January Warrior of the Month fights financial front

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Agneta Murnan
  • 71st Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  While matching budget allocations to future air, space and cyberspace power remains a battle of its own dimensions for the Air Force at-large, here at Vance Air Force Base 2nd Lt. Tara Nelson took up the fight to make the 71st Comptroller Squadron at Vance shine. In doing so, she became the January Warrior of the Month.

According to Maj. Monroe Neal, 71st Comptroller Squadron commander, Lieutenant Nelson spent countless hours preparing the Vance transition from an in-house voucher processing workflow to an Air Force Financial Services Center workflow at Ellsworth AFB, S.D.

"This is Air Force Financial Management's largest transformation effort since the Defense Finance and Accounting Service consolidation in 1995," Major Neal said.

"To transition Vance financial services, our squadron has worked hand in hand with Vance's Information Technology department to work out all of the many details, to better serve Vance customers," said Lieutenant Nelson. "The cutover to centrally-located processing of most military and travel vouchers should be complete in February, and its 24-hour call center should be up and running by October. The finance service counter will still be open and available to all Vance AFB customers as well."

Lieutenant Nelson's flight managed the Government Travel Card program ranked best in both the Air Education and Training Command and the Department of Defense since March 2005, which finished a delinquency-free 32-month streak in November.

Lieutenant Nelson served as the squadron Combined Federal Campaign representative and garnered more than $4,800 with a 73 percent squadron member participation rate. She is also looking forward to serving the financial needs of Team Vance as a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance representative for 2008.

"It has truly been a learning experience working with the upcoming transition, and I look forward to more challenges ahead," the Warrior of the Month said.