# August EOM awarded to Army CW4 in Richmond

/ Published Oct. 31, 2016
Richmond, Virginia, 
Defense Logistics Agency Aviation’s August Employee of the Month Award is Aviation’s only active duty Army Chief Warrant Officer 4, Kevin Ryan, a readiness officer for the Customer Operations Directorate. Ryan was presented the award by DLA Aviation’s Chief of Staff Steve Kinskie during a ceremony held Oct. 27 on Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia. 

Customer Operation’s Directorate’s Army Customer Facing Operation’s Officer Maj. Alex Shimabukuro nominated Ryan for the award and said during the month of August, Ryan distinguished himself by his superior performance and unwavering commitment to DLA’s top priority of keeping warfighter’s first. 

He said Ryan continuously seeks to achieve enterprise process excellence and Ryan directly influenced the Army customer facing division’s continuous process improvement by recognizing better ways to optimize DLA Aviation’s warfighter requisition focus and improving weapon systems readiness.

Keeping the warfighter first was the catalyst to the Army Aviation Readiness Dashboard [developed by Ryan] which provides the Army customer facing division a real-time snapshot to the entire Army Aviation fleet for all three components: Active, Reserves, and the National Guard. 

Shimabukuro said the effectiveness and simplicity of the readiness tool was embraced by DLA’s Army National Accounts Manager and was recently introduced during the DLA Army/Day event at the Pentagon, chaired by U.S Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4 Lt. Gen. Gustave Perna and DLA Director Andy Busch.

Shimabukuro said Perna found value in Ryan’s readiness tool and seeks to explore ways to automate his readiness dashboard. 

 “Ryan’ s resiliency to explore innovative opportunities continues to be groundbreaking beyond the DLA enterprise,” said Shimabukuro. “Ryan’s professional commitment is grounded in his resolve to provide effective and efficient solutions to our Army Aviation warfighters and his achievements on and off-duty reflect tremendous credit upon this command and the U.S. Army.”

The nomination packet stated Ryan’s volunteers his personal hours as an active member of the Cosby High School booster club, Midlothian Virginia, and for the past six years, every August, Ryan travels to Boston, Massachusetts, to volunteer as a member of the Home Base Organization, sponsored by the Red Sox Baseball Team and Massachusetts General Hospital who supports veterans in the Wounded Warrior Program and post 9-11 veterans and their families with clinical care, wellness, education and research and as of today the program has served more than 9,000 veterans.Kinskie presented the August EOM recipient, Ryan, with the awardpacket which includes a certificate, the choice of either a $700 check or a time-off award, and a one-month reserved parking space.

The EOM award is open to non-supervisory DLA Aviation civilian/military employees.  This is an individual award -- not a group award.  This award recognizes one employee, on a monthly basis, who has demonstrated meritorious action in one or more of the following categories:

•           Superior performance 

•           Innovative improvement 

•           Humanitarian service 

•           Teamwork with other employees 

•           Responsible for any savings to the Government 

•           Performance of an act or service that reflects positively on DLA.