The Government Fleet Management Alliance (GFMA) announced that the County of San Bernardino, Calif., completed the Certified Fleet Management Operation (CFMO) certification program. GFMA Associate Director Eric Bearly presented a crystal award to Roger Weaver, CAFM, CPFP, CPM, fleet management director, at the Government Fleet Expo & Conference (GFX) during an award ceremony on June 12.

Weaver, who oversees a fleet of approximately 3,200 units, explained that the County began considering the certification two years ago. However, other priorities forced fleet staff to put the certification process on hold until the end of 2012, when they began again in earnest to work on the certification checklist.

The CFMO certification benchmarks fleet practices against private-sector companies with which the public-sector group competes most directly. The certification testing process addresses 20 categories and eight foundation categories and aims to make a fleet operation cost-effective, efficient, competitive, and well-managed.

Weaver said the process to certification allowed the fleet to “organize our thoughts around all the different things we were working on from all the different input sources, and it allowed us to have a framework in which to build those things and organize them. I think we were doing all the right things, but sometimes we weren’t quite as organized about them as we could have been.”

Jim Wright, associate director of the GFMA, said the County scored 86% and exceeded most of the minimum required scores for all eight foundation categories. He credits Weaver’s leadership with the County’s certification success. “Roger is a great manager. He thinks out of the box. During tough economic times, he was looking for ways to bring work into the fleet operation to offset costs,” Wright said. “He’s got a fantastic group of people, and he creates an atmosphere where good people become better.”

Weaver is most proud of the fleet staff, who have grown to become a team. “The workforce here has grown tremendously, and they have stepped up to the challenge and have become very professional. They’re very proud of what they do and are very productive,” Weaver said.

Certified Fleets

Other fleets that have attained the CFMO certification are:

• City of Austin, Texas, Fleet Services

• City of Fort Collins, Colo.

• City of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Fleet Services

• City of Fresno, Calif.

• City of Mesa, Ariz.

• City of Reno, Nev.

• City of Rochester, N.Y.

• Denver Water Board Fleet Administration

• Las Vegas Valley Water District

• Lee County, Fla.

• Salt River Project, Ariz.

• Tucson Electric Power Company, Ariz.