FORT LEE, Va. –
Hoping to elevate, align and empower its growing volunteer network of cross-functional professionals, the Organizational Infrastructure Capability Board recently held its 2025 summit at the Army Sustainment University here.
The board sought to “align its strategy and operations with the agency’s restructure, reaffirm its mission and goals, clarify roles, build understanding of key processes, support audit readiness, and strengthen engagement and collaboration.”
Sonya Ebright, Defense Contract Management Agency’s acting director, spoke to summit participants on the first morning of the three-day summit.
“When I think about the complexity in DCMA and all our people stationed across the world that pull the agency together — we surveil over 18,000 contractors and more than 305,000 contracts with under 10,000 people — when you look at our numbers, our breadth and our scope, it really is the running of DCMA, the operations of DCMA, the Capability Board Framework; it is all part of the puzzle that pulls together to support our mission. Thank you for everything you are doing, not only this week but over time — it is great work,” she said.
Karen Schultheis, the agency’s Information Technology executive director, chief information officer and OI Board manager, opened the summit by thanking participants for their pre-event suggestions and credited team members who shaped the summit’s agenda. She highlighted the board’s impact and championed its ongoing pursuit of professional excellence.
“This board impacts every single member of the agency at one time in their career and sometimes daily,” she said. “We provide the resources, training and tools the agency needs to accomplish its mission, and these enabling functions — IT, (Financial & Business Operations) and Total Force — are not isolated but rather interconnected. When we are in sync, we can truly deliver our mission to support the agency and ultimately, the warfighter. Our theme this year is to elevate, align and empower. So, we want to elevate how we think and how we lead. With where the agency is heading, we want to align with that effort, and finally, we want to empower each of you to take ownership of the work ahead. We need you.”
Schultheis has reinforced that need since signing the OI Board’s charter in October 2023. The document aimed to champion the collective work of IT, FB and TF: “to fund, attain, train and equip the workforce upon which our agency’s strategic objectives and goals are carried out consistently and efficiently. Ensuring a solid infrastructure requires careful consideration and thorough planning, with critical analysis and vigilant intervention leading to adaptation.”
Marlean Jones, a headquarters Business Capabilities Framework OI Board co-lead and IT senior project manager, joined the board more than a year ago. She said that under Schultheis’ leadership, the team’s efforts focused on building a strong foundation for collaboration, accountability and impact.
“We’ve set clear goals, implemented processes to track progress, and fostered open channels for discussion and cross-functional engagement,” said Jones. “Along the way, we’ve celebrated successes, recognized board members, delivered automated tools, published key Issuances, leveraged OI digital forums to share our mission and structure, and held workforce listening sessions while collecting feedback through various communication channels. We continue to address growth areas, like volunteer participation and process maturity, while aligning our efforts with the broader mission and strengthening the board.”
Some of the board’s recent successes include the summit, the 2025 OI Digital Forum, OI Board Recruitment and Onboarding, OI Governance-FY25 Legacy Issuance Cleanup, Mobile Work Policy-Type Memo publication, Alternative Desk Sharing Guide for Civilian Personnel, Total Force Messenger Notices Guide, and Published Issuances: Manuals 4301 on Stewardship and 4401-01 on Access Control, Identification and Authentication. The board also delivered multiple automated tools, such as the OCONUS Travel Requirement tool, the Onboarding Process Application, and the Out-Processing and Transfers Application.
Schultheis highlighted the board’s accomplishments when celebrating the team members’ mission-focused dedication. The summit emphasized building on these successes to position the board for even greater impact in the future.
That future will include continued outreach and future summits with plans to build on 2025’s enthusiasm.
“I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all the participants who attended the summit, whether in person or virtually,” said Jones. “Your engagement and contributions helped make it a valuable and impactful event. We value your perspective and appreciate your time in helping us strengthen our collective impact. I’m also grateful for the support of our board manager and the acting agency director, our guest speakers, and our board members, whose engagement and contributions were invaluable throughout the summit.”
Schultheis specifically thanked DCMA team members Jones, Canadeth Lamb, Kirk Gates, Stephanie McRae and Lori Oxenford for their preparation and execution in ensuring the summit exceeded expectations, expanded communication networks and proved essential.
A dedication to service and a willingness to evolve represent shared aspects of the board’s ongoing success. Stephanie Rocha, DCMA’s Business Capability Framework program manager and IPT lead, embraces these leadership traits. Her role in championing the BCF consolidation and restructure efforts from BCF 1.0 to BCF 2.0 led to OI’s current composition, and prompted the OI Summit’s opening day puzzle activity.
“Following a rebranding effort Ms. Rocha authorized once the BCF evolved from 1.0 to 2.0, the current OI logo was created with three key symbols in mind,” said Gates, a DCMA property supervisor and lead OI secretariat. “A skyscraper to represent the merging of the TF, IT and FB sub-groups. A pencil to represent the creativity of the tools we create and the intake we manage. And, an open book to represent the issuance writing and management responsibilities we maintain.”
“When Ms. Jones announced our summit theme, ‘Elevate, Align, Empower: Advancing our Impact Together,’ the puzzle idea hit me immediately,” Gates continued. “I wanted an activity that took the logo symbols one step further by incorporating the summit theme. Therefore, I created 75 questions that were broken into three unique thematic sets of 25 for attendees to answer.”
The three groups included:
Group 1: Personnel who elevated OI to the board we are today
Group 2: OI issuances that aligned people to processes
Group 3: Tools and intakes that empower OI and the agency
“When questions were answered correctly, the answer correlated with the puzzle piece placement on a grid to reveal the picture of the puzzle, our OI logo,” said Gates. “The puzzle was not only a team building activity, but meant to articulate that the individual people, issuances, and tools are what make OI what it is today. Just as the puzzle pieces, each are a vital piece allowing us to advance our impact together.”
Summit attendees enjoyed the experience, and its success established a fun and engaging atmosphere, while reflecting on the summit’s overall objective.
“Finally, I’d like to give special recognition to Gates, not only for creating the phenomenal puzzle of the OI icon that was presented to our board manager at the close of the summit, but for taking the initiative to design and provide the OI icon lapel pins, which were given out to summit participants and will serve as a meaningful symbol of our shared commitment,” said Jones.
Schultheis expressed her gratitude to all participants for their contributions and officially closed what was an outstanding and highly successful Summit.