USASAC employee recognized as top Interagency Partner

United States Army Security Assistance Command’s Stefanie Adkins, Country Program Manager – Forward for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), recently was selected and recognized as the J5 Quarterly Award winner as an ‘Interagency Partner.’

The award highlights employees for their contributions to the command.

“I was really taken back and surprised. I’ve worked hard to try and cultivate a relationship with AFRICOM, where it’s a push and pull of information. Simple constant communication about the everyday things we do as a command has so much impact in enabling our Desk Officers and Offices of Defense Cooperation in building key relationships, which is at the core of what security assistance, is all about. It means so much, it’s hard to describe,” said Adkins.

The news of Adkins’ recognition came as no surprise to Fred Heaggans, Deputy Director for both of USASAC’s U.S. Europe Command and U.S. Africa Command FMS cases. Heaggans and Adkins have worked together for nearly 4 years in both U.S. Central Command and now in AFRICOM.

“Stefanie is hardworking, dedicated, proactive and a forward thinker, a true foreign military sales professional. She is extremely knowledgeable of all aspects of security assistance and the FMS process,” said Heaggans.

Heaggans added that Adkins knowledge, coupled with her FMS experience, equates to immediate responses to any questions or concerns coming from AFRICOM leadership headquarters.

“She is a team player and has the right combination of FMS knowledge and experience to not only be successful, but thrive at her current position,” said Heaggans.

As the Country Program Manager – Forward for AFRICOM, Adkins feeds status updates about foreign military sales programs, provides major milestones and timelines for the necessary steps leading to success.

Adkins added the key for her in being successful as a CPM-Forward, is the willingness to process the information and trends she is seeing, and then break them down into steps throughout the process that can lead to improvements and greater success for all. Adkins, as a CPM-Forward, carries the mission of USASAC and all of its capability to the Geographic Combatant Commands (GCC) for the greater good.

“I really enjoy seeing a bigger picture view of the impact that SA (security assistance) has in executing the NDA and the GCC Campaign Plan. So much of what we do at USASAC can feel like a process, and at our level, it can be easy to lose sight of the final result. But at the end of it all, that widget that gets shipped, or that case that gets signed, has so much of a bigger impact,” said Adkins.

USASAC leads the U.S. Army Materiel Command’s Security Assistance Enterprise through developing and managing security assistance programs and FMS cases to build partner capacity, support geographic Combatant Command engagement strategies and strengthen U.S. global partnerships.”