SUPPLY CHAIN accounting ,” she says . Through serving for six years as an enlisted person and a commissioned officer , she built up experience of working in contracts , and transferred as a contractor to the Pentagon working on classified army contracts .
By 2007 Allen had transferred to the National Geospatial Agency ( NGA ) – “ I like to refer to that as Google Earth for spies ,” she quips . Not a bad description , considering that she was at the Agency at a time of some critical operations including the tracking and targeting of Osama bin Laden . “ It was even more exciting for contracts and acquisitions which is what the federal folks call procurement ,” she continues . Working under another woman leader there , at a time when the organization was striving to justify its continued existence , she participated in the creating of cross functional teams across the 16,000-strong agency , and procurement was tasked to introduce ‘ agile acquisition ’. “ I was lucky enough to be the executive advisor to the top procurement official and so I was integral with that program , managing all the multiple cross functional teams and hundreds of subtasks within them .”
In 2012 Allen left her job with the NGA and took herself to Hawaii . Why here ? “ Because I missed it , and it was a place I really felt at home ,” she answers . We should explain that as new recruit , after basic training her first posting was to Hickam Air Force Base near the famous Pearl Harbor . On arrival , late at night , she was greeted by a senior airman who placed a lei ( the traditional flower garland ) round her neck . “ I was disconcerted from the stress of basic training and not sleeping , just trying to survive and with no idea what I was in for . But as soon as I put my feet on the ground , with all the air smelling of flowers from the lei , I fell in love with the islands .”
That love never left her . As she explains , people coming from the mainland either get it or they don ’ t . “ It is a place where east meets west . Added to that we have this underlying beautiful Hawaiian culture that is a simple sense of living life and taking care of each other and of the land .” The contrast with the Washington environment was stark . Over there ,
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