Editor's note: This article has been updated to more accurately describe the award.

A new award recognizing Army dining facilities for nutritional excellence is named after one of the Association of the U.S. Army’s own.

The new Command Sgt. Maj. Troy Welch ACTION Award recognizes dining facilities, now known as Warrior Restaurants, that best promote the values in the Army Commitment to Improving Overall Nutrition program. Also referred to as ACTION, the program was launched in 2019 by Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston.

Welch, who retired from the Army in July 2007, has been AUSA’s director for NCO and Soldier Programs since January 2017. “Having an award … named after me is not only humbling, it’s one of the greatest honors of my life,” Welch said.

The idea to name this award for Welch is part of a larger effort to “honor living legends” and give soldiers something to aspire to and connect with, said Sgt. Maj. Jimmy Sellers, sergeant major for the deputy Army chief of staff for logistics, G-4. “I thought it would be a great idea to look at how we name our awards that our soldiers work hard for,” he said.

Managed by the Army G-4, the Welch award will recognize the top three command Warrior Restaurants with the highest cumulative points on the ACTION scorecard from Vantage, a datacentric program that evaluates dining facilities year-round.

The ACTION scorecard assesses standards and progress for nutrition programs such as Go-for-Green—Army, the Military Nutrition Assessment Tool, basic daily food allowance management, as well as customer feedback, food options, peak customer headcount and the use of subsistence-in-kind for eligible enlisted soldiers.

Winners of the Welch award will be recognized each year at the AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C.

Enlisting in June 1977 as a food service specialist, Welch served in every leadership position from first cook and shift leader to command sergeant major. His last tours of duty included command sergeant major for United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces-Korea and Eighth U.S. Army, and sergeant major for the deputy Army chief of staff for logistics, G-4.

He is the first food service specialist to serve at the major command level, and he is an inductee into the Quartermaster Hall of Fame.

Welch’s Army career is impressive, Sellers said. In addition to being the first culinary arts or quartermaster soldier to be selected as the senior enlisted leader for U.S. Forces-Korea, he also was the first food service soldier, in the 92G MOS, to be the G-4 sergeant major and the command sergeant major of an expeditionary sustainment command, Sellers said.

Welch also continues to serve even though he’s no longer on active duty, Sellers said.

“Troy has really broken the glass ceiling for that MOS,” he said. “Historically, it’s been kind of pigeonholed into the area of food service operations. He has branched so far outside of that and made it possible for an entire MOS to look at that specialty in a different way.”