On Tuesday, April 6th 2021 at the virtual ICEAA Washington Chapter Joint Workshop and Annual Meeting, three of our very own Technomicians received a prestigious award.  Kaitlyn Blair won the Junior Analyst of the Year award.  Adam James won the Technical Achievement of the Year award. Lastly, Michelle Petre won the Leadership/Management of the Year award.  It was a big, exciting day for Technomics indeed!  We are so very proud and happy for Kaitlyn, Adam, and Michelle.  Congratulations!

How and Why These Awards are Given Out

Every year, the ICEAA Washington Capital Area Chapter (WCAC) recognizes exceptional achievement in our local cost estimating community.  Any member can submit nominations for the awards in the areas of Team Achievement, Leadership/Management, Technical Achievement, and Junior Analyst.  A special committee carefully evaluates the nominations and selects the winners.

These awards are not given to just anyone.  The individuals that receive these awards possess the finest characteristics of an innovator, a leader, a mentor, a trainer, and a trailblazer.  They are constantly learning, growing, creating, sharing, and collaborating.  They are hard workers doing impactful work and pushing themselves and others to explore, investigate, and embrace complex analytical concepts and tools that create efficiencies, improvements, and ultimately change.  Technomicians past and present embody these characteristics and traits.  This is who we are and we are proud of it.

This year, four awards were up for grabs and three Technomics Employee Owners won an award.  This keeps the tradition of Technomicians receiving awards both at the WCAC level and at the International Association level year after year.

Kaitlyn Blair - Junior Analyst of the Year Award 

Kaitlyn Blair was nominated by her client at NASA’s Cost Estimating, Modeling, & Analysis (CEMA) Office.  Her client believes that Kaitlyn is an exemplary of a talented analyst that continues to challenge herself and others for continual improvement and knowledge sharing.  Over the past year, Kaitlyn assumed the role of Parametric Estimator in the CEMA organization and performed outstanding work in support of Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) Mission Planning Lab (MPL) by completing estimates for VTXO and HSP instruments on the customer's aggressive schedule.  She consistently demonstrates a high level of understanding of complex technical aerospace engineering design specifications and cost drivers of the systems by presenting numerous cost estimating tools and techniques to key decision makers.  Despite her junior status, Kaitlyn is outgoing and collaborative with Customer Teams, frequently asking detailed technical questions, presenting cost analysis results, as well as defending her analytic methods and cost estimates to senior customers and colleagues.

Adam James - Technical Achievement of the Year Award

Adam James was nominated by his client for his work in supporting the Joint Program Office Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JPO JLTV). The innovative model that Adam developed for JPO JLTV is directly – and in near real time – responsive to warfighter needs.  It naturally expands the scope of what cost analysts “typically” do to also include what cost analysts can – and should – do in order to provide the best value and support to the government.  Adam’s model helped the JLTV program office go from Army requirements, to trucks on contract, to trucks rolling off the manufacturing line, to trucks on trains and ships, and finally to trucks in the hands of Soldiers.  Adam’s unique model is the integration and streamlining of the work performed by operations research (OR) analyst and cost analyst.  Adam developed the combined optimization and cost model in a way that is entirely “input driven”.  As a result, changes can be made to any input parameter – whether operational or cost related – and the entire set of results is produced in less than an hour’s time (whereas prior analyses took days to weeks).

Michelle Petre - Leadership/Management of the Year Award 

Michelle Petre was nominated for her leadership and management contributions to the profession of cost estimating and analysis.  Michelle is the Defense Analytics-Based Program Management (DAPM) Practice Area Director for Technomics.  As such, she has profit and loss responsibility over DAPM and is accountable for the technical delivery, career progression, and professional development of over 60 analysts, or almost 40% of Technomics’ workforce, ranging from new college hires to seasoned Subject Matter Experts.  Michelle also manages DAPM’s largest client (USN PEO IWS 2.0), and a Technomics project team comprised of 20 analysts. This client has programs in a variety of stages of the acquisition life cycle requiring varying forms of support including data management, estimate and tool development, and earned value management.  Michelle led the team to exceed client expectations primarily through enabling collaboration, teamwork, and innovation.  By equipping her team with the latest data applications, such as Power BI and R, they improved the efficiency and transparency of cost and EVM support. The culture Michelle has instilled encourages everyone to leverage and implement each other’s advancements across programs.  By sharing tools and techniques, the staff and client deliverables are consistently evolving with the latest advancements in the profession.

Congratulations Kaitlyn, Adam, and Michelle!  Clearly so deserving.  Technomics is so very proud and happy for you all!