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FRCSW Commanding Officer Capt. Craig Owen presents Financial Management Analyst Aaron Vivar with the command's 2017 Civilian of the Year and Civilian of the Quarter Award (3nd quarter) Feb. 23 in Building 94. Photo by Scott Janes
Fleet Readiness Center Southwest (FRCSW) selected Aaron Vivar as its Fiscal Year 2017 Civilian of the Year and Civilian of the Quarter, third quarter.
Vivar, a financial management analyst, was recognized for his work in the commands comptroller department where he was instrumental in identifying and processing aircraft upward obligation requests.
FRCSW Commanding Officer Capt. Craig Owen presented Vivar with the award in ceremonies Feb. 23 in Building 94.
Upward obligation requests are actually funding requests that have been based on a certain fiscal year. These are used if more funding is needed for the following fiscal year, mostly for additional in-house funds. We used these primarily for the legacy F/A-18 Hornets that are high-flight-hour aircraft, Vivar said.
A graduate of Ashford University with a major in organizational management and a minor in finance, Vivar developed a background in financial management while working for a credit union for three years.
In 2008 he joined FRCSW and spent two years as an F/A-18 aircraft mechanic apprentice in the fuel cell shop until becoming a journeyman mechanic. In 2014 he became a financial management analyst for the command, and in November 2017, became a supervisory financial management analyst where he oversees the work of 12 other financial analysts within the comptroller department.
The department is responsible for the allocation of financial expenditures for FRCSW and all of its sites.
Working with the FRCSW Integrated Products Team (IPT), Vivar assisted in the identification of 45 cost-reimbursable aircraft maintenance repair or overhaul procedures that required additional expired funding, and 70 planned maintenance interval actions that had suffered understated workload standards, generally applicable to the legacy Hornet airframe.
We want to make sure that we have the correct amount of money for the correct work and that all of our transactions are in accordance with the law.
All total, these obligation requests come to about $58 million, Vivar said. Our goal is to make sure that we have the correct amount of money for the correct work and that all of our transactions are in accordance with the law.
We want to make sure that we have the correct amount of money for the correct work and that all of our transactions are in accordance with the law.
Obligation requests of up to $4 million may be approved by Naval Air Systems Command. For amounts above that, higher authority like the Undersecretary of Defense or congressional approval is required. To date, FRCSW has received more than $28 million in upward obligations funding.
I would thank our team in the 10.0 (comptroller) staff and our collaboration with the IPT side for the data calls in getting this done, he said. I enjoy the readiness portion of working here --- from being an aircraft mechanic to working on the support side now, seeing the aircraft leave the test line and heading for the fleet --- thats the best thing about working here.
A native San Diegan, Vivar spends much of his free time camping and hiking with his wife Desiree and their two children.