Fort Gordon Garrison Commander Shaw Pick, left, and Fort Gordon Garrison Command Sgt. Maj. Brent J. Smith, right, sign pledges that include commitments to provide leadership, programs and services of excellence under the Service Culture Campaign. Missing from the photo, but who also signed the pledges, is Deputy Garrison Commander Hugh Hardin.

Fort Gordon Garrison Command Sgt. Maj. Brent J. Smith, left, and Fort Gordon Garrison Commander Shaw Pick, right, sign pledges that include commitments to provide leadership, programs and services of excellence under the Service Culture Campaign. Missing from the photo, but who also signed the pledges, is Deputy Garrison Commander Hugh Hardin.

To some people, they may be mere words on a couple of oversized cardboards. But to the Fort Gordon Garrison Team, they carry the weight of excellence through actions.

Fort Gordon Garrison Commander Col. Shaw Pick and Command Sgt. Maj. Brent J. Smith signed the U.S. Installation Management Command Service Culture Campaign (SCC) Leadership and Customer Service pledges in the garrison command conference room on Oct. 23.

The SCC launched in 2017 as the Service Culture Initiative (SCI) as a means to help facilitate a culture of service excellence within all facets of IMCOM services, therefore contributing to overall Army readiness. It has since evolved into a withstanding campaign.

Under the SCC, the garrison team focuses on four areas to accomplish the SCC’s mission. Those areas are: enhance team member sense of belonging to IMCOM; ensure leaders are engaged with workforce professionals, customers, and the communities they serve; ensure that communication includes making sure the new workforce of professionals is appropriately welcomed, oriented, trained and prepared to become an active member of the IMCOM team; and ensure that the workforce of professionals feels valued, respected and appreciated.

As garrison commander and in the business of “customer service,” Pick said he takes it seriously and expects his team to do the same.

“As I look at this, to me, you couldn’t come up with a better moniker for the campaign – ‘service culture,’ because the nature of our organization, we don’t exist for any reason to support ourselves. We exist to support and service not only mission partner units on the installation, tenant units, our civilian population, but also an extensive surrounding retiree population in the community,” Pick said. “So the reason for being is service.”

One example of how Fort Gordon has contributed to the campaign’s mission is through monthly employee trainings, windshield tours, luncheons, recognition ceremonies, sponsorship programs, and various other events and practices. Some of the aforementioned have been placed on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the commitment to providing excellence has not.

“In order for us to be successful and provide first-class service, you need to invest in our own people, and so that’s really what the lines of effort in the campaign, as I saw, rightfully do,” he said. “It’s about how we bring people into the garrison employee workforce, how we onboard them, how we train them, how we develop leaders – because if you don’t invest in your own people, how can you expect to have a high caliber service culture?”

The effects of a workforce that prides itself on excellence has potential to become widespread – a win-win for everybody, Smith said.

“Taking care of our own enhances our ability to take care of our community, and investing in ourselves lends to a greater investment in the community,” Smith said.