ES team member completes leadership program

As the Information Management Officer for Enterprise Services (ES), Franz Alinsao coordinates the organization’s IT-related efforts with the Fort Belvoir Network Enterprise Center’s (NEC) various teams. For the last ten years, Alinsao has managed two dedicated desktop support technicians who are sent from the NEC to assist ES in addressing various IT issues ranging
from troubleshooting network issues, to planning, testing and implementing a specialized software deployment to the organization.

Throughout his tenure at ES, Alinsao has taken orders and dutifully fulfilled requirements passed down from the “Big Army.” The Emerging Enterprise Leaders (EEL) program he attended, however, allowed him to flip the script.

“My developmental assignment was with Army Cyber, and I got to work with G-3/5 Future Operations,” said Alinsao. “Army Cyber is basically the other side of PEO EIS. They create the requirements and EIS fulfills them. Gaining an understanding of how plans in the Army are being implemented and pushed down the chain enables me to foresee future opportunities and risks to better support the ES organization.”

Alinsao was one of 28 graduates in September from the year-long EEL program designed to help potential candidates become future leaders within the Army Acquisition Corps. Selected by former ES Project Director Tom Neff and former Deputy Project Director Keith Baylor, Alinsao attended five weeklong sessions split between Alexandria, Va. and Huntsville, Ala. The curriculum included the developmental assignment as well as courses in conflict resolution and leadership. 

“I was excited to go, because I wanted to learn how the Army is developing government civilians to be leaders for organizations,” the 10-year ES veteran said. “It gave me an opportunity to work with other organizations outside of my own, and see how their leaders apply their leadership styles with their respective teams.”

Alinsao’s favorite portion of the program was during week one, when participants completed a portion of the Acquisition Leadership Challenge program. “We did a portion of the Myers-Briggs type indicator, which is an introspective self-report questionnaire indicating differing  psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions,” said Alinsao. “It was interesting to see how the different personalities in the room would interact and it was a lot of fun applying methods for how to interact with types different than our own.”

Alinsao said that as a result of this program, he can now more easily pinpoint the root of IT issues he comes across in his current job. “I would definitely recommend this to my fellow ES co-workers,” he said. “The exposure you get will enable you to broaden your network, experience and knowledge scope.”