MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Virginia -- To help Program and Resources department, for the Marine Corps, employees understand the importance of their jobs and to reward the result of their tireless work, a group of approximately 30 employees from the department visited Marine Corps Base Quantico, May 6.

The employees are the primary group of individuals who work to develop, preserve and administrate financial requirements including policies and programs for the Marine Corps.

Working under the direction and guidance of the commandant of the Marine Corps, the P&R department's research and findings help make critical financial decisions that help ensure Marines are equipped do their jobs in garrison and in combat.

“We spend a lot of time listening to the briefs for keeping these kinds of programs alive,” said Col. P.T. Patrick, resource analysis branch chief. “We run the process that figures out where the money is allotted.”

They visited Marine Helicopter Squadron One, Weapons Training Battalion and the Transportation Demonstration Support Area. During their visit to HMX-1 the groups learned about Marine Corps aviation, toured the hangers and were able to sit in aircraft such as the MV-22 Osprey.

“Our guidance was to expose our civilian personnel assigned to P&R, who work day-in and day-out doing a lot of heavy lifting for the Marine Corps when it comes to budgeting, programming and analyzing data every day, to experience things that Marines get to do,” said Lt. Col. Ricardo Miagany, a resource strategy analyst.

While visiting Weapons Training Battalion, the group learned about various weapons systems used in the Marine Corps today, including what weapons each individual Marines carries and the importance of marksmanship training. The group fired weapons such as the Infantry Automatic Rifle M27, Glock, AK-47 and M4 with the guidance of Marines from Weapons Training Battalion. 

“I liked it a lot,” said Randal Cole, an operations analyst for P&R. “It’s great to get out and get a chance to see what [Marines] do.”