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GCN Home > 05/2/05 issue

Personnel service

By Drew Robb, Special to GCN

Walton Fletcher’s crew makes HR processes easier for the Marines

You won’t find many state-of-the-art IT systems that are 30 years old. But that’s what Walton Fletcher and his staff operate—with a few upgrades along the way. The Marine Corps Total Force Systems is an integrated pay and personnel system that was rated a Top Five DOD Program Award Winner for 2004.

“Fletcher’s division has developed and currently maintains the DOD’s only integrated pay and personnel system for both active and reserve components,” said William Head, chief technology officer of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. “He ensures that MCTFS implements every congressionally mandated legislative requirement on schedule and within budgetary constraints.”

Answering the call

As director of the MCTFS division in the Technology Services Organization for DFAS in Kansas City, Mo., Fletcher’s systems serve more than 498,000 active, reserve and retired Marines.

It’s no small task to keep that many individuals happy while coping with a constant barrage of legislative and IT demands.

Case in point: A problem cropped up when some legacy computer systems were being converted to the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet. Over a weekend, the programming had to be changed so administrators could run personnel and pay entries while the NMCI issues were being addressed.

“This was a dramatic undertaking and, if not completed, over 700 administrators would not have been able to create diaries for their Marines,” said Col. Paul Bennett, director of Manpower Information Systems. “Fletcher does not compromise his integrity, always thinks of how Marines will be impacted by change and how we can save money for the corps.”

MCTFS began as an integrated personnel and pay system for the Marine Corps in the early ’70s. Further integration in the early 1990s added reserve and active-duty pay and personnel systems.

“The other services have a requirement of dual input into both a personnel and pay system—which is nonexistent for Marines, thereby eliminating the potential for inconsistencies between the systems,” Fletcher said. “There is no transferring data from one system to another.”

More news on related topics: Defense IT, COOP / Telework



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