REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- A U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center software engineer was recognized for the development of a community-based mobile application.

Daniel Kolenich, executive producer of the Army Game Studio, received the Superior Civilian Service Award for the recently developed Redstone Explorer app at the Garrison Town Hall. The honor was presented by the Army Materiel Command's Deputy Commander, Lt. Gen. Larry Wyche.

According to his nomination packet, Kolenich is credited with superior service and exceptional performance while leading the project's concept development, technical execution and marketing.

The concept was developed by team members of the Aviation and Missile Command's 2016 Advanced Leadership Investment for Tomorrow Class.

"I was first contacted by the AdvLift team in April of 2016," Kolenich said. "They were exploring ways to improve the daily lives of everyone in the Team Redstone area for their project by consolidating information from multiple sources and improving communication from the Garrison to Team Redstone. They knew the Army Game Studio had website and mobile development experience and when we started talking about their ideas it was a perfect fit."

The Software Engineering Directorate's AGS, which specializes in game technology and app development, developed code for the Redstone Explorer app.

The app provides critical alerts, links to Team Redstone social media feeds, information about resources on Redstone, and maps indicating gates and gate traffic, as well as the locations of recreation and other services. The app allows for push notifications, empowering Team Redstone officials to communicate breaking news with users.

"It's an app made by Redstone for Redstone," said Markeeva Morgan, a NASA engineer and AdvLift member. "We wanted to be able to communicate with the community and with Team Redstone employees, in the most time critical and time sensitive way we can. We all have extremely important missions, and we're all very busy, so if we can help shave minutes off the day on ingress and egress, that's very critical," Morgan added.

The AGS team worked with the AdvLift members to define the requirements and gather the information for the app. Graphic designers created a layout and new logos for the app that would present well on mobile devices. Kolenich said his team was responsible for all of the design, art and programming development and some marketing materials, including posters and a video.

"It is a great honor to receive the Superior Civilian Service Award and I feel very blessed to be recognized, but it was a team effort with so many people at SED, AdvLift and the Garrison contributing to the success of the project," Kolenich said.

"The Redstone Explorer mobile application's success is directly attributable to Mr. Kolenich's contributions and preparation," said Allen Wampler, an AdvLift team member. "His exceptional performance, technical competence and selfless devotion directly contributed to the project's successful completion."

The Superior Civilian Service Award is the third highest civilian award and consists of a medal, lapel button, and citation certificate. It is granted by any commander, Brigadier General and above or civilian equivalent organizational heads.

The free app is available for download via the App Store and Google Play.

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U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to provide innovative research, development and engineering to produce capabilities for decisive overmatch to the Army against the complexities of the current and future operating environments in support of the Joint Warfighter and the Nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.