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United States Army Aberdeen Test Center Commander Presents Coins to Recognize Exceptional Efforts by 2 ATC Technicians

By Bruce DrakeApril 13, 2022

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United States Army Aberdeen Test Center Commander COL Timothy E. Matthews recently presented ATC Command Coins on April 4th to Small Arms Maintenance Facility Lead Justin Dawson and Engineering Technician Dan Opie for their exceptional efforts in ensuring that their department’s services schedule on their equipment had been brought up to date and in preparation for the upcoming months of increased summer workloads for the Command.

“It was recognized that we had a backlog of completed services on our equipment due to COVID delays and personnel shortages last October and we soon realized that we needed to get them completed and back into spec as soon as we could and these two men took on the mission in addition to their regular work and they just knocked it out of the park,” said COL Matthews as he presented the two men with the newly-redesigned Command Coins.

“We knew we had a large backlog of about 1100 services to be completed on the equipment within our division and we just took it month by month at first,” said Lead Technician Justin Dawson. “Once we got a handle of the scope of the work it was a simple matter of adding that into our regular workload of scheduled testing cycles,” he added.

“The nice thing about this whole effort was that we were able to get a better idea of the scope of the services required for our work while also identifying new equipment we could put into regular maintenance or remove old equipment from our schedule if it was no longer needed,” Engineering Technician Dan Opie said.

“Once we got past the “Shock and Awe” of the number at first and started working on them, it became second nature for us to just go get that extra piece to be serviced during our workday and then before we knew it, we had completed the backlog 3 months faster than we first forecast,” said Dawson.

“Getting all that equipment back within the proper Army maintenance schedules while maintaining their regular workload is truly commendable and it was an honor for me to give them both the first of the newly redesigned Command Coins,” said COL Matthews. “The new coins were redesigned to reflect the 66,000 acres of the Aberdeen Testing Center as well as the Army’s new Modernization Priorities and how ATC is working every day to meet those requirements. I look forward to presenting more of these coins for excellent performance by other members of our command in the future also.”

Photo caption

Aberdeen Test Center (ATC) Commander, COL Timothy E. Matthews explains the new Command Coin design to Engineering Technician Dan Opie and Lead Technician Justin Dawson who are with the Small Arms Maintenance Facility on ATC at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD on 4 April 2022.