Academic achievement--Shelley Lankford: An ASMC success story.

Shelley Lankford, accountant, military wife, busy mother of three, and brand-new farmer, recently completed her master's degree in business administration at Bellevue University, Omaha, Nebraska. Earning an MBA during off-hours is a daunting task when one has time to focus. Doing four or five other jobs meanwhile makes it a superb achievement. And Shelley earned the last three semester hours of her degree by a very nontraditional and an academically rigorous process by successfully completing the Enhanced Defense Financial Managers Course and subsequently writing an in-depth research paper related to Defense financial management.

Here's how she did it.

Following her attendance at the Enhanced Defense Financial Managers Course, Shelley contacted ASMC headquarters to discuss a topic for her research paper. After some discussion she settled on "The Balanced Scorecard" and prepared an outline to build her research base on. She was off to a good start, having had prior experience working with the management concepts at her previous job, and about six weeks later she produced the first draft and forwarded it to ASMC headquarters, where it was reviewed and critiqued. After a telephone conference some comments were faxed back. Another two weeks produced the final paper, which was forwarded to Colonel Dave Berg (Ret.), the Army Master's Degree Program Director at Syracuse University, for final grading. (It was an excellent paper, by the way.)

Then the ASMC certified to the American Council on Education that all requirements for the three semester hours of credit were complete, and an official transcript was sent to the university. The final three hours of credit were awarded.

When asked how she felt, Shelley said, "My husband and I both feel a great level of relief," and quickly added, "but I'm not done. I've finished one of the Certified Defense Financial Manager examinations, and I plan to take the next two and finish that. Then there's the Air Force Financial Manager Staff Officer Course, Professional Military Comptroller Course, and maybe a PDI or two in the future!" Shelley Lankford is on a roll, and she's not about to stop.

On a personal note, her children are Jaryn, Evan, and Sydney, ages 11, 5, and 3, respectively. Her husband, Derrell, is an Air Force meteorologist with 14 years of service. They have a one-year-old domestic long hair cat named Angel. The whole family is involved in establishing a 10-acre farm complete with chickens, horses, and the like. Shelley works for the Air Mobility Command in the Transportation Working Capital Funds Financial Services.