RICHMOND, Va. –
Defense Logistics Agency Aviation March 2023 employees of the month Shamika Davis and Jacob Kotula have demonstrated their initiative and skills to meet challenges and deliver material quickly and efficiently to warfighter.
Employee of the month is awarded to DLA Aviation non-supervisory civilian employees. Two recipients are selected based on individual general schedule pay levels, one from GS 1-9 (Category 1) and one from GS 10-13 (Category 2). Recipients receive a coin, a certificate of achievement and a cash award.
Davis, the Category 1 winner, is a materials expediter in DLA Aviation at Warner Robins Commodities Maintenance Group on Robins Air Force Base. Davis manages the material at the radome shop service center which houses and repairs parts belonging the nose assemblies of multiple aircraft, as well as material at the pseudo store where a mix of parts are stored and inventoried.
During the month of March, Davis’s SSC achieved 100% accuracy with monthly inventory as a direct result of her assistance. She maintained that perfection when issuing parts, while simultaneously reducing the average delivery time to the mechanics from 90 to 33 minutes.
“My passion on the job is to meet our mission and support the warfighter,” Davis says. “It’s important that everyone does their part to keep materials moving!”
Kotula, the Category 2 winner, is a V-22 Osprey weapon systems program manager within DLA Aviation’s Customer Operations Directorate’s Marine Corp Customer Facing Division. The V-22 is a joint service multirole combat aircraft utilizing tiltrotor technology to combine the vertical performance of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing aircraft.
Kotula was alerted to a failure in the V-22’s input quill assembly, which is a gearbox housing the aircraft’s clutch system. Due to the malfunction, a directive was sent ordering the IQA’s on the V-22’s in service to be replaced after 800 flight hours, reduced from the standard 1,200 hours, and resulting in 187 of the fleet of 376 aircraft being immediately grounded.
Kotula formed a viable strategy to reduce the delivery time of the kits. He worked with trusted mission partners, vendors, and DLA stakeholders to gather the information needed to accelerate the IQA’s replacement time, ultimately saving more than $3 million dollars and allowing over 50 of the IQA’s to be issued in March 2023.
When asked what’s the best part of his job, Kotula said, ““My job provides me a rare and rewarding opportunity to identify the change needed, make the change, and then see the results.”