Rachael Raposa, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Division’s Regional Contracting Chief, received TAD’s “Employee of the Year Award” for 2018 by TAD Commander Col. Mark C. Quander during a ceremony at the TAD headquarters in Winchester, Va., March 28, 2019.
During the ceremony, Quander praised Raposa for her contracting expertise, saying she has made an indelible difference at TAD. “The Division couldn’t provide world class service without world class contracting support,” and Rachael has led her team in providing that support to our stakeholders,” Quander said.
Raposa was dual-hatted for three months after her arrival, working as both the Middle East District and Division Chief of Contracting. During that time, she and her team conducted a comprehensive acquisition process and document review for the Transatlantic Afghanistan (TAA) District, reviewing more than 150 contract files to help TAA prepare for a HQ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-directed inspection. She worked on improving acquisition metrics across the Division, resulting in all “green” Key Performance Indicators for contracting (cKPI) -- currently the only USACE Division with this status. And, and through her leadership established a “Delivering Small Projects” team to review current processes, policies, and regulations, and determine the feasibility of scaling USACE business processes to effectively meet the needs of TAD customers.
She also oversaw the creation and implementation of a Field Ordering Officer program that now allows on-site purchases to be made in TAD’s areas of responsibility where there is limited contracting support. She was delegated the authority to conduct Senior Contracting Official level Peer Reviews for four key acquisitions valued at $250 million each, allowing the Middle East District the expedite issuance solicitation and resultant awards in support of high profile projects to meet aggressive acquisition milestones.
Raposa and her team also developed and deployed an On-The-Job training program for TAA, TAM and TAD’s deployed Task Forces, where they taught a variety of acquisition related topics. Raposa also traveled to Afghanistan to provide face-to-face training to a wide range of professional disciplines on contract administration and source selection, and held a module for customers on using paperless contract files across organizational boundaries.
In her “spare time,” Raposa also trained the TAD staff on the Federal Acquisition Regulation and volunteered to facilitate sessions for Corps of Engineers Leadership Development Program candidates.
In his remarks at the awards ceremony, Quander said Raposa “stood in the gap to successfully perform the duties of both the TAD Regional Chief of Contracting and the Middle East District Chief of Contracting” prior to the arrival of the TAM contracting chief. “Your efforts directly contributed to ensuring TAD delivers the program at the speed of relevance despite our manpower shortfall,” he said.
As part of her remarks, Raposa thanked her contracting team and the TAD larger team for their continued efforts and support