9 questions with Judith Avery

“I've been very lucky to work for great Army leaders,” said Judith Avery, deputy product lead for Accessions Information Environment (AIE) and Reserve Component Automation System (RCAS)/Force Management System (FMS), two programs that are part of the Integrated Personnel and Pay System — Army (IPPS-A) portfolio.

Avery, who has 22 years of experience supporting and managing PEO EIS programs, said she has learned valuable lessons from every Army leader she has supported. “Col. (Promotable) Mikesh always looks for opportunities to improve what we do and how we do it,” Avery said. “He is driven to continually improve what we deliver to Soldiers.”

“Great leaders are strategic thinkers,” Avery said. “They understand the politics, funding constraints and technology. Great leaders are always learning. They also understand that they don’t know everything and rely on the collective input of their team to make decisions.”

Avery’s friends describe her as a hard worker who is extroverted and compassionate. When not working, Avery loves reading true-crime books and traveling, especially on cruises. “I'm a cruise fanatic,” Avery said. “I love to study and understand other cultures and not just at the surface level. I want to understand other people, other nations and other cultures. Travel helps round that out.”

Avery answered nine questions about her career and life.

How has Army acquisition changed in the last five years?
The terms “Agile” and “flexible” are not buzzwords. For example, we truly have become more Agile and flexible when developing acquisition requirements. We are moving faster.

We have applied industry best practices to the way we do business. It’s enhanced our ability to work at the speed of relevance.

New policies like Army Directive 2024-02 enable us to work faster and smarter when developing software.

What can someone learn from your daily routine?
I apply Agile methodology to my daily routine. I plan what to accomplish, but I know that no day is ever executed the way I planned it. There's always something that comes up. I must be flexible to rise to meet any challenge presented regardless of whether it was planned for.

In any job, there's always going to be something you didn't plan for. At IPPS-A, we work in a constant state of churn and change. We are constantly evolving and adapting to new HR requirements. Processes change every day.

In the world of information technology, nothing stays the same. Ever. Everything is only as good as that moment in time.

Name one thing that can instantly make your day better.
It takes courage and strength to accomplish anything significant. When there’s a big mountain to climb, you have to savor the small wins. Every day, you can look back and say, “I didn't make big progress, but I made some progress.”

Savor those small wins — whether it’s providing a good briefing or helping someone struggling with something. Eventually, those small successes add up to big wins. I look for those small positives every day, even when it's a tough day.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Indian Lake, a small, close-knit community in Ohio.

Unfortunately, more than 200 homes in the Indian Lake community were demolished or severely damaged by an EF-3 tornado in April. Many people lost every tangible possession they owned. People in the Indian Lake community and surrounding communities banded together to rebound from this horrific event.

Even on the darkest days, something positive happens. There is always hope and a silver lining.

Who is your hero?
I was raised by a single father who later remarried. I modeled my life after him. He was the oldest of 13 children when his father died. He had to drop out of school after completing the eighth grade to take care of his mother and siblings.

Although he never went to college, he was one of the smartest men I knew. A blue-collar worker, he was self-educated. When it came to raising his six children, he insisted on more education for us than what he had.

After I graduated from high school, I completed nursing school but left my nursing career behind when my son was a senior in high school. When I sent him to college, I felt a little bit like a hypocrite because I said to my children, “You're going to get a college education.” After my son had been in college for about a year, I felt a compelling need to get a college degree. 

So, ironically, my son and I graduated from the same university during the same term with bachelors’ degrees. In my family, we were the first two in our respective generations to get a college education. It was a testament to my father's emphasis on education.

My father had extremely high standards. He instilled in me several core values, one of which was to treat others equally and with respect regardless of their background, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, religion or any other factor. You treat everyone with an equal amount of respect unless they prove to you that they are not deserving of that respect through their actions. And that is the only valid reason to not respect someone.

My father emphasized accountability. I was the oldest of six children. In my father’s household, I was accountable not only for myself, but for setting a standard for my siblings.

For my father, there were no excuses. If there were rules, you had to abide by them. You couldn't claim ignorance of the rules. And once you learned a lesson, he expected that you only had to learn that lesson once. He did not have tolerance for repeat offenses. [Laughter.]

My father didn’t let the obstacles he was facing drag him down. Despite the overwhelming odds against him, he lived a happy, informed life.

If you could have coffee with anyone in history or present day, who would it be?
My father. He was only 46 years old when he died from colon cancer.

I was in my early 20s when he died. I was fortunate — as hard as it was — because when he got really sick, I was able to use my nursing skills to take care of him when he went through his medical treatments and, ultimately, hospice.

I consider it very tragic that he passed so young, but I was very honored and blessed to have been able to be with him when he passed. The only regret most people have when losing a loved one is that they couldn’t be there to say one last goodbye or to know that their loved one passed peacefully. I had that opportunity. And as hard as it was, it gave me strength and comfort to be there.

My son was four years old when my father died. My daughter wasn’t born and never got to meet her grandfather.

There are many times in my life when I thought, “Gosh, I wish I could just talk to him about this. I know he would put it back in perspective for me or tell me to snap out of it.”

What is something you learned the hard way?
Bad news doesn’t get better with time. Don’t delay telling your leaders, “I think we have a problem here,” or “I made a mistake.” Report early, report often and try to be part of the solution as you're reporting the issue.

Why is IPPS-A a great place to work?
It’s a family network. People care about each other.

No matter what I'm facing or what any of my peers are facing, we always know there are people inside the IPPS-A portfolio who can help us improve a process.

I've never reached out to a single person in this organization who said, “No, I can't help you” or “No, I won't help you.”

We all have the same goal: to be the best we can at what we do to support Soldiers.

I'm inspired every day in some way or another by the people I'm surrounded by.

What's the best advice you received?
I'm going to take it all the way back to nursing school. A professor told me, “Find the thing that you're scared of the most and do it first because once you've mastered that, everything else will seem easier in comparison.”