Applause thundered throughout the Fort Monroe Post Theater during an employee town hall on Aug. 11 when attendees learned the installation's Network Enterprise Center won the 2010 NEC of the Year Award in the continental U.S. small category.
Fort Monroe's NEC received the news Aug. 5 after it was announced during the LandWarNet Conference awards ceremony in Tampa, Fla. The small category award distinction refers to an NEC with up to 3,999 customer computer accounts.
The Monroe NEC also won theater and regional awards: the 7th Signal Command (Theater) NEC of the Year 2010, small category; and the 93rd Signal Brigade NEC of the Year 2010 (one of two brigades that make up the 7th SC).
At the award presentation, Garrison Commander Col. Anthony D. Reyes acknowledged the hard work and efforts of the NEC team by asking them to stand up for a round of applause. The applause was a much appreciated affirmation of the team's work, said NEC Director Boyd Greever.
"As I am sort of a history buff, I'll use Ben Franklin's famous quote, 'We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately' to sort of give you an idea (of) what I think about Army IT (information technology) and NEC teamwork.
"While the award is a great honor to me personally, it's more of a testament to the excellent work ethic of the NEC team members working toward a common goal - meeting Army Enterprise IT requirements and providing quality customer service to the garrison, the tenant commands and a four-star headquarters on a daily basis.
"Also, our excellent working relationship with the tenant commands' information management officers was a contributing factor to this award since they in many instances are the change agents for us to improve processes and procedures that result in better customer service."
Judging criteria for the CONUS small category award was based on how well the installation addressed specific goals. The team's ability to provide an innovative solution to resource shortfalls despite an upcoming Base Realignment and Closure was one of the deciding points for the award to be given to Monroe, said Richard Myers, chief of NEC's Service Management Division.
"I believe we won because we worked with our customers to focus on what we can do within our resource constraints rather than what services needed to be cut," Myers said. "Instead, we have focused on processes and tools that allow us to deliver quality services with our available resources."
Also, Monroe was judged on their contributions toward Army Knowledge Management goals. In this arena, NEC implemented SharePoint throughout the garrison so employees can manage documents and exchange information easily and quickly, as stated in the award submission package. For example, a SharePoint site was developed for the garrison's Crisis Action Team.
Judges also measured Monroe's progress toward the Global Network Enterprise Construct - transforming loosely-affiliated independent networks into a single global integrated enterprise; development of innovative solutions to improve and sustain the delivery of Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Information Management services; and display of team-building morale and improvement of employee relations.
"Innovation is key. By identifying and leveraging technology, we can deliver a high caliber of customer service," Myers said.
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