Courtesy Photo | The Utah Army National Guard has finalized its Enlisted Promotion System (EPS) boards...... read more read more
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The Utah Army National Guard has finalized its Enlisted Promotion System (EPS) boards for Fiscal Year 2026, evaluating 676 Soldiers for promotion during an intensive week in November 2025. Command Sgt. Maj. Spencer Nielsen, the state’s senior enlisted leader, described the process as a deliberate commitment to fairness, objectivity, and merit.
“There’s nothing I take more seriously than enlisted promotions,” he said. “This is a Soldier-driven process. They control how they’re evaluated and how they perform. We evaluate them fairly, individually, against the whole-Soldier concept which the Army demands — not against each other.” The effort was thorough and labor-intensive. A total of 147 senior NCOs served as board members, spending an average of 10 minutes reviewing each packet, which amounted to over 2,200 man-hours across the week. The team validated more than 12,000 lines of data both before and after the boards. Records sections updated over 700 civilian degrees in IPPS-A, added more than 100 transcripts to iPERMS, loaded 600 course completions, and entered 4,500 awards.
While the board process happens in November, the promotion cycle is a holistic approach that involves the Soldier, their leadership, and unit, all working together. The process starts with the Soldier. “What amazes me is the battle rhythm which is all year round,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Rick Thalman, the Utah Army National Guard State Command Sergeant Major. It doesn’t start and stop with turning in packets and doing the board procedures. It goes through a lengthy, vetted, working group process.” What truly distinguishes Utah’s approach, according to its leaders, is the emphasis on deliberate transparency and direct Soldier involvement.
“Our evaluation criteria was built by a working group of Soldiers from across the force, reviewed by senior NCOs, and approved by the E-9 Council and the Assistant Adjutant General,” explained Master Sgt. Ty Puro, the Enlisted Personnel Manager for the State of Utah. “The transparency and objectivity of our evaluation process has been recognized as a best practice,” she said.
Puro noted that only 23 percent of a Soldier’s score is subjective — 11 percent from NCOERs and 12 percent from career-timeline achievements — and even those portions must remain within strict variance limits. The remaining 77 percent is entirely objective, drawn directly from official records.
Looking ahead to the next boards in November 2026, Nielsen, Thalman, and Puro offered clear guidance:
“Be educated on the process, be educated on what we evaluate, and do the very best you can each and every day,” Nielsen advised. When Soldiers do that, the system works exactly the way it’s designed to. “The bar is high,” he concluded, “but it’s a fair bar, it’s a known bar, and our Soldiers are crushing it.”
| Date Taken: | 12.02.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.15.2025 14:35 |
| Story ID: | 554236 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 194 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Utah Army National Guard Completes Enlisted Promotions with Transparent, Soldier-Driven EPS Board, by SFC Tim Beery, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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