COLD REGIONS TEST CENTER, Alaska-- Spring has sprung and residents of interior Alaska are eagerly anticipating mild spring weather and endless summer days.
For U.S. Army Cold Regions Test Center commander Lt. Col. Michael Kovacs, however, the season is bittersweet. Despite his efforts to extend his tour an extra year, the Army is calling him to a new duty station next month. Though disappointed to leave Alaska, 29 years in uniform have taught Kovacs that change is inevitable in the life of an Army officer.
"We'll make sure my replacement is all set up and able to have a good time, too," he said with a smile.
Kovacs made the most of his two year tour, staying active with plenty of hiking, hunting, and fishing in his free time.
"It would be silly not to have a good time," he observed. "This is a great assignment for exploring and getting outdoors--it's almost criminal if you don't."
He has also been a regular participant in swimming and intramural basketball at Fort Greely, and won post-wide notice when he won a bench-pressing competition at the post fitness center, hefting an impressive 425 pounds.
"It's all in good fun," he said. "There are a great many young Soldiers with the missile defense unit here, so I figured CRTC had to get on the map somehow."
Kovacs' time in Alaska has hardly been all fun and games, however. Aside from overseeing an increasingly busy workload at the Army's only cold weather testing facility, Kovacs also completed two Master's degrees during his command: one in public policy administration from the University of Missouri and the other in procurement and acquisition from Webster University.
Having deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan seven times and spending time in the project management side of Army procurement earlier in his career, Kovacs says getting an up close and personal look at testing in an extreme environment was especially rewarding.
"I got to see the extensive coordination that has to go into a test and what has to be done to make people, facilities and trails available in this environment," he said. "You don't just step into a test here. There are risks involved and a lot of work goes into mitigating them."
Most of all, however, he expresses intense admiration for the rugged professionals that make up CRTC's workforce. Given the extreme climate, recruiting potential workers is a difficult proposition: credentialed engineers may not have the ability or inclination to put their skills to work in the brutally cold winters.
"The biggest challenge is maintaining rugged professionals," said Kovacs. "Sometimes you find those golden nuggets--people who may not have the papers, but have the experience to get the job done in challenging conditions and leave customers satisfied with results."
During his command, CRTC has gained efficiencies in a number of areas, one example being the new Vertical and Horizontal Machining Centers that can fabricate parts for test items and specialized infrastructure in a small fraction of the time it takes a manually-operated machine. Kovacs is especially excited about populating the Acquisition Lessons Learned Portal with Man and Material in the Cold reference documents and comprehensive records of cold performance experiences to avoid previous mistakes and provide the basis for making improvements in system development.
"People ask for that kind of information and it takes a lot of effort to put a packet together to answer those questions," said Kovacs. "Or, you may get a nebulous question like, 'what are the top 10 things that fail in the cold?' A test officer should be able to easily retrieve and package that type of information for a customer or be involved earlier in product development discussions."
According to CRTC officials, such a database could be made to store records encompassing the test center's entire history, with tests of decades past having vital relevance to equipment under evaluation in the modern day.
"CRTC did a test in 1956 where there wasn't room inside the wheel well for the tire chain--the designers didn't think of that," said Jeff Lipscomb, CRTC technical director. "We had a test in more recent years that had a similar problem, and likely we'll see the same problem again in the future. A 'lessons learned' database is something Lt. Col. Kovacs has been championing that is really valuable and I think will be money in the bank for a lot of people."
"My initiative and drive has been to develop a Google-like search and organization tool for horizontal information exchange across the federal science, technology and acquisition communities in a common language," Kovacs added. "The idea is to improve collaboration, requirement focus, investment decision analysis and transparency. We should be able to cross link requirements, engage the broad technical community and compile reviews and comments about initiatives and requirements in one place and pick out what we need to move forward. Nothing is absolute, but there is a real value in knowing what was done in the past."
His tenure at CRTC earned high praise from many, including Maj. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of the Army Test and Evaluation Command.
"The leadership up here is phenomenal," said Karbler. "You don't have a happy workforce in an extreme environment like this if you don't believe in what you're doing and if you don't have great leaders who are motivating you every day to do well."
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