We thought it might be interesting to paint a picture of a day in the life of AMSG, which left us with a dilemma, as AMSG is many things: a company, its dedicated management team, its large number of contracts underway, and all the many talented people supporting those contracts. So, a day in the life of what—or whom—exactly?
After some discussion, we settled on the AdventureOne JV, where AMSG is the prime on the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) IDIQ contract vehicle, supporting the Communications and Outreach Division at the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security, or COD at DHS S&T, if you’re into the acronyms and initialisms, and you know we are.
We thought this was a good choice because absolutely nothing about that paragraph is even remotely self-explanatory.
COD is the group that handles communications and public awareness for the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). S&T is the Research and Development arm of DHS. COD comprises writers, editors, press relations specialists, graphics and web creators, sound and video production experts, and a few others spanning some of those roles.
They create articles, blog posts, podcasts, videos, social media postings, physical posters, event displays, and a lot more. COD also reviews most of the content from the directorate that’s intended for the public. COD team members work remotely, on location, and from designated workspaces at the DHS headquarters St. Elizabeths campus in Anacostia.
And with that, here’s a glimpse of a day in the life of these professionals:
Meron Kassaye, Web Content Manager, spends a lot of her time creating web pages for all of COD’s written news products (news releases, blogs, feature articles, and podcasts), and checking accuracy and policy compliance of S&T contributors’ updates. Then, she might switch to maintaining and updating the S&T and COD SharePoint Internal websites. She also ensures that content, documents, and images are 508 compliant for publishing on the S&T external website. 508 compliant, which means that it is accessible to people with disabilities, affects layout, design, and creating alternate texts for any images.
Christian Locke, Photographer/Video Production Assistant, described his typical day this way: “A typical workday for me consists of morning team/planning meetings, mapping out upcoming shoots, reviewing timelines, and forecasting what could potentially be next on the horizon. The rest of my day usually shifts into being knee-deep in Adobe somewhere, editing green screen portraits in Photoshop, editing event photos in Lightroom, or piecing together a social media video on Premiere Pro.”
Julie Moretti, Senior Graphics Designer, does many different things in her typical day, but highlighted these: “As a member of the design team, one of the projects I support is Science and Technology’s podcast, Technologically Speaking. During the season, I collaborate with the podcast team to create graphics that best represent each episode. The podcast team shares imagery and the episode title, and then we go back and forth reviewing the graphic and choosing the right one. The graphics are posted on our homepage, and the promotional graphics are shared across social media. The podcast is a nice way to learn more from our experts in the field.”
Steve Muskat, Video Production Team Lead, usually finds himself behind a camera, fiddling with various microphone types, throughout the DC area at DHS facilities and events. He also tackles location shoots and multi-day productions.
Doug Bradshaw, Lead Scriptwriter, Writer and Editor, fills a typical day with writing public and non-public facing content for the video, audio, and written products that COD churns out. This includes meeting with individuals from S&T components, going onsite to interview and film subject matter experts, reviewing content for S&T researchers and scientists to share internally and externally, writing/directing/producing and editing S&T’s podcasts, creating the supporting social media content for products Team AMSG produces, as well as anything else that comes along, like scripting and planning S&T special events.
These are just a few of the team members supporting one of the many missions AMSG helps advance. With amazing teams and their outstanding work, AMSG’s significant impact, told through the stories of those professionals, continues to grow—as you’ll see in the next installment of A Day in the Life.
– Written by Jeffrey Dewhurst