Photo By C.J. Lovelace | Bill Sovitsky is pictured in February 2024 in his official U.S. Army Medical Logistics...... read more read more
FORT DETRICK, Md. -- As a senior U.S. Air Force NCO, Bill Sovitsky was a medical maintenance subject-matter expert and enjoyed teaching, training and mentoring younger Airmen.
It’s a role he’s reprised many times in his federal civilian career at Fort Detrick, where he has worked in Army medical acquisitions and sustainment roles for the past two decades.
At the end of March, the Baltimore native will call it a career after 40 total years of service, including 20 in uniform, as he retires from Army Medical Logistics Command.
“It’s been super rewarding being able to mentor and influence people and hear that feedback about how I was able to affect their career,” said Sovitsky, 62, who currently works for AMLC’s Integrated Logistics Support Center, or ILSC. “That’s been the most meaningful part for me as I look back.”
The ILSC, which synchronizes acquisition and sustainment throughout the life cycle of medical materiel for the operational force, has expanded rapidly over the past year, bringing on new personnel and expanding capabilities to better support the needs of the warfighter.
With the influx of employees, some brand new to federal civilian service, Sovitsky took it upon himself to provide training to quickly bring them up to speed on the complexities of AMLC’s business as the Army’s Life Cycle Management Command for medical materiel.
“We need people to be able to hit the ground running,” said Pam Wetzel, director of the ILSC’s Readiness and Sustainment Directorate. “Bill’s knowledge and ability to articulate that expertise was invaluable to the development of our team.”
Sovitsky, a team chief within R&S’s Product Support Integration Division since 2022, said he’s enjoyed finishing his career in a command headquarters environment, where he could put his experience in medical maintenance, acquisitions and strategic sustainment to good use.
“We reach back into the acquisition to influence the process to ensure sustainment is taken into consideration, but then we also support forward, supporting the warfighter,” he said. “Once medical devices are fielded, now we’re part of their life cycle management.
“We’re right in the middle of that and I find that to be a really exciting position to be in.”
‘I’m all in’
For Sovitsky’s entire life, someone in his family has been serving in the military.
Growing up, his father served -- 26 years in the Army. His brothers combined for over 30 years between the Army and Navy. Now, Sovitsky’s son is currently serving, following his father’s footsteps in the Air Force.
“I don’t really know a life outside of the military,” he said.
The family was all Army and Navy until Sovitsky decided to join the Air Force, where he worked initially as an electronics technician when he started his career in 1983.
“My brother urged me to go do something with my brain and not be a combat Soldier right out of high school, like him,” Sovitsky said.
Sovitsky’s first assignment sent him to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he worked on the launch control communication systems for an Air Force ballistic missile program.
He later transitioned to working on mainframe computer systems at what’s known now as Joint Base Andrews, just outside Washington, D.C. About that time, mainframe computers were starting to be phased out in favor of newer PCs, prompting the Air Force to offer technicians a chance to change career fields.
It turned out to be a watershed moment in Sovitsky’s career.
A friend who worked at the hospital on base urged Sovitsky to consider medical maintenance. After visiting the maintenance shop one day, he was hooked.
“It wasn’t just electronics,” Sovitsky said. “It was electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics, x-ray, dental, compressed gases … there was so much to learn here. I knew the electronics side of it, but I didn’t really know that other stuff. Then you have to understand how the body functions, working with doctors.
“I was like, I’m all in.”
Despite it being a difficult field to break into, Sovitsky was selected and transitioned to medical maintenance in 1990. Thirteen years later, he retired in 2003 as a master sergeant running the medical maintenance shop at Travis Air Force Base in California.
“I wanted to transition out when I was still young enough to have a second career,” Sovitsky said.
He wasted little time, almost immediately finding a contract position at Fort Detrick after his active-duty retirement. It was a homecoming for he and his family as they returned to their native Maryland.
Civilian service
Sovitsky worked as a contractor for about four years, supporting the Air Force’s operational testing program for medical devices.
In 2007, he formally entered federal civilian service when he was hired by the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency and worked as an equipment specialist for the program management, or PM, office.
For almost a decade, Sovitsky supported integrated product teams, or IPTs, attended test events and worked on numerous modernization projects.
In 2016, he joined the ranks of the Technology Assessment and Requirements Analysis, or TARA, team, a job that involved evaluating high-tech capital equipment for replacement in different military hospitals around the globe.
“That was a fun job,” Sovitsky said. “We traveled all over the United States. We traveled to Hawaii, Alaska, Germany, Italy, Japan. It was great.
“But, after traveling for a year and a half, I wanted to be home more often.”
Sovitsky next returned to the PM as a product manager. There, he worked alongside a longtime friend and colleague, Diego Gomez-Morales.
