Photo By Edvin Hernandez | Scott Thompson receives a Defense Department Financial Award for implementing Robotic...... read more read more
Scott Thompson, a program analyst in Strategic Systems Programs’ (SSP) Enterprise Business Office in Washington, D.C., recently earned the 2024 Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Financial Management Award on Aug. 27, 2025, for his outstanding contribution to data-driven decision-making at a major command level.
Thompson led a transformative automation initiative at SSP, yielding significant benefits for the Department of Navy (DoN). His efforts streamlined critical financial processes by introducing four Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions, freeing up resources such as man-power that is equivalent to 14 full-time employees.
“At its core, RPA handles the repetitive, digital tasks that consume our valuable time,” Thompson said. “A perfect example of this is reporting; a bot can automatically log into three different systems, pull specific data from each, consolidate it into a single, clean report, and email stakeholders based on the results. This entire workflow can be done in minutes, error-free, at the click of a button, and soon the button will be obsolete.”
According to Thompson’s award package, this automated process consolidates an annual savings of about 6,800 hours, which now becomes time that can be reinvested into higher-value, mission-critical tasks for the U.S. Navy. Thompson's inspiration for exploring automation came from reviewing feedback he received from across process stakeholders at SSP about the previous workflows, leading him and his team to develop the RPA solution.
“Our program is built on a simple question we ask our colleagues across all branches: If you had an ‘Easy Button’ for any part of your job, what would it do?” he said. “This collaborative approach is key. We don't dictate from the top down; we source ideas directly from the people doing the work.”
After hearing his stakeholders’ concerns, Thompson and his team started working on a strategic framework to implement an easier, automated, and user-friendly financial reporting process.
“We partner with department leaders to evaluate each opportunity based on key criteria: What's the potential Return On Investment? How much time will it save? How will it improve employee morale or reduce risk,” he said. “This ensures we're not just automating for automation's sake, but prioritizing the projects that deliver the greatest value to our people and our mission.”
Pioneering this solution wasn’t so simple, though, and like most life-changing innovations, it required time.
“When we started our pilot program back in 2019, we were truly in uncharted territory – and that first step was a big one,” Thompson said. “The first major hurdle wasn't technical; it was standardizing processes. We'd find a task that was a great candidate for automation, only to discover it was performed 10 different ways by 10 different people. A bot needs one clear set of rules. So, a huge part of our work became change management, bringing teams together to agree on a single, optimized 'best way' to perform a task before we even started building the automation.
A critical element to ensuring the automation works properly is configuring the RPA bots with clear, step-by-step instructions. One could think of it like showing a digital assistant exactly how to perform a task, mimicking the way a human would interact with the software. Once Thompson and his team established a standardized approach to the process, they configured the bots to reliably execute those steps, making them ready for operational use.
“Overcoming that challenge created a strong foundation, not just for the bot, but for the business process itself,” he said.
Looking to the future, Thompson is excited to expand his work more into the AI space and deliver cutting-edge capabilities to the SSP workforce.
“The next frontier, which we're actively researching, is integrating AI to create 'smarter' automations,” he said. “While our current bots follow instructions, AI will give them the ability to handle exceptions, understand unstructured data like emails or PDFs, and make simple decisions. This evolution from pure RPA to what's often called 'Intelligent Automation' is how we'll tackle even more complex business challenges.”
Thompson’s achievement embodies the Navy’s call to action for Get Real Get Better, which is rooted in a belief system that values curiosity, continuous learning, and the pursuit of improvement. His award demonstrates technical excellence across DoN and serves as another example of the command’s world-class workforce.
“I'm incredibly proud of the collaborative spirit of this program,” Thompson said. “By its very nature, automation requires constant engagement with fascinating, dedicated people across our organization. We feel a deep sense of responsibility to deliver innovative solutions that support our mission.”
Perhaps the most rewarding part of this whole experience for Thompson is seeing the positive impact his solution has made at SSP.
“The real achievement isn't just the technology we built; it's the process of taking on a tough challenge, creating something new with our colleagues, and most of all, seeing the smile on a co-worker's face when they realize a task that used to burden them for hours is now, officially, last year's problem,” he said. SSP is responsible for sustaining the strategic weapon system (SWS) on the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) and supporting the integration of the D5LE weapon system on the new Columbia-class SSBNs. Looking to the future, SSP is actively modernizing the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad through development of the D5LE2 SWS and pioneering regional strike capabilities of the future through development of the nuclear-armed sea launched cruise missile and the non-nuclear hypersonic conventional prompt strike system.
| Date Taken: | 09.12.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 11.21.2025 13:59 |
| Story ID: | 552077 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 16 |
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