{"id":55215,"date":"2024-12-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.expo21xx.com\/news\/?p=55215"},"modified":"2024-12-16T14:53:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T13:53:34","slug":"a-veterans-day-salute-to-two-leaders-who-do-battle-every-day-to-make-ge-vernova-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expo21xx.com\/news\/a-veterans-day-salute-to-two-leaders-who-do-battle-every-day-to-make-ge-vernova-better\/","title":{"rendered":"A Veterans Day Salute to Two Leaders Who Do Battle Every Day to Make GE Vernova Better"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by General Electric Company\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Across its operations, GE Vernova draws strength from the leadership and problem-solving expertise of its many veteran employees. In honor of Veterans Day, the spotlight turns to two outstanding individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamie France, Striving for Quality<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jamie France comes from a long line of military people, with grandfathers on both sides part of the World War II generation who impressed on their children the value of service. Her first break from tradition was joining up as a woman. \u201cYep, first one to join the family business,\u201d she says with a chuckle. Her second was deciding to enter West Point. \u201cI felt like, if I\u2019m going to be the first woman in our family to be in the military, I want to do it better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France entered the elite military academy in 1985, nine years after they accepted their first female \u201cplebes,\u201d joining the 10% of cadets who were women \u201cwhen there were still a lot of people who didn\u2019t believe we should be there.\u201d She was an outlier in other ways too: artsy, literary, and comfortable in German after formative years on a military base in that country. And while her bachelor\u2019s of science grounded her in the basics of engineering, she had what she describes as \u201ca Renaissance education. My ability to understand engineering but communicate like a liberal arts person allows me to bridge gaps. That\u2019s something that\u2019s served me extremely well at GE Vernova.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As supplier quality engineer for logistics at GE Vernova\u2019s Onshore Wind and Renewable Energy business in Greenville, South Carolina, France manages the safety and quality of the chain that connects manufacturing to delivery, and has developed more than 50 documents specifying protocols for lifting, handling, securing, and every other related procedure involved in transporting high-risk, oversize cargo. After two tragic fatalities of transportation personnel, France began work on what became the Wind Industry Transportation Professional Advanced Certification (WITPAC)<\/a>, a training program that ensures that the complex practices of handling and transporting wind components \u2014 the massive towers, nacelles, and blades that go into a wind turbine \u2014 are standardized down to the smallest detail. In a groundbreaking alliance, GE Vernova brought competitors Vestas and Siemens Gamesa into the WITPAC program, which launched in 2021 and has resulted in a significant reduction in damage and injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, France is happy to occupy the same role that she assumed in 2010, which hadn\u2019t existed before she arrived, and which she came to after years working in logistics in the automotive industry and having more formative experience near the front lines of armed conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by General Electric Company\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Serving on the battalion staff as a West Point senior, France developed an interest in what you might call the military version of logistics \u2014 supply, services, and troop support \u2014 and was initially stationed in Germany to run a medical warehouse in the 3rd Armored Division. When the Gulf War broke out in 1990 and this division was mobilized to Iraq, France had a firsthand glimpse of the human costs of poor logistics support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we rolled forward, we kept encountering Iraqi soldiers surrendering,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019d come across bombed-out shelters and blown-up tanks, and seeing the living conditions of this bootless, foodless army,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWe started taking the medical supplies we\u2019d brought for our soldiers to the POW camps. It was really heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This experience, along with 10 years as an officer, stayed with France when she left the military in 1995, as a captain, and sought other uses for her values and skill set. One thing she decided early on was to not take the tack of a hard-edged military commander. But, she reflects, \u201cI did want to be a leader.