Congratulations to the 2024 GSA Personal Property Award Winners!
Personal Property Manager of the Year
Jeffrey Scherr, Property Management Officer
Department of Commerce
Jeffrey Scherr serves as a Property Management Officer and Team Leader for the Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration’s (ITA), Property Management Office.
Jeffrey oversees the evolution of the Bureau’s property management program that is recognized for being one of the most visible programs within the Bureau. The program has faced many challenges throughout the past several years relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. The planning of ITA’s return-to-office initiative from the COVID stay-at-home orders, the expectations set for Jeffrey moving forward required for him to demonstrate his duties as a Travel Services Manager to advise the Bureau to transition to a hybrid working environment.
Jeffrey also manages and advises a team of highly skilled, customer-oriented property management specialists that provide technical guidance to 200+ global Property Officials across 100 United States and 80 International locations, the agency’s Management Council and other Senior Officials. He has authored countless Bureau-wide property management policies, bulletins and memorandums. In addition, Jeffrey has established ITA’s Annual Personal Property Inventory and Reconciliation cycles of over 13,500 global assets (valued over $24.3M), as well as implemented the Sunflower Property Management System Network Discovery Tool, that reduces inventory lead time and administrative burdens.
Jeffrey has truly earned the trust and respect of his peers across the International Trade Administration and the Department of Commerce’s personal property management community. Many of them continue to seek his advice and recommendations for managing their personal property programs.
Personal Property Professional of the Year
Shirley Saucer, Property Disposal Specialist
United States Department of Agriculture
Shirley Saucer serves as the Property Disposal Specialist in the Personal Property and Fleet Management Division (PPFMD), Office of Property and Environmental Management (OPEM) in the United States Department of Agriculture.
Shirley has demonstrated outstanding leadership and professionalism by serving dual roles in the office as a Management Analyst and Property Disposal Specialist for an entire year. During this time, she initiated and spearheaded the agency’s reduction of personal property delinquencies, some of which hadn’t been addressed in over 12 years. Her collaboration with the National Finance Center on data reporting and cooperation from the points of contacts led to 90% of USDA’s offices and sub-agencies supporting her delinquency reduction plan.
Shirley reviewed, identified and provided a list to those Offices and Sub-agencies with the highest number of property delinquencies. She then utilized the Corporate Property Automated Information System (CPAIS) to determine the accuracy of the data. The results were outstanding. Delinquencies over 180 days decreased from 128 to 104 (81% reduction); 60-to-80-day delinquencies decreased from 59 to 29 days (49% reduction); and less than 60 days the delinquencies potentially could decrease from 408 to 283 (68% reduction).
Shirley’s depth of knowledge in the field of personal property management has also led her into developing the Personal Property Helpdesk, which provides assistance and customer support to more than 50 Property Specialists and Representatives within the United States Department of Agriculture.
Personal Property Team of the Year
The Personal Property Management Branch Fleet Team
United States Department of Agriculture
Team Members – Joseph Herrera, Corey Atkins, Charles King, Christopher Scherr, Verneishae Jordan, Victoria Hannah, Gavin Cummins, Cherie Cordell, Debra Metzler, John Armstrong, Angela Jenkins, Alan Hedding, Andrea Morlock, Carlos Leon Torres, Kristen Foley, Heather Carow, Matthew Cross, Nicole Ciano, Lenny Skieff, Heather White, Jackie Mullanix, Simon Beuttler, Marcus Hill, David Goodman, Hope Fonseca and Adam Stiegelmeier (not pictured)
The United States Department of Agriculture, Farm Production and Conservation Business Center, Personal Property Management Branch Fleet Team developed an innovative and advancing Vehicle Management Tool (VMT), that serves as a Property Management Information System (PMIS) for a fleet of 10,000 compact and midsized motor vehicles across the nation and bordering territories of Mexico and Canada.
The latest improvement to the tool, includes the development of an Automated Customer Vehicle Ordering System that operates off the USDA ServiceNow platform to streamline acquisitions. This new system creates a more efficient and timely process for recording requests, routing of approvals and accounting for the replacement of 10% of fleet annually. This year, approximately 1,100 leased and agency-owned vehicles (valued at $45 million) were acquired through the new VMT streamlined process. And as part of the VMT integration, the team also implemented a telematics data import for Fleet Management across 6,982 of leased and agency owned vehicles.
Lastly, in 2023 the Vehicle Management Tool was recognized and showcased at the GSA Fedfleet Conference as an example of Innovation and Best Practices.