Team Achievement Awards

Congratulations to the winners of the CY2023 SDFMTeam Achievement Awards! 

This award category recognizes small and large teams for outstanding accomplishments within the functional fields of membership.

Large Team

Distinguished – DFAS myPay Battle Response Team

Team Lead: Elizabeth A. Rosby

Team Members:

• Keith Strom
• Kenyon Porter
• Travis May
• Meg Hart
• Josh Rapke
• Steve Spesard
• Cassy Plicka
• Kevin Bitz, CDFM
• Danyelle Wanton
• Justin Orr
• Ethan Kibler
• Susan Marbach
• Jodie Puskar
• Shelley Sherman
• Ginger Townsell
• Anthony Wilson
• Keethan Kleiner
• Aaron Silvers
• Jonathan Petricini

Combating fraud that changes attack vectors daily is difficult. The enterprise-wide myPay Battle team acted swiftly to identify fraudulent activity and implement measures to safeguard information, preventing over $1.2M in funds diversion and going above and beyond to protect myPay users.

Meritorious – Navy FBWT Team

Team Lead: Jeffrey J. Wuorinen

Team Members:

• Nathan Gott
• Catherine Ahern
• Bart Pressel
• Anthony Velez
• Beth Hetman
• Jennifer Herthneck
• Kathy Young
• Samya Ghaffari
• Emily Morrow
• Jennifer Verrona
• Gary Franklin
• Gwen Hurd
• Christi Gielink
• Lisa Tedeschi
• Leah Kuhlmann
• Andrew Cooper
• Edward Roback
• Jessica Brown
• Haley Klier

After several years effort, Navy’s Fund Balance with Treasury material weakness for General Funds was downgraded to a significant deficiency in 2023. This success was the result of collaborative efforts of the Navy Office of Financial Operations, Defense Finance and Accounting Service and Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer.

Small Team

Distinguished – Air Force Accounting Operations Center (AFAOC) Forensic Analysis Team

Team Lead: Jeannette Beer

Team Members:

• Thomas J. Souza
• Jeffrey K. Isom
• Justin Gonzalez
• Kelly Papineau, CDFM
• Zhane Woodall
• Amanda Robbins

The AFAOC Forensic Analysis Team focused on dormant open balances, identifying documents with no activity, posing questions if documents were over-funded and may be reduced; early identification enabled re-utilization of funds within Current Year and minimized future year fall-out. Their efforts impacted 11,469 documents with value of $2.3B.

Meritorious – USARNORTH Southwest Border Team

Team Lead: Marcela Colley

Team Members:

• Philip Crawford
• Diane Barnes
• SFC Dora Zabava
• SFC Joshua Mesec
• SSG Darnell E Crain

For exceptional achievement while serving as part of the ARNORTH G8 Southwest Border team during RFA23 and RFA24 activities along the border. Due to your experience, customer service, and expert financial guidance to over 2,500 Soldiers led to the overall success to the organization and ARMY’s mission.

Financial Systems/Digital Transformation Category

Distinguished – The Gilean Financial Transformation Team

Team Lead: Denise Dulee

Team Members:

• Jessica Jones
• Jennifer Lee
• Michael Brost
• Charles Flamand
• Alexander Gornik
• Danielle Schager
• Catara Pack
• Angela Caudle
• Tena Meriwether
• Tameika Roland
• Jason Comfort
• Scott Weir
• Charles Rutkowski
• Russell “Blake” Todd
• Jeffrey Mullins
• Lisanne Sykes
• James Wilder

The Gilean Financial Transformation Team has provided the Agency a program-level system that aggregates functional information silos into a single system providing validated data, cross-referenced facilitating real-time decision-making and reporting. Current and future development indicate future impacts and savings will further enhance confidence in the program office reporting.

Meritorious – AFRL/RGF Team

Team Lead: Candice Lock

Team Members:

• Erin Dippold
• Stella Diaz
• Christopher Dillon
• Tyler Eichhorn
• Alison Gahris
• Jacob Ly
• Jennifer Maxie
• Aaliyah Patten
• Jacquelyn Suhr
• Dustin Test
• Paige Van Der Sluijs
• Monique Garcia
• John Kirch
• Gregory Collins
• Jennifer Huntington

The RGF AFWERX team is leading the charge in digitizing the FM landscape through automation, technology advancement, and process improvements for the high visibility top innovation program of the Air Force (AFWERX), as well as implementing these digital efforts across the Directorate! The team drives innovation to secure our future!