YPG employee is ATEC Command Employee of the Year
U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG)’s position at the forefront of Army modernization efforts wouldn’t be possible without the efforts of exceptional personnel.
Among those is Savanna Silva of the Ground Combat System Test Directorate
From military vehicles to tank and artillery cartridges, Silva has worked on many of YPG’s largest projects in her decade working here. Her most recent recognition, however, came for her efforts as COVID mitigation implementation lead for Project Convergence (PC), the Army’s largest demonstration project of the year hosted at YPG in the summer of 2020.
Silva was first recognized as the Army Test and Evaluation Command’s employee of the quarter in mid-November, and then selected weeks later as employee of the year. She was conducting a firing test when the news came out in an allYPG email.
“To be recognized is such an honor. It was very exciting and took me a minute to keep going. It was a fantastic feeling.”
The honor wasn’t the first in recognition of her performance in the Army’s large capabilities demonstration and campaign of learning—during the final week of the event, Lt. Gen. James Richardson, Deputy Commander of Army Futures Command, presented her with the Meritorious Civilian Service Award, the Army’s third highest such award. Silva is quick to add that YPG’s success in keeping COVID at bay during PC was a team effort.
“I couldn’t have done it without all the people who contributed to the effort. There were 21 other people who helped execute the mitigation plan.”
With over 900 support personnel and flag officers arriving from all over the Department of the Army to support PC, safely in-processing the visitors took the efforts of multiple personnel within YPG, including the YPG Health Clinic and the
YPG Police Department. Both the visitors and the YPG personnel directly supporting the effort were also required to take a COVID test upon arrival and at the conclusion of the event, as well as periodically throughout the duration of their weeks-long stay here.
“The team was highly functioning for seven weeks and didn’t have much ramp-up time. It was thanks to Eddy Patchet, who handpicked individuals for the team.”
Formulating the plan took weeks of work. To protect both YPG’s resident workforce and the hundreds of visiting personnel, a key safety concept was keeping those directly supporting PC in so-called ‘bubbles’ that were separate from each other. Visitors working on PC remained in several remote locations around YPG’s vast ranges during duty hours, and were asked to restrict their off-duty activities to only essentials like grocery shopping or purchasing gasoline.
“The command and control plan was a very comprehensive plan that I modified a couple of times throughout the event. It was unique because we didn’t have anything like it before—it wasn’t something that we could just copy from someone else.”
PC proceeded flawlessly, dramatically exceeding the expectations of the Army’s most senior leadership. No one contracted COVID during the weeks-long project, and the plan was adopted as a model to follow elsewhere within the Army.
Silva found the experience fruitful. “It was an awesome opportunity to be able to grow in a field I know very little about but was able to apply my engineering skills to. I’m appreciate of the people I work with and of being recognized.”