U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) Protocol Officer Jim Stickney welcomes visitors to the post's 80th anniversary celebration on May 3, 2023. At the forefront of Army transformation efforts, YPG has hosted more high-level visitors in the past five years than at any point in its history, and Stickney has ensured each of these visits was a success. “My goal is to handle all distinguished visitor functions, take care of their needs, get them out to the test site and see the program," he said. "I want to take the logistical and administrative burden off the hands of the test officers.”

At the forefront of Army transformation efforts, U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) has hosted more high-level visitors in the past five years than at any point in its history.

YPG Protocol Officer Jim Stickney, a career Marine Corps veteran, has been at the forefront of making each of these visits a success.

A Michigan native, Stickney’s first encounter with the post was while stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in the 1990s.

“I had heard of Yuma Proving Ground, but just that it was a small Army base,” he recalled. “I came out here a few times to get some uniform items: at that time the Army had nicer boots than the Marine Corps had.”

At the tail end of his active-duty career, Stickney, an adjutant and operations NCO, had done protocol work in theater in Iraq as a collateral duty.

“I looked at it as a mission to do and get done, but didn’t look at the big picture protocol-wise as I do at YPG.”

The experience served him well when he retired from uniform and started working in his current position 15 years ago.

“The basic handling of military officers and senior executive service members pretty much remains the same across services,” he said. “Here, working with civilians was new to me when I first came. Working with Senior Executive Service members was new to me, too.”

While YPG has always had its share of high-level visitors, the creation of the Army Futures Command in 2018 and YPG’s subsequent hosting of Project Convergence (PC) 2020 and 2021, along with Project Convergence 2022 Technology Gateway and the 2023 Experimental Demonstration Gateway Event (EDGE) brought dozens of Army senior leaders and prominent elected officials. Since 2018 the last three Secretaries of the Army have visited YPG, marking the first time since the 1990s that someone in that position come here. Most of these high-level visitors to YPG came to visit a specific test event or project: In the case of PC 2021, the visits occurred while between 1,500 and 2,000 additional test personnel were working on the range at any given time throughout the six weeks of experimentation. During EDGE 2023, there were also high-level visitors from many of the 10 international partners that were participating in the event, such as the Vice Chief of Staff of Germany’s Army.

“I’m usually the first phone call that the aides or executive assistants make letting me know that they’re coming here,” said Stickney. “My goal is to handle all distinguished visitor functions, take care of their needs, get them out to the test site and see the program. I want to take the logistical and administrative burden off the hands of the test officers.”

Stickney’s efforts toward this end have been recognized at the highest levels of the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC), YPG’s senior command: he was named ATEC Civilian of the Year in 2021.

“It kind of took me by surprise: I was just doing what I love to do,” he said. “Being a retired Marine being able to stay connected to the military services and military members is reward enough for me. I appreciate rewards and accolades, but they come secondary to taking care of the people who come to YPG to get them to see what they came to see.”