Leading acquisition professionals in promoting workforce improvement, Navy Capt. Michelle Guidry was awarded the T. Michael Fish Quality of Worklife Award June 20 here.
Guidry, program manager for the Tactical Airlift, Adversary and Support Aircraft program (PMA-207), was recognized for transforming communication, culture, worklife balance and the work environment within her program office while improving alignment with Program Executive Officer, Air, ASW, Assault and Special Missions program (PEO (A)) and the Department of the Navy goals and objectives.
“It is an honor to be nominated by my team for this award and recognized by NAVAIR for what the workforce has accomplished,” Guidry said. “This award would not be possible without the support of my executive leadership team and the receptiveness of the program office during our journey of improvement.”
The T. Michael Fish award was developed to recognize excellence in a leader or leaders who make significant improvements to the quality of worklife for the Naval Air Systems Command workforce similar to what Fish accomplished during his tenure at NAVAIR. Throughout his 30-year career, Fish embraced the concept of improving the day to day work environment and made it a top priority in all leadership decisions.
“I have a unique perspective regarding this award and the award’s namesake, as I was chief of staff for T. Michael Fish in his last NAVAIR assignment as AIR-8.0A, shore station management,” said Tom Benedik, now the C/KC-130 deputy program manager for PMA-207. “I am certain that Mike Fish would be thrilled to thoroughly endorse Capt. Guidry as a leader who has enhanced her team’s leadership and training opportunities, has made and continues to make significant quality of worklife improvements, and accomplishes her mission, while she leads and inspires her workforce.”
According to the written nomination, Guidry’s efforts as a new program manager included: strategic alignment; organizational design improvements – aligning skills and balancing workload; and dramatically improving employees’ quality of worklife through targeted surveys, process improvements, enhanced training, improved team communications, and developing an awards recognition program.
Guidry’s leadership and dedication to worklife improvement is personified in an award recently created to recognize individual achievement. The quarterly “Step-up Award” is a combat boot of Guidry’s worn in Iraq while she was deployed as an individual augmentee. The boot serves as an award that is given out quarterly to someone in the program office who has stepped up to a recent challenge and is among the many new awards created to recognize excellence and other worklife enhancements since her assumption of command in 2010.
“Capt. Guidry has changed the culture of PMA-207 with her inspired leadership,” Benedik said. “With all that she has accomplished, nomina