They both joined AMLC in its Medical Maintenance Policies and Analysis, or M2PA, cell during the command’s initial formation in 2019.
“Bill is a pragmatic individual with an outstanding work ethic and passion for the improvement of how we perform medical maintenance for the DOD, not just the Army,” Gomez-Morales said. “He is one of the most professional individuals I have ever met. Always calm, cool and collected.”
Another close colleague, Rajal Ganatra, has worked with Sovitsky in different capacities over her 15 years of civilian service, starting when she joined USAMMA in 2009. Like countless others over the years, Sovitsky went above and beyond to assist her as she got up to speed, she said.
“Because of him, I was able to pick up logistics engineer responsibilities at USAMMA effectively and efficiently, which was a great achievement for me as a person with a nonmilitary background,” said Ganatra, a logistics management specialist at AMLC.
“Since then, he’s been a great mentor to me and it’s become second nature to reach out to him when I need professional guidance,” she said.
A leader and mentor
With about a month to go before he leaves civilian service, Wetzel had clear direction for Sovitsky’s last priority before retirement.
“I charged Bill with formulating a wider training program initiative before he departs,” she said. “In the time I’ve had with Bill, it was immediately apparent that he completely understands the acquisition process and medical materiel in the field, and what it needs.”
Wetzel said Sovitsky’s knowledge in those areas and knowing how they interact made him “a huge asset to our team.”
“That’s expanded by the fact that he has the ability to articulate that to our junior personnel,” she added. “We have grown the R&S Directorate by a huge percentage, brought on many new civilians, and in doing that, I could always rely on him to train our personnel -- to recognize where they were and where they needed to be with their acquisition knowledge.”
Jordan Simpson, an inventory management specialist who joined the ILSC in August 2020, said Sovitsky’s onboarding training was very thorough, focusing heavily on IPTs and how they function within the ILSC structure.
“He provided an overview and introduction to what goes on here, with lots of background information, details and briefings to give us a better understanding of what we would be doing in our positions,” she said. “Without his guidance and experience, we would have been lost at the start. Thank you, Bill, for all you’ve done.”
Gomez-Morales, who currently serves as director of the AMLC ILSC’s Acquisition Materiel Synchronization Division, said he first met Sovitsky in 2009 when he was still on active duty. At that time, they worked together to create a nonprofit society for biomedical equipment technicians.
Fast forward a few years when Gomez-Morales joined the civilian service ranks himself, they joined forces again working for the PM at USAMMA.
“We began tackling some of the toughest issues related to the sustainment and maintenance of medical equipment for the Army’s operational force,” Gomez-Morales said. “To put it into context, it’s taken over a decade to change the medical culture to take sustainment seriously as part of the acquisition process.”
They continued to be close colleagues when they joined M2PA in AMLC’s infancy and into the launch of the ILSC.
Sovitsky has been a leader throughout his career, Gomez-Morales said, calling him “the most technically proficient acquisition professional that I have ever met.” He added that Sovitsky’s been “paramount” in the development of the equipment specialists under his supervision at the ILSC.
“In addition to his overall technical and acquisition knowledge, we are losing an individual that has become one of the last medical oxygen systems subject-matter experts for the entire DOD,” he said. “Overall, Bill has dedicated his entire Army acquisition career to the improvement of medical equipment acquisition and sustainment. He will be missed both professionally and personally.”
Members of the Warfighter Expeditionary Medicine and Treatment Project Management Office at the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity, another of Sovitsky’s former employers, also chimed in with thanks to the seasoned mentor, describing him as passionate, patient and “great asset” to Army learning systems.
Ganatra echoed Gomez-Morales’ thoughts, applauding Sovitsky for serving as chair of the Oxygen Standardization Coordinating Group, or OSCG, for over 10 years. OSCG is an annual collaborative assembly that combines all five branches of the U.S., as well as international military forces and industry leaders involved in designing and manufacturing oxygen solutions for the warfighter.
“His retirement will create a huge knowledge gap in the field of oxygen generation systems,” Ganatra added. “I will truly miss his mentorship and I wish him luck for a happy and healthy retirement.”
For some, it’s the achievements, accolades and high praise from supervisors and peers alike that represent a great career. But for Sovitsky, it’s the feedback and knowing he’s made a difference for the people he’s mentored and helped along the way.
“It makes me happy to know that I can leave a little something here,” he said. “That’s what everybody wants -- to be able to leave a little mark on your time here. It’s been a great career for me. I have no regrets.”
| Date Taken: | 03.04.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 03.04.2024 13:27 |
| Story ID: | 465293 |
| Location: | FORT DETRICK, MD, US |
| Hometown: | BALTIMORE, MD, US |
| Web Views: | 16 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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