U.S. Army Company & Field Grade Officer Leadership Development

With our 2024 iteration having ended a little over a month and a half ago, were hoping our 2024 students took the knowledge, products, and connections they gathered - back to their formations! You'll notice that our comms may slow down a bit as we pause to get our 2025 committee formed up and ready to plan for 2025! We'll have few announcements coming up shortly... but in the meantime, we can't help but reminisce about one thing... ...breakouts, breakouts, breakouts! Our students experienced a variety of breakouts, based on component, command, or AOC/MOS. These breakouts allowed our students opportunities to making lasting connections with people who will be valuable to their careers. Here's a few photos from those many breakouts - who do you see? Tag em!

Our course includes a variation of large group sessions, where our entire student class comes together - in addition to smaller sessions broken down by Company and Field Grade. Following our Senior Leader day, we started out with encouraging words and a fun icebreaker activity led by our Course Director, BG Thad Collard. We then had students break down into these small groups to receive valuable and important sessions from: 🌟 1LT Anthony Nathal on Personal and Professional Well-Being 🌟 COL Laura Porter on Career Mapping 🌟 MAJ Kanika Haynes on Human Resource Command updates, resources, and FAQs - and we noticed a few former CFGOLD Committee members on their team chart! 👀 😍 🌟 COL Peter Olsen on Multi Domain Operations We ended the day together hearing from our Senior Course Advisor, LTC Tianika Mangum, on Team Building and Generational Communication.

And for our 12th toast! 😅 Yes, we had a lot of people and organizations to toast to, but that's because so much goes into pulling off such an amazing experience! In his last year as our Program OIC, MAJ Rick Pierzina led us in a round of toasts to all of those who help us knock this out of the park. Our Formal Social brings traditional components to a more flexible and interactive experience for our students and guests. Toasting is a tradition of drinking together in honor of someone or group in order to show respect or appreciation.

Our Formal Social is a key part of our Senior Leader day. A day of amazing insight from across our panels with General Officers, Warrant Officers, and Non-Commissioned Officers culminated in an amazing evening. Showcasing our dress uniforms, having meaningful conversations in such a close environment, and toasting to our service leaves such an impact on our students and our guests. As many of you have seen, we were graced by a duet from 1LT Michelle Reynolds and CPT Yogeld Andre for our National Anthem. Our invocation was provided by MAJ Erin Venterelli and benediction announced by 1LT Renee Abrigo. We also heard from our host of the evening, MAJ Patrick Wakefield, along with our Program OIC, MAJ Rick Pierzina, and our Senior Course Advisor, LTC Tianika Mangum. Check out a few pictures to highlight the evening.

Just one of the many reasons we enjoy seeing NCOs in our students class. This is only the second year NCOs have been brought in as students, alongside our Commissioned Officers and Warrant Officers. It's important to create environments - outside of one's current unit - where Soldiers can connect, learn, and develop together - across ranks. When we better understand the roles and responsibilities of our teammates, we increase efficiency, morale, and likelihood of achieving success. Ahead of our Formal Social, these three students stepped up to join our NCO Taskforce in reviewing and assisting with fellow students' dress uniforms. They displayed the reasons why we should always lean on our NCOs - they keep us looking sharp! To recognize their initiative, our Program NCOIC, MSG Almazan gifted them with some important reading material, "The Non-Commissioned Officer and Petty Officer - Backbone of the Armed Forces." Way to go! 🙌💪 MSG Pablo Colon, 68W, 807TH MC DS MSG Zachary Harrison, 68P, MEDDAC Ft. Carson SFC Mario Leon, 68R, MEDDAC Germany

Senior Non Commissioned Officers Panel With our student class predominantly Commissioned Officers, the SNCO panel has always been one of the most appreciated panels by students. As an Officer is developing in their careers - personally and professionally, it's paramount to understand the value an NCO has in preparing our formations, engaging across training, and helping mold that Officer into a leader. Our students sat with this highly experienced panel, moderated by MSG Iris Almazan and covering multiple services, components, and MOSs. It showcased these leaders' thoughts on some of AMEDDs toughest issues and how we can best train and develop our Soldiers and ourselves. In only our second year of having NCOs as students, they now have the chance to engage with their SNCOs to hear invaluable career progression advice. Whether it's through the knowledge shared by the leaders on the panel, or the knowledge shared amongst our Officer, Warrant Officer, and NCO students, CFGOLD establishes the environment and connections needed to build better bridges across ranks.

During his day on ground with us, BG Todd Traver was wished a very special 'happy birthday' from our students - coordinated by MG Beth Salisbury of course 😅🙌

Senior Warrant Officer Panels Following our General Officer Panels, we soaked up the knowledge from an esteemed panel of Senior Warrant Officers, with the panel moderated by CW5 Matthew Brenner. Many of our students have not worked alongside a Warrant Officer and thus, aren't familiar with how to best utilize their experiences and integrate them into the formations. Warrant Officers are a powerful tool to help Commanders meet their intent and achieve success. These leaders shared their thoughts on why our students should ensure they understand the backgrounds of their Warrant Officers, integrate them across their medical operations, and how to best support the career progression of Warrant Officers in their formations. 👉 For our current students - what stood out from the panel? What information resonated with you? 🤔

🌟 General Officer Panels 🌟 Our Senior Leader day is full of panels with our distinguished guests, with the first being the General Officer Panel. We held two different panels for our GOs, where they provided meaningful insight and perspectives from their careers across Components and specialties. Many of these leaders emphasizef the importance of maintaining your curiosity and desire to learn in order to best equip our force. Innovation and modernizination across US Army Medical Department (AMEDD) was a recurring theme in the conversations, perfectly tying back to what our students heard earlier in the week from other sessions. They appreciated the challenging questions asked by our students and welcomed discussing important topics facing our AMEDD community. The approachability and transparency of our Senior Leaders across these panels are one of the things students look forward to the most at CFGOLD.

CFGOLD 2024 Group photo on Senior Leader Day - complete with students, Committee members, General Officers, Warrant Officers, and Senior Non-Commissioned Officers