\u201d What that\u2019s looked like in practice is a willingness to listen: \u201cI\u2019ve always found what works best is to get consensus, and train your team through experience that accommodating doesn\u2019t mean that you lose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darren Friot, Hands-On Leader<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Darren Friot learned much the same lesson with the Army Reserve, in which he enlisted as an engineering\u00a0student at Clarkson University, in Potsdam, New York, graduating a little before September 11, 2001. \u201cThat\u2019s when the Army became very real and very, very\u00a0now,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0recalls Friot, senior quality leader for GE Vernova\u2019s Schenectady, New York, plant. \u201cAll the tactics, techniques, and procedures employed in Iraq and Afghanistan were being developed right then. We all had to transition our training and gear into something brand-new.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raised in a small New York town near the Canadian border, he\u2019d grown up with military ambitions. Unlike France\u2019s, Friot\u2019s 21 years of military service were largely contemporaneous with his work at GE Vernova, though he found life-changing lessons in leadership and adaptation in both. Two years into his role as operations leader in Schenectady\u2019s generator department, he was called to Iraq as part of the armed forces\u2019 2006\u20132007 \u201csurge.\u201d Taking an 18-month leave of absence from GE, he commanded the 150-odd troops of U.S. Army Headquarters Company, 411th Engineer Brigade, at Balad Air Base, just north of Baghdad, supporting the local community and helping shore up its infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSchools, hospitals, freshwater, waste,\u201d he says. \u201cThe kind of stuff you and I take for granted.\u201d After they repaired the Al Bakir freshwater treatment plant, it was able to provide an extra 450,000 gallons of potable water and 350,000 gallons of irrigation water to the village\u2019s 5,000 residents daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever since then, Friot has known \u201cthat sitting at my desk would not be fun for me,\u201d he says. \u201cI always wanted to be in operations. I like to go down to the shop floor every day \u2014 touch parts, use equipment. I like solving problems, hands-on, with a team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by General Electric Company\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

During his long tenure at the Schenectady plant, Friot has played a wide range of roles in the generator space: advanced manufacturing engineer, new product introduction (NPI) manager, and cell leader in charge of the manufacturing cell\u2019s 200-odd members, including supervisors, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, planners, and buyers. In his current role as quality leader for Cores and Castings, Friot oversees the core manufacturing that produces the blades of GE Vernova\u2019s 7HA<\/a> gas turbines \u2014 executing the exquisite geometry at the heart of mighty, house-size power plants used around the world. While this meant learning an entirely new product and new processes, Friot\u2019s variety of roles in the Army Reserve \u2014 from logistics officer to combat engineer \u2014 had taught him how to adapt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as military life recedes in his rearview mirror, Friot has come to discern important through lines that run between military service and life at GE Vernova. \u201cThe Army is full of great people and, really, so is GE Vernova,\u201d he says. \u201cThey do a great job of hiring really great people.\u201d And both look for similar key qualities in their personnel. \u201cEngineers make good leaders in almost any department, because they have that problem-solving mentality trained into them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocating for Fellow Vets<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Today, both France and Friot strive to be valuable resources for those navigating between military life and Vernova. Friot was recently appointed the Schenectady site\u2019s leader for the GE Vernova Veterans Network, where he runs programs to\u00a0support and promote veterans within the company, develop camaraderie, guide them to resources, and run programs that range from an annual ski trip in Massachusetts to a temporary residence for family members of patients at a local VA hospital. France, too, has been active in the GE Vernova Veterans Network, since shortly after its first chapter launched at her home site in Greenville, and strives to educate others about the often-overlooked qualities veterans bring to place like GE Vernova.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by General Electric Company\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d like more people to understand that veteran candidates bring things that may not fit the prerequisites published in a job listing,\u201d she says. \u201cJunior officers and enlisted in particular are excellent candidates to transition to a desk job in logistics, because they understand the larger operation from the bottom up.\u201d And perhaps above all, they bring a veteran\u2019s flexibility to any new challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause that\u2019s the one thing every military person knows in their bones,\u201d says France. \u201cThat the only constant is change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, please visit: https:\/\/www.gevernova.com\/news\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Across its operations, GE Vernova draws strength from the leadership and problem-solving expertise of its many veteran employees. In honor of Veterans Day, the spotlight turns to two outstanding individuals. 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