Building USAG Poland: Three-person ACS team earns Army's top small-team honor
Photo By Marcus Fichtl |
Ruth Fuller (fourth from the left), Relocation Readiness Specialist for U.S. Army......read moreread more
Photo By Marcus Fichtl | Ruth Fuller (fourth from the left), Relocation Readiness Specialist for U.S. Army Garrison Poland, poses at the Poznan during one of her Cultural College Tours. Fuller would guide new Soldiers and civilians across Poland teaching, history, customs and most importantly how to use local transportation. see less
| View Image Page
Building USAG Poland: Three-person ACS team earns Army's top small-team honor
POZNAN, Poland — Two years ago, Army Community Service didn't exist at U.S. Army Garrison Poland.
Today, the three civilians who built it from the ground up have earned Installation Management Command's 2025 Best Small Army Community Service Team award after creating the support network that now serves Soldiers and families across the Army's Home on the Eastern Flank.
The recognition comes as USAG Poland reaches a milestone of its own. This summer, the garrison welcomed its first school-aged families, marking another step in the Army's march toward a permanent community in Poland.
For ACS Division Chief Liz Dailey, Relocation Readiness Specialist Ruth Fuller and Financial Readiness Program Manager Diane Hupko, helping make that transition possible became the mission.
"There wasn't a model," Dailey said. "We had to build one that worked for Poland."
When the team arrived in 2024, they inherited little more than an empty office. There were no established programs, no community partnerships and no blueprint for supporting Soldiers stationed across 12 military communities spread across 25,000 square miles throughout Poland.
Rather than recreate a traditional Army Community Service office, they built one designed for the realities of the mission.
Recognizing that distance couldn't become a barrier to support, the team introduced a Request for Service QR code that connected Soldiers directly to ACS specialists anywhere in Poland. They also partnered with organizations across the garrison to launch the Soldier Support Rodeo, bringing financial counselors, education specialists, religious support staff and other helping agencies directly to Soldiers instead of asking Soldiers to travel for services.
The rodeos alone generated more than 2,200 face-to-face engagements in fiscal year 2025 while expanding access to counseling, financial readiness, relocation assistance and dozens of other programs across one of the Army's most geographically dispersed garrisons.
"We meet Soldiers and families where they are," Dailey said. "We want to be a resource, not a gatekeeper."
As the garrison evolved, so did the team's mission.
Hupko helped establish the Army's first new Army Emergency Relief section, the Army first in more than 20 years, ensuring Soldiers assigned to Poland could receive emergency financial assistance locally instead of relying on another installation. Fuller established the garrison's lending closet, giving newly arrived families access to household essentials while they waited for their belongings to arrive overseas.
Behind the scenes, the ACS team also became a key partner in the garrison's Destination of Choice initiative. Working alongside IMCOM-Europe, local schools and fellow garrison offices, they helped identify education, employment and community resources that would support accompanied assignments. By the time the first school-aged families arrived this summer, many of those services were already in place.
Overall, operating with just three employees, the ACS team reached more than 10,000 Soldiers, civilians and family members during fiscal year 2025, delivered 219 classes and workshops to more than 3,000 participants, and expanded virtual services to ensure support remained available regardless of where Soldiers were stationed.
Matt De Pirro, Deputy to the Garrison Commander, said the team's accomplishments reflected more than successful programming.
"At her core, Liz is completely dedicated to our permanent party and deployed Soldiers in Poland," De Pirro said. "That dedication drives her creativity. She knew traditional outreach wouldn't work, so she built something different."
He said Dailey's leadership brought organizations across the garrison together while Fuller and Hupko helped turn that vision into lasting capability.
"Liz and her team started with literally nothing but a vision for what Army Community Service could and should be in Poland," De Pirro said. "She, Ruth and Diane built the support network that now serves Soldiers across this country."
Hal Snyder, chief of Army Community Service for Installation Management Command-Europe, said the team's accomplishments reflected the broader transformation taking place across the garrison.
"As the newest Army garrison, supporting an ever-changing population across an extremely large footprint, the USAG Poland ACS team executed like an organization five times its size," Snyder said. "No matter how challenging the environment became, they never lost sight of their core mission—taking care of Soldiers, civilians and families."
The team's work also brought individual recognition. Along with USAG Poland earning IMCOM's Best Small Army Community Service Team award, Dailey was named one of Installation Management Command's 2025 Stalwarts, recognizing civilian professionals whose leadership has strengthened Army installations across the enterprise.
For Dailey, however, the team's greatest accomplishment isn't measured by awards.
"It's the foundation we built that matters," she said. "Years from now, Soldiers and families won't know who built Army Community Service in Poland. They'll just know it was there when they needed it."
