Brendon SorensonWorkplace - Module 2The Division Protocol office at Fort Drum serves many purposes and is responsible for a large variety of tasks that make the Command Team for the 10th Mountain Division capable of delivering their message to senior visitors, the subordinate commands and Soldiers as well the local community. Protocol exists to provide the Senior Commander a team of experts in courtesy and etiquette as well as flags, lodging, transportation, inter-office coordination and special budget concerns. All of these things centered around the creation of an environment that allows the Commander best convey his message or intent. We work with a small team of hand selected Soldiers that take direction from myself and our Chief of Protocol, allowing us to use minimal amounts of man power to achieve expert levels of coordination and execution of all events that our Command has a part in.

The Stakeholders for the Protocol Office extend from the Department of Defense down through the local command at Fort Drum, as well as the agencies on Fort Drum with which we interact. More importantly, I encourage each of the members of the Protocol team to become stakeholders in what they do and how they support the overall mission. This allows each of them to have a say over how we do business and gives them a great amount of growth potential. Making the shop belong to each of the members in the team ensures they not only perform at their best, but also that they learn important skills to take with them as they go.

The overarching goal of the Protocol office is to create an environment that best represents the Army and 10th Mountain Division. This environment may be the lodging, transportation and miscellaneous needs of a VIP guest or the proper setup for a meeting/conference or to ensure we have the right seats, in the right order, for our local dignitaries. Once the environment is set, the target audience can relax and focus on the import tasks at hand, be it a major conference or to observe an important ceremony. We worry about the little things, so the Senior Commander does not have to. Our goals are on-going, the specifics involve 100% accountability of all resources, 100% correct seating and reservations, etc. In addition to the less measurable items, we also maintain three separate budgets with a regular audit schedule and a small fleet of vehicles that require regular maintenance and must always be ready to support last minute visits or missions.

The milestones I look for in the Protocol Office are the points at which our team members come to understand their jobs and the importance of it. That moment when a member can handle a mission on their own and ensure that our high standards are maintained without direct supervision. Another milestone is the preparation that happens in advance of a specific mission, there is a point at which the Senior Commander receives a brief on what we have done and what the finished plan is; the goal is 100% concurrence with Command intent and sense of ease over the details pertaining to the support we provide.