Benjamin Wilson

Experience

• 

  MACV Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans

  Sept 2014 - Oct 2016

  Statewide Program Administrator

  Build consensus among staff and community providers to work together toward the common goal of ending veteran homelessness in Minnesota.Educate community members and stakeholders on veteran issues in our community.Translate and interpret community values as they relate to veterans issues.Solve a variety of problems and issues both simple and complex.Maintain a leadership role in our processes related to our organization and other community partners.Convener of parties and diverse community groups interested in working toward ending veteran homelessness.Team builder and mentor to professional peers and organizational staff statewide.Empower and motivate all interested parties of veterans issues, and how to fill gaps in services, by taking action.Conflict resolver.Bearer of ethical standards.Provide support for administration of grants including completing monthly data quality reports on clients and ensuring all staff complete information to update and maintain databases, including internal data bases and HMIS.Assists with assessment and eligibility for the programs and maintain knowledge related to policies procedures and programs.Work with program staff to ensure compliance with grant outcomes and performance expectations to ensure established goals are met.Work with program staff on program development and community outreach.Provide monthly and quarterly reports as needed.Assist with foundation grant planning and editing.Report data to funders using systems like: HUD, E-SNAPS, and DOL VOPAR.Review files in each region on a quarterly basis to assess for completeness and eligibility.Compile quarterly reports from each region of the state.Plan and coordinate metro stand down in conjunction with other staff.Attend CoC and other homeless concerns meetings.Assist with the development, improvement, training for, and implementation of statewide programs.Provide other support as required. Show less

• 

  Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs

  Oct 2016 - Jul 2018

  Coordinate efforts to identify Veterans experiencing or at-risk of homelessness and establish a coordinated assessment system to link Veterans with appropriate services.Coordinating and facilitating weekly Homeless Veteran Registry Meetings with our outside partners (Outside partners include the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans, multiple non-profit organizations, shelter providers, and MDVA employees). Registry meetings are coordinated based upon demand and regions and require additional virtual meetings in addition to our two main meetings physically held in St. Paul and Ramsey. Coordinate with outside organizations to arrange space and technical support for registry meetings. These organizations include other governments and non-profits. Successfully facilitate registry meetings which includes hours of preparation work to ensure that all of the housing teams are managed in a way to successfully develop several housing outcomes during each meeting. Manage access to the Homeless Veteran Registry with assistance from the supervisor and MNIT. Review all Homeless Veteran Registry Applications to ensure the necessary components are completeCoordinate with LinkVet through the Director of Veteran Programs and Memorial Affairs regarding changes in workflow used to input new registry members. Work with multiple state and federal databases, other MDVA Staff, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Staff to determine veteran status. Make determinations and annotations in the Homeless Veteran Registry in preparation for the weekly registry meetings.Engage with public and private organizations to ensure an appropriate continuum and optimal utilization of available resources is made. This includes programs such as SSVF, H-PACT, Veterans Justice Programs, and a renewed HUD-VASH program, etc. Show less Utilize established computer databases or systems to identify potential applicants. The databases include federal database systems maintained by the Social Security Administration, Railroad Retirement Board, Veterans Administration, Federal Civil Service and state systems including MAXIS, SMI, and MMIS. Databases and systems will be used to attain PII and HIPPA data. User must pass a background check and applicable courses to gain access to electronic systems. Provide application assistance from start to awarding of benefits including but not limited to:Obtain and complete Authorized Rep form, appropriate medical releases and other data privacy releases with Tennessean Warning to ensure informed consent from all prospective clients. Set up and maintain client folder each case. Interview the client, family members and professionals who work with the client regarding client’s disability, disability onset date, history of medical care. Obtain listing of medical facilities that have provided treatment and services to client in the past. Analyze all records including medical records for each client for presence of sever impairment or combination of impairments that can be expected to last a year or result in death. Summarize findings and prepare recommendations as to the probability of a client’s chance for approval using criteria in (c) above. Establish a deferred list of clients that do not qualify for SSA benefits at this time but whose cases should be reviewed in the future.Provide feedback from clients, advocates and families to unit, division and department administration to improve client service delivery system. Identify additional strategies which can improve the quality of information provided to both families/clients and advocates. Show less

