Kim Babcock is a nominee for the Women of Color in STEM Conference Technical Innovation in Government Award.

A research physical scientist at the Coast Guard Research and Development Center in New London, CT, Babcock is filling a complex and critical role as the Operational Test Agent for the Coast Guard’s Financial Management Service Improvement Initiative.

Babcock essentially created a roadmap for conducting the functions of an Operational Test Agent for an acquisition that is nonstandard, and she devoted the last few years to doing so.

This effort focuses on upgrading the security, and efficiency of Coast Guard core financial systems. Expected benefits include updated bookkeeping methods, reduced maintenance costs, consolidated financial auditing, reduced need for software development, and no need for extensive software installation or upgrades on Coast Guard computers, among other improvements.

Operational test planning and execution functions are fairly well known for hardware acquisitions. However, operational testing, as applied to SaaS, is not well known and requires the OTA to impose a significantly different mindset on the planning and execution of the process.