HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. – After more than 36 years of civilian service, Jane Krolewski, former technical director of the U.S. Army Evaluation Center (AEC) Readiness and Analytics Evaluation Directorate (RAED), bids farewell to her friends, family and colleagues during her retirement celebration May 13 at the Hopkins Farm Brewery.
Col. Alex MacCalman, RAED’s director, hosted the celebration to honor Krolewski for her civilian service to the U.S. Army.
“We really want to appreciate and celebrate Jane’s contributions, dedication, and service to her country,” MacCalman said, as he praised her on a job well done in her career. “I want to recognize her professionalism, her passion to the mission and to the discipline of reliability, and the impact that Jane has made to the Army.”
Krolewski served as the RAED technical director since October 2013.
Krolewski was born and raised in Town of Tonawanda, New York, where she said she lived in the same house for 20 years. During that time, she graduated in 1972 from Kenmore East Senior High School.
Krolewski fondly reflected on how living in one place for so long impacted her.
“It always felt like a big family even though we did not have any relatives living near our town,” Krolewski said. “Our neighbors became our family, and we often celebrated holidays together.”
After high school graduation, Krolewski enrolled in the University of Buffalo and graduated in the class of 1982 with her Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering.
During her last year of college, a death in her family led to her uprooting herself from her hometown.
“My parents moved to Baltimore while I was in college. My dad died my senior year in college so I moved to Baltimore after I graduated college to help my mom out,” Krolewski said.
Relocating to Maryland was the beginning of her professional career path development.
Early in her career, Krolewski briefly worked in private industry in 1983 as a chemical engineer for the Catalyst Research Corporation in Baltimore, Maryland.
“I worked in the research department, where we made thermal batteries for missiles,” Krolewski said. “I worked there for less than a year before I started with the U.S. Army.”
Then July 1984, Krolewski entered the Army civilian workforce for one year of full time training as a quality and reliability engineer at the U.S. Army Materiel Command Intern Training Center at Red River Army Depot.
From 1985-2009, she worked for the U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA), which is now called the Data and Analysis Center.
During her time at AMSAA, Krolewski mentioned that she was the Chief of the Mobility, Power and Energy branch. “I worked with the team and we stood up the new branch, expanded analysis capabilities to include vehicle dynamics M&S for mobility and stability analysis, and expanded M&S from fuel consumption to other power and energy areas.”
Krolewski shared that she was part of a team that worked to implement new reliability methods (including Physics of Failure) across the Army, and that the work was very exciting.
While Krolewski worked at AMSAA, Krolewski obtained her Master of Science degree in operations research from George Washington University in 1994, which laid the foundation for her future leadership positions with AEC.
In 2009-2010, AEC brought Krolewski onboard as an operations research analyst to serve as a division chief for the Reliability Availability Maintainability (RAM) Directorate.
Krolewski held several technical director positions while working in AEC. She served as the RAM and Evaluation Sciences Directorate technical director from 2010-2013, and the technical director for RAED from 2013-2021. While serving under RAED, she was dual hatted as the temporary technical director for the Soldier Evaluation Directorate from late 2015 to early 2017.
“I was an operations research analyst working in suitability,” Krolewski said. “The Army trained me to be a Reliability Engineer, and reliability is part of suitability, and I just loved the work from the start!”
According to Krolewski, her leadership philosophy was to be a servant leader. She loved to help people at work, and loved to help people find jobs.
“As a technical director at AEC, my job was mostly helping people to accomplish their job to support AEC’s mission. It was very rewarding!”
Krolewski shared how she enjoyed assisting with AEC recruiting at job fairs for new employees and interns over the last few years and how rewarding it was to watch new graduates grow in their positions as evaluators.
Krolewski said her job responsibilities included making sure that products, methodology and initiatives supported the mission for U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) and AEC.
Krolewski considered the most rewarding part of her job was to be aid others in achieving their career goals and accomplishing the mission.
“I think that I helped develop many people in RAED and that I am leaving behind a great group of people that will continue on with the mission,” Krolewski said.
As Krolewski reflected on her career, she imparted words of wisdom to those who are coming behind her still building their career. “You need to focus on people skills to work well with others, and learn to be persistent and flexible. There is a time to be persistent and a time to be flexible and you need to know which is right at the moment.”
Krolewski is married to Thomas, husband of 35 years, and together they have two children: Adam and Jessica.
Life after retirement for Krolewski includes traveling, visiting family, and improving her physical and spiritual health.
MacCalman presented Krolewski with the Department of the Army’s Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, signed by the Honorable John E. Whitley, Acting Secretary of the Army; and the Ordnance Order of Samuel Sharpe, signed by Col. (Ret) Gregory A. Mason.
“I just want to thank everyone that has been part of my work life,” Krolewski said. “It may sound cliché, but I have learned from everyone that I met. It’s been a great ride, but the best part is just about to start!”
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