Chuck Gould, lead program analyst, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, recently served four and a half months at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters office in a developmental assignment. "The experience was fast-paced and a great opportunity for those working in or interested in the Corps Civil Works Planning Community,” said Gould.
Serving as the North Atlantic Division Regional Integration Team (RIT) Planner, at HQ USACE in Washington, D.C., Gould describes the assignment this way, “Every division has a RIT Planner at HQ that receives, coordinates reviews of, and resolves issues involving all planning documents submitted for HQ and higher approval. While performing this duty, I kept every NAD planning document moving forward towards final approval by the Chief of Engineers and concurrence by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. I also fielded planning and policy questions from the districts and delivered the answers they needed to make informed decisions.”
Achieving success in such a short period of time could be challenging.
“I had two goals: to understand the Corps Planning Process from a top-down perspective and to see how headquarters works," said Gould. "I was consistently presented with planning and policy issues I was unfamiliar with, involved in projects with challenges and scopes different than I had worked on before and was expected to become the expert in all things ‘Planning.’ Along the way, I had to coordinate with nearly every Civil Works discipline at headquarters. I definitely saw how headquarters works and learned a lot about Planning I didn't know."