May
Employee of Month
Creates Sound Support For
NOAA Grants
Sinh Nguyen is being honored as May Employee of the Month for
making a remarkable difference in the way NOAA conducts business. Sinh
has been a computer specialist in NOAA’s Office of Finance and Administration
for four years.
For the past two years he has worked closely on the grants conversion
to CAMS, the Commerce Administrative Management System which will become
NOAA’s financial system of record in FY 2003. CAMS will replace the
two-decades-old Finance Management System and Sinh has worked hard to
help smooth the transition, in particular creating a sound information
technology support structure for NOAA grants. Sinh’s technical savvy
and excellent problem-solving skills have been hallmarks of this process.
Sinh has been equally engaged in a year-long effort to smooth this month’s
transition to ASAP, the Automated Standard Application for Payments
that the Treasury Department is hosting to enable federal grant-making
agencies to make payments to federal grant recipients. Again, Sinh’s
technical knowledge has been key in identifying stumbling blocks, proposing
solutions, and staying on track.
Sinh is also being cited for “extraordinary achievement” in devising
a model program to effectively identify NOAA grantees and delinquencies
in a database covering audit information for every recipient of a federal
grant or cooperative agreement. Based in Missouri, the database yielded
a massive data dump, in no way organized, until Sinh cut through to
create a system that now not only identifies essential information but
generates a letter to grantees referencing delinquencies. Reports can
be produced by grants audit specialists whenever needed. NOAA is now
sharing this process with other Commerce divisions.
