ARLINGTON, Va., - Improvements in the Army National Guard cannot come without hard work and continually striving for excellence, some of the Guard's process improvement experts reminded each other May 3.
The Army Guard recognized 32 states, which are the best at applying self-assessment and process improvement to their organizations, during the annual Army Communities of Excellence (ACOE) awards ceremony brought them here at the Army Guard Readiness Center.
"It starts with excellence," said Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Carpenter, acting director of the Army National Guard. "It starts with recognizing soldiers, recognizing organizations who have not just met the requirements, [but] that exceed the requirements, that strive (and) set the best and the highest standards that we have out there."
Guard officials described the ACOE program as "invaluable to the implementation of organization-wide improvement" to the readiness of the Guard's units, organizations and installations.
The Minnesota Army National Guard was the overall winner. Runners up included the Texas Army Guard, Georgia Army Guard and Iowa Army Guard, respectively.
"The Army Communities of Excellence of Award just underscores just how much the Minnesota Guard is able to achieve with the resources that it's given," said Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, who attended the awards ceremony. "This is a tribute to the leadership of our Guard … it's also a tribute to all Minnesotans who make up the organization, serving our country with tremendous distinction and tremendous courage."
It is the Minnesota Guard's fourth ACOE award as the top contender. Department of Defense officials also recognized them at the Pentagon today, with the other U.S. Army major commands contending for an overall ACOE title.
The Army states "the mission of the Army Communities of Excellence program is to provide, in a quality environment, excellent facilities and services, everywhere, always."
"We are all better organizations for the efforts that we put into the ACOE program," said Army Brig. Gen. Joe Kelly, director of the Joint Staff for the Minnesota Guard.
Kelly said he was a major when he first worked ACOE concepts. He credited the criteria behind ACOE with the state's successes in recruiting and readiness, as well as in improvements with their Soldier and family care programs.
Despite a lot of "frustration and failures" in applying ACOE, Kelly said they stuck with it, which is one reason for their success today.
"We believed that, if we stuck with this as our management doctrine, it would eventually pay fruit," he said. "We were committed to it, and we never quit."
In one example, their "Fort Minnesota" and "Beyond Yellow Ribbon" programs, developed using ACOE concepts, served as the model for the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program now in every state, through the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act.
Kelly said they also spent a lot of time during the last 15 years examining other organizations with ACOE.
"More than any other way, we learned about the criteria of what good organizations do, and don’t do, by being examiners," said Kelly. He added that they took the good ideas of other active duty, Guard and Reserve organizations and applied them.
Kelly said they never got comfortable with where we were at, and they continue to achieve next big thing through ACOE.
"In the end, we are in this thing together, to keep our National Guard, our Army and our nation strong in an era of persistent conflict and continuous deployment."