  • Homeless Veteran Coordinator

    Dec 2016 - Jul 2018

  • SOAR Representative

    Oct 2016 - Dec 2016
• 

  USCIS

  Jul 2018 - now

  Serves in five collateral duty roles for the Office of Intake and Document Production (OIDP) in addition to regular duties, including: Emergency Management Coordinator (EMC) for the National Capital Region; Internal Self-Inspection Tracking and Evaluation (INSITE) Coordinator; Local Records Information Manager (LRIM), Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Liaison, and Collateral Duty Safety Officer (CDSO). These collateral duties require drafting detailed plans, conducting briefings, and offering solutions to a variety of problems/issues, following all USCIS policies and guidelines to ensure consistency and safety of all employees of OIDP.Plans and coordinates analyses of complex processes, to identify trends and gaps in a variety of non-mandatory training data and other data, to develop quarterly and annual reports, based on the strategic, priorities and delivers to upper management for bi-annual and annual analysis. This assists our branch to measure program accomplishments, results, and effectiveness.Provides recommendations and technical guidance to leadership by compiling statistical data from administrative functions to perform analyses, summarize results, identify problem areas, and propose solutions to improve compliance in all areas, including training, OIDP fiscal accounting procedures, communications campaigns, organizational or procedural changes, and communication programs.Research, designs, and develops briefings, trainings, workshops, and seminars for both internal and external stakeholders. Provides advice and instruction covering a broad spectrum of complex subject matter, including but not limited to related laws and regulations, program data, reports, trends of program operations and controls, communications operating policies administration of USCIS. Responsible for modifying instructional programs and course content to meet the needs of the specific branches within OIDP. Show less Nominated for employee of the year in fiscal year 2023. Also nominated by the OIDP Chief for the Director's Awards "Torch Award" category, for contributions to the video creation of the Big Picture Series: Immigrant Visas; to help provide high-level overviews of OIDP's impact on the agency and its customers.Attended and successfully completed the HCT Training Professionals Development (TPD) Workshop in Laguna Niguel, CA in August 2023. Designed and conducted assessments (qualitative and quantitative), and detailed analyses of complex processes, and uses data to identify trends and gaps in a variety of non-mandatory training data to develop quarterly and annual reports, based on the Employee Development Unit (EDU) Branch priorities and delivers to upper management for quarterly and annual analysis.Monitors and reports on the $200,000.00 OIDP training fund budget and assists in approving training funds for OIDP leadership and staff. Utilizes USCIS policies and guidelines to drive decision making on approvals or denials of training requests.Completed a Tableau certification course in Udemy and acted as the branch lead to create a Tableau dashboard for fiscal year data to be analyzed and manipulated by the user for leadership’s purposes. This created a single site, where a variety of data metrics can be easily digested by leadership for quick or in-depth analysis. Along these lines, have taken an interest in the training data, how to optimize its impacts by evaluating the data collected, how its currently used, and how it can be used more effectively.Researched, designed, and developed 10 training programs, workshops, and seminars in fiscal year 2023, and planned and managed all major phases of the instructional system design process. This assisted with developmental activities of ~290 staff throughout the year.Provided analytical support with evaluating reports, planning methodologies, and assessing policies and procedures for EDU. Show less Performs management studies and analyses of applications that support the processing of immigration and citizenship benefit requests and frequently rotate in each of the IV and legacy queue work areas, including assisting in monitoring the IV Field Inquiries inboxes. This was especially helpful when several other IV analysts were assigned to work the Afghan SIV manifest cases and by ensuring the IV Field Inquiry boxes were monitored regularly and worked quickly, allowed the other analysts to focus on a new sensitive workload.Designs and conducts assessments (qualitative and quantitative), special studies, and detailed analyses of complex processes, and uses data to identify trends and gaps in case volumes and works to resolve any identified areas of interest based on priorities.Completed over 31,000 transactions in FY 2021 with a cumulative case per hour rate of 41.80, a rate that is far above the case resolution unit average and performed this level of production while scoring 96.7% in the Analyst Level QA Rating. Assists with the I-765 C08 Priority Processing list daily and have dedicated over 230 hours to working his C08 list and assisting other analysts that need help completing their time sensitive processing lists to ensure priority cases are processed in a timely fashion. Received an on-the-spot award for being a high performer working in legacy queues, in addition to carrying on normal duties in immigrant visa queues as well.Interprets complex guidance materials and analyzes the intent and meaning of related concepts to determine compliance with the parameters established under the Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Treasury and the Financial Agent to ensure there are no gaps in the delivery of the highest level of customer service while ensuring stakeholder’s issues are being addressed.Provides technical assistance and direct support to the Office of Intake and Document Production (OIDP) and field office management staff. Show less Provide a variety of management services essential to the direction and operation of USCIS, assist management in administering policies and procedures, provide advice, guidance, and instruction to managers, supervisors, and employees concerning all administrative programs that include complex and sensitive issues, and provide excellent customer service.Administer day-to-day database operations to ensure database efficiently collects, stores, and processes data. Determine corrective actions to recover/restore data back to normal operations.Compile, analyze and summarize information relating to designated compliance requirements and recommend a course of action to meet assignment objectives.Analyze, and resolve a variety of conventional problems based on independent review of established criteria, methods, techniques, procedures, and new policy issuance.Determine and recommend alternative methods for resolving problems.Maintain supply orders for purchases of goods and services in accordance with federal laws, rules and regulations guidelines and procedures.Establish and maintain inventory records using Microsoft products in conjunction with SAMS inventory database.Provide leadership, and implement activities to accomplish agency multicultural organization direction and Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights requirement, goals, policies, and objectives. Show less

  • Management and Program Analyst

    Feb 2024 - now

  • Training Specialist

    Oct 2022 - Feb 2024

  • Management Program Analyst

    Feb 2019 - Oct 2022

  • Operations Support Specialist

    Jul 2018 - Feb 2019