INDIANAPOLIS –
Military careers are often winding roads filled with the unexpected, and as one U.S. Army Financial Management Command officer wraps up his career, he was given one last surprise as a fitting tribute to his service.
Lt. Col. Jason L. Shick, USAFMCOM plans and operations officer, was presented with a Maj. Gen. Nathan Towson Regimental Medallion at the Maj. Gen. Emmett J. Bean Federal Center in Indianapolis June 2, 2025.
“The Towson Medallion represents a lifetime of commitment to serving our Army, our Soldiers and their families with the highest levels of integrity and honor,” said Col. Michelle M. Williams, USAFMCOM commander, who presented the medallion. “I’m proud to be the one who presented Colonel Shick with this testament to his 26 years of faithful service.”
“When I found out about the award, as it was being presented to me, it was a complete shock,” said Shick, a Bremen, Ohio, native who officially retires from the Army Oct. 1. “Every time I saw the board with all the Towson recipients on it at the [U.S. Army Finance and Comptroller School], I always it wanted to happen for me, but I began to think it might not.
“But, sure enough, it did, and it’s a great way to end my career,” he continued. “I’m going to hold onto that as I hang up the uniform.”
The Towson Medallion was established by the U.S. Army Finance Corps Association on May 7, 1993, to recognize exceptional achievement or exemplary service by currently serving U.S. Army finance and comptroller commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, enlisted Soldiers and civilians demonstrating exceptional leadership and whose accomplishments clearly distinguish them from their peers.
“It highlights someone that fully understands what the Finance Corps is and someone who lives, breathes and has done everything they can do to support the Corps’ mission,” said Gennaro Penn, FCA president, who signed the award. “The Finance Corps enables the Army’s operations and takes care of Soldiers.”
“We don’t just give out the Towson Medallion,” Penn continued. “It’s earned, and Lieutenant Colonel Jason Shick earned this award by serving Soldiers.”
A career of military service is something the Fairfield Union High School alum said he always wanted to do as he gave credit to his family and childhood football coach for instilling that desire in him.
“Terry Markwood, my peewee football coach, who later became my junior high and high school coach, was a command sergeant major in the Army Reserve, and he was always talking with me about serving and had a huge influence on me,” Shick recalled. “Additionally, my grandfathers both served in the Navy during World War Two, and two of my three brothers also served, so I guess it’s kind of a family thing as well.”
While Shick’s desire to serve wasn’t surprising, he said the surprise at receiving the Towson Medallion ended up being a perfect bookend to a career that started with more than a few surprises – the first of which was at the University of Rio Grande when their Reserve Officer Training Corps detachment disbanded at the start of his junior year.
Driving an hour away to Ohio University for two years, Shick and two other displaced Rigo Grande ROTC cadets completed the program and were commissioned. However, in another surprise, a career in finance was not what Shick envisioned.
“Finance was my fifth choice, but because I was a math major, that’s where I was placed,” he recalled. “I actually started out as a finance officer that was branch detailed to armor for two years.”
Shick said those two years and a deployment in tanks taught him a lot about leadership, which followed him through his next 24 years in finance.
“Actually, my first assignment with finance was with the 15th Finance Battalion before I ever went to the Finance Captains’ Career Course,” he continued. “When they found out I was previously armor, they put me in their G-3 [operations] section, so I didn’t even get to touch finance for my first year as a finance officer.”
Those formative years in combat arms and operations enabled the young finance officer to excel in finance operations, where he spent most of his career.
“My favorite assignments have been serving as either a commander or director,” Shick said. “From a detachment commander in Bomberg, Germany, to coming back to my first finance assignment as the 15th [Financial Management Support Unit] and then to help stand up the 45th Finance Center, working with Soldiers is where I gravitate.”
Like many of the other surprises that hallmarked the lieutenant colonel’s career, Shick wasn’t expecting to stand up the 45th FC under USAFMCOM.
“I came to be the director of the Financial Management Operations and Oversight branch in Army Financial Services, but right before I got here, [Brig. Gen. Paige] Jennings, USAFMCOM’s commanding general at the time, asked me to take on the challenge of standing up the only Army Financial Management Center,” he recalled. “So of course, yeah, I never backed down from any challenge, and this was an opportunity to lead, take care of Soldiers and build a unit from the ground up.”
As acting director of the 45th FC, Shick reactivated a unit with a lineage dating back to World War Two’s D-Day invasion of Normandy, France.
“The 45th FC is not just a unit,” he said during the November 2023 reactivation ceremony. “It’s a symbol of our Army's recognition of money as a weapon system to sustain our Army, deter our enemies and crush our adversaries, if called upon to do so.”
In preparing for his transition to life after the military, the lieutenant colonel spent the last couple months working in USAFMCOM’s Operations section, helping set up the command for continuous transformation, modernization and innovation.
“It’s been a true honor,” he concluded.
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The Towson Medallion was first awarded to then-Sgt. 1st Class Scott Brady in 1993 and is given in honor of Towson, a career Soldier who fought in the war of 1812 as an artillery officer and served twice as the Army’s paymaster general from 1819 to 1854.
It was Towson who shaped the Army’s Financial Department by having paymaster assume responsibility for U.S. troops on an area basis, which met the Army’s needs throughout the 20th Century. His new systems and strict standards of accountability brought costs down and reduced losses to one-fifth of one percent.
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USAFMCOM delivers precision enterprise-wide financial operations to integrate, synchronize and sustain the battlefield through the Joint Strategic Support Area. The two-star command also directly supports the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller in their role as the principal advisor on all matters related to financial management and comptrollership.