PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. -- The director's corner on the homepage for the Armament Research, Development and Research Center speaks to ARDEC's slogan of "Always a Step Ahead."
ARDEC is a strategic national asset that has built a legacy on understanding and solving complex problems. As described in the director's message, two reasons we are successful is because we are collaborative and innovative.
In his message, John Hedderich states that collaboration is "key to our success. Our workforce embraces teamwork, mutual respect, open communication and creativity. All of our efforts are integrated with, and leverage, the vast technological resources, nationally and internationally."
As one of the End State Leads, I believe the meetup idea is vitally important. Most people think of networking as a practice that occurs outside of one's current workplace. Internal networking, which is what the meetups are primarily about, focus on developing and maintaining positive relations with people who work within ARDEC.
Getting feedback and being exposed to different perspectives can help you make your ideas better. If you only stay with what you know, and only surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll have a hard time innovating and challenging yourself. Don't stay stuck in a stale network!
Part of the goal behind meetups is to encourage employee growth through their interactions. Leaders must be stewards in encouraging that free and creative time for employees to just get together and get to know one another. In such a positive environment, relationships can form and trust can build.
"Most companies and organizations have things like this -- social events meant to encourage collaboration and whatnot, " said Aerospace Engineer David Hosier.
Over the past several months, ten Branch-to-Branch meetups, one topic-based software meetup, and a METC (Munitions Engineering and Technology Center) Branch Chief Meetup was held. The purpose of the meetups is to bring different groups together in an informal setting to promote general awareness, collaboration, and problem solving across centers, competencies, and teams.
"I have really appreciated being able to meet people," said Janet Crane, who is with the Firing Tables and Ballistics Branch from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. "Besides getting to know each other informally, we were able to exchange competency related information, including our sharing an online tool with METC Aeroballistics that they didn't know we had."
From these meetups, a new collaboration between groups at ARDEC has sparked. For example, Benet Labs' Materials Engineering subject matter experts are reaching out to the people they met from Additive Manufacturing to utilize their expertise in plastics and composites.
Benet Materials Engineer Edward Kunkel said, "It was good to meet other materials engineers in ARDEC and to learn what they do. They will be valuable contacts to have."
When hearing about the meetup idea, Software Engineer Dave Musgrave thought it would be great to have a meetup just for software developers.
"Software is such a rapidly evolving field that it is difficult for engineers to stay on top of the latest and greatest tools and practices" Musgrave said. "When you find something new or great you want to shout it from the rooftops so other folks can know about it and possibly use it on their programs. When we can get engineers of similar interest in the same room it's amazing what connections can be made."
From there, the meetup team began working on a software meetup to bring working-level developers and software leads together so that they can meet each other and talk about similar challenges they face.
During the software meetup, lessons learned were shared between software developers that may save months of self-discovery.
"Even after one meetup I see significant value to the ARDEC workforce," said Gerry Gaeta, Advanced Small Arms Ballistic System Project Lead. "I truly believe that this working group will improve synergy across the base, reduce redundancies/repeated issues, leverage others lessons learned, and overall allow employees to become more effective and efficient."
The software meetup spurred the desire to meet up again. Members from the software community have created their own e-mail distribution list and are working on a forum or space to collaborate with other software developers.
Francisco Hernandez, a Cyber Security Specialist contractor, said he thinks "it is a great idea in order to move the ARDEC software process to the enterprise level, sharing resources, capabilities, and creating a knowledgebase in the SW area."
The meetup team is looking for other capability areas that would like to a meetup on their disciplines.
Software developers are "meeting up" again on June 23 at 1:30 p.m. at the Cannon Gate Conference Center.
Meetups can be held at any level at ARDEC.
If anyone has an idea for a meetup, please contact me (x1683, Kathleen.r.walsh.civ@mail.mil or Ryan Nielsen (x7722, ryan.d.nielsen@mail.mil).
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