; the result was SOF acquirer's unprecedented ability to equip components in USSOCOM forces in a rapid and seamless fashion."

"These guys were not satisfied with the way things were happening, and it was all about making it work," Obusek said at the award ceremony. "Awesome work. Just keep doing what you're doing. That's the way we're going to be recognized as a leader around the world."