ADS Announces 2021 Value Award Winners
After a year-long hiatus, the annual peer-nominated awards are back
Every year, the ADS Value Awards proudly recognize six employees who epitomize the company’s core values: Commitment, Initiative, Attitude, Drive, Innovation and Accountability.
That is, until last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic put the awards on hold.
After a one-year hiatus, we’re pleased to announce that the ADS Value Awards are back, and we’re even more pleased to announce this year’s winners.
The winners are ...
ACCOUNTABILITY: Wendy Belisle, Contract Compliance
ATTITUDE: Josh Miller, Business Development Manager
COMMITMENT: Michael Paulk, Senior Business Development Manager
DRIVE: Ariel Indomitus, Salesforce Administrator
INITIATIVE: Sarah Bre, C4ISR Account Manager
INNOVATION: Bill Burke, Assistant General Counsel
What makes the Value Awards so special is that the winners are nominated by their peers -- the people they work with, and the people who know their work best. We recently caught up with Innovation Award Winner Bill Burke to hear about how he started at ADS, and why innovation is so important to the company’s success.
A retired Navy Lieutenant Commander and a graduate of William & Mary Law School, Bill joined ADS just over a year ago from the Willcox & Savage Law firm. Early on, he took a proactive, coordinated approach setting up processes to help internal teams streamline customer agreements and contracts, resulting in fewer backlogs and delays both internally and for ADS customers. The end results have allowed the company to serve their clients better and more efficiently.
His colleagues noticed a difference instantly, and by year’s end, had nominated Bill for the Value Award in Innovation. It should come as no surprise, then, that innovation is one of the things Bill loves most about working at ADS. When an obstacle arises -- a challenging customer need, a late delivery, a missing part -- the goal is always to brainstorm, find a solution and work collaboratively to fix the issue.
"The ADS Team is known for challenging the status quo and identifying new ways to solve problems. This applies to both customer's problems and getting work done. We’re not geniuses, we’re just willing to work on problems and not point fingers, which leads to innovation."
Even the start of Bill’s legal career took a little innovation. He had originally been serving as a Navy helicopter pilot following graduation from the Naval Academy. But ultimately, a medical condition would derail those career plans. Rather than retrain for a different military career, Bill got a release from his military commitment and pursued his budding interest in the law. He was accepted to The College of William and Mary - Marshall Wythe Law School on a GI bill and worked at Willcox & Savage for several years before fielding a cold call from a job recruiter. The job at ADS seemed like a great fit, and gave him an unexpected opportunity to once-again serve the men and women of the military.
“I’m most proud of ADS’s commitment to its customers, who are military service men and women,” Bill says. “It’s not window dressing, that commitment is real. And I love it.”