Corrections_Today_March_April_2021_Vol.83_No.2

officers may serve more than one term if reelected. You may have noticed us in the past if you have ever attended either an ACAWinter Conference or Summer Congress of Corrections as we are all sitting together in the front right side chairs facing the stage. Most of us are looking sharp in uniform but many of us are now retired civilians or contractors working in our respective systems wear- ing our “Sunday Best.” I have personally been sitting front and right since 1991 and amongst the civilians am still considered a young pup. It has been a wonderfully rewarding committee to belong to and perhaps one of our greatest contributions each year is to publicly recognize our best. Each year, between January to April, our awards committee collects packages from any of the facilities interested in nominating a service member to com- pete and be recognized as “The Best of the Best.” The nominees are separated and compete against members of their particular branch with the individual winners being ultimately recognized. The awards committee has their hands full each year as each nominee is a true professional, dedicated to their work, and doing great things to advance our corrections systems, lead and train their subordinates, and give back to our communities and positively impact our customers. Once each indi- vidual service member is selected the

to watch our world change as the year progressed. In spite of these changes, we pushed on and, although a little later than normal, we identified our best and brightest, pro - cured our trophies and contacted our winners’ commands. As we mailed out our trophies, we asked each command to please provide a suitable formation and presentation of the awards in front of their peers and to please take pic- tures and send them back to us. This year’s winners were Staff Sergeant Matthew Oli- ver, representing the United States Army, Gunners Mate 2 nd Class Patrick Obrien, representing the United States Navy, Master Sergeant Michael Kohne representing the United States Air Force, and Gunnery Sergeant Mikael Marcy, representing the United States Marine Corps. Please join me in recognizing these fine young patriots and as we say in the Marine Corps: Semper Fidelis! Jim Adams is a retired Marine Corrections Officer, the Civilian Technical Director of the Naval Consolidated Brig Charleston Detachment Chesapeake, an ACA Auditor, a Certified Jail Manager, a member of the ACA since 1991, a life member of the Military Corrections Committee and a two-term Chair of the MCC. He said he is “turning the reins of the MCC over to the capable hands of Mr. John Pucciarelli, Deputy Director, Navy Corrections and Programs in early February.”

Committee Chair notifies the Ser - vice Branch Heads who inform the command element who nominated the winner. Winners are invited and funded to attend ACA’s Congress of Corrections where they are presented their awards at our semi-annual com- mittee meeting. What an honor it is to share the stage with these fine young men and women as they receive their awards. As the MCC Chair, I get very excited being involved in this process as I hope you can tell from my writing. This past year, as a result of COVID, we had to forego the ac- tual awards ceremonies for the first time that I can recall. We solicited nominees early in the year expecting things to be conducted normally only

Photos courtesy Jim Adams, Naval Consolidated Brig

From left: Staff Sergeant Matthew Oliver. CWO3 Chris Nichols (left) and Gunnery Sergeant Mikael Marcy (right).

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