Chief Diversity Officer
TMB Diversity Series: Mr. Elliott Branch
On Thursday, February 11th, TMB welcomed Mr. Elliott Branch to speak via Microsoft Teams as part of our TMB Diversity Series. Mr. Branch graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelors in Economics. He had a very long and distinguished career that began as an intern at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). He spent a significant portion of his career with the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), a major customer of TMB.
He also spent some time in the private sector, serving as the Chief Procurement Officer for the District of Columbia before coming back to serve as the first civilian Director of Contracts at NAVSEA from 2006 – 2009. After becoming a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) he served in various roles, including the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Acquisition and Procurement (DASN AP), before retiring in 2019. He now runs his own consulting firm, KJM Consulting, and serves on several Corporate Boards.
Throughout his career, Mr. Branch received many awards, including the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, the David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award, two Presidential Rank Awards for Meritorious Executive, the Vice Presidential Hammer Award for Reinventing Government, and the 2012 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for Management Excellence.
Mr. Branch’s discussion with TMB focused on Value and what it means to be a Value Creator – specifically what is value, what is value creation and the traits that you individually need to have to be a value creator. He discussed three questions that we as employees must consider:
- What value does your organization provide and to whom?
- How does your organization create that value and what is your role?
- How can I further develop my role in creating that value?
He believes that a company is made up of:
- Resources (in TMB’s case our people are our most important resource)
- Processes (Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs))
- Values
- Environment (Forces outside of our immediate control – examples for us would be changes in administration, Defense planning, etc.)
Mr. Branch also reviewed Six Qualities for being successful:
- Intellectually Curious
- Tough Minded
- Critical Thinker
- Flexible
- Bias for Completion
- Imagination
TMB is very grateful that Mr. Branch took time out of his busy schedule to meet with us and share his insights. Many employees thanked him through the MS Teams chat function and one employee commented that it was a “great discussion [and they] appreciate the emphasis on providing ‘value’. It’s so important.” TMB’s Diversity Series is a combination of company discussions, guest speakers and distributed articles. We look forward to building off of the success of Mr. Branch’s discussion and we hope to have more opportunities to invite speakers to participate in the
Diversity Series in the future.
~ Richard Parker
Chief Diversity Officer
