Fort Belvoir, Va. –
DCAA recently announced the winners of annual awards in the professional support staff and administrative technical categories. These employees represent the best in their field.
Administrative/Technical Employee of the Year: Ms. Rizza Brown.
Ms. Brown is a Management Analyst in the Central Region Special Programs Group where she uses her creativity, enthusiasm, and knowledge to create tools to improve efficiency. She created and continues to improve the usefulness of the regional performance management reports, which are vital to performance monitoring, resource allocations, and budget execution. Her supervisor, Douglas Henry, says of Ms Brown, "in the three years I have worked with Rizza, she has met every new task with a smile. Her positive, professional attitude and her dedication to her role in our Agency’s mission has resulted in her producing work that is so impressive I consistently receive requests to share it with other teams and regions." An example of this was her redesign of the Central Region sharepoint site. In order to do so, she learned the software and asked members of the region what would make the site most helpful. She created the site and now maintains it. She was asked by the other regions for assistance as they built their sites, which she happily provided. Ms. Brown also collaborated with headquarters, regional leadership, managers, and others to develop a method to monitor all the workforce’s assignments. This effort involved extensive coordination across the Agency for which she received numerous peer awards for being an exceptional team player. Ms. Brown demonstrated great initiative and is always looking for more ways to contribute. Regional Audit Manager John Gilbert said of Ms. Brown, "Rizza is amazing! The support she provides is priceless and she is an asset to the Agency!"
Outstanding Supervisory Administrative Professional of the Year: Ms. Lorrain Marino.
Ms. Marino has been with DCAA for 33 years and is currently assigned to the Field Detachment where she supervises multiple personnel in multiple offices. Ms. Marino is sought out for her knowledge and expertise. She is an ideal trainer because of her strong communication skills and positive attitude toward training. This past year, she was instrumental in bringing on board a new member of the professional support staff (PSS) and also trained a current PSS member in the highly specialized and classified areas of the Field Detachment. Ms. Marino is a strong believer in teamwork and assigns tasks based on requirements and not necessarily where the PSS member is assigned. In this manner, she is able to equally spread the workload among all team members and ensure each is proficient in all tasks. Ms. Marino is a long time member of the DCAA’s Professional Support Advisory Board (PSAB) and was the chair for the last two years. Under her leadership, the PSAB has created onboarding and shadowing pilot program for new PSS members. Ms. Marino consistently performs her work at a high level, is committed to the Agency’s mission, and is an invaluable asset to the Agency.
Professional Support Staff Employee of the Year: Ms. Maria (Serina) Rodriguez.
Ms. Rodriguez supported four offices in Northern Virginia, about 150 employees. She had a tremendous impact on the staff and exemplifies the DCAA values in all that she does. In the past year she volunteered to send out over 200 letters notifying contractors of the new Contractor Submission Portal (CSP) for incurred cost audits and tracked requests for extensions and submissions received to accurately report the status. She also worked with managers and auditors to develop a FAQ document so she could accurately respond to contractors’ questions on the CSP freeing up the auditors to do their audits. Ms. Rodriguez also played a significant role by leading the support staff in moving audit papers from one organization to another when offices were combined, a task requiring multiple steps in several systems. This large amount of work was completed in several weeks while those involved still performed a normal workload. Her innovative approach, work ethic, team spirit, and positive attitude make her a true asset to the office. Ms. Rodriguez recently left DCAA for another opportunity and will be greatly missed.