Stars So Bright
Employee Recognition Awards
2016-2017 3rd Quarter
ALL STAR AWARD
Norma White - OCIO
Norma is being nominated because of her exemplary response to inquiries and orders for new telecommunications equipment. She typically goes beyond simply answering your questions and doesn't talk down to you like you are the dumbest person she's ever met. She often provides just a little bit more information than you ask for and that helps you make better decisions about spending the state's money. She is lightning fast and her responses/instructions are easy to· understand and follow. It's almost as if she has nothing else to do and is just sitting there waiting for YOUR call. These days, it seems that everyone has more than their fair share of the workload, but Norma seems to perform her work easier than most and with the best attitude! In the end, not only do you have what you needed, but you're left thinking that you want to do business with Norma over and over again.
Nominated by Karen Hall
CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD
Laurie Schlitt - OCIO
The 309 Task Force was desperate for a replacement to a failing Access database. The database held information on every part of our day-to-day operations and was mission critical. It was decided to develop a replacement in ECM. Laurie was charged with making this happen. With no time to allot to it and with other, more pressing projects, Laurie started developing a program for a business she knew very little about. This program is finally operational and is being used daily. Laurie created a program that was user friendly and easy to use even for those who are not proficient in ECM. She listened and asked questions to understand our needs and create what we needed. After implementation she has continually made the adjustments we need as we realize the pieces we overlooked. Laurie has been a true pleasure to work with, and I am looking forward to working with her on future projects. Laurie is a great asset to DAS/OCIO. Thank you, Laurie!
Nominated by Gloria Eddins
PROJECT AWARD
Jim Sheets, Jeff Cadwallader, Aaron Weaver, and Ken Mitchell - OCIO
The state recently went through an IT consolidation project with the purpose of consolidating network and server support. The project encompassed all cabinet agencies. After reviewing information provided by employees, these four individuals met with all impacted agencies to discuss what their staff did in regard to the above functions. After the impacted staff were identified, Jim, Jeff, Aaron, and Ken spent a week in each agency performing "discovery" to learn the dally functions of the staff, how they used
IT to support their agencies, and solutions they were using that could benefit the enterprise, as well as specifically speaking with each staff member to learn about them. This work was all done in addition to their daily duties of keeping the OCIO enterprise functions going. Between May and September, 35 staff were identified, interviewed, and memos of agreement were established with their respective agencies. From September on, they continued to work on cross-training and establish new organizational charts. Many of these employees have now moved to the OCIO to assist with providing standardized services to the enterprise and determine the best tools to provide these services. These four have worked hard to incorporate these employees into the OCIO while ensuring their "home" agencies were not negatively impacted.
Nominated by Jayne Scofield
PROJECT AWARD
Michelle Metcalf, Tanner Crane, Matthew Kuta, Karissa Webb, Jon Jones, Juli Jurgens,
Allyson Spiering, Jameson Hittle, Audrey Van Landingham, Greg Blodgett, Bob Spire,
Gardenia Sanchez, Kevin Keller, and Ryan McMaster - OCIO
These stall are recognized for their role in supporting a field trip OCIO hosted to enhance the reputation of State IT employment with one of our target recruiting schools, SCC.OCIO does a lot of recruiting with sec and the High School Career Academy program located there. On December 7, we hosted the Career Academy IT Pathway - Programming class, consisting of 22 high school juniors, for a field trip to our building. We had one hour to give the students a flavor of the variety of jobs in IT application development. A team of application development staff participated in a coordinated rotation of four student groups through five different stations, each discussing a different aspect of program development. The presenters at each station had to prepare and deliver a concise description of a program language or database in laymen's terms in under 12 minutes, then repeat it for each of the rotations. Aa a wrap-up we had two recent interns describe the transition challenges from academia to employment in the IT field.
The staff did a wonderful job explaining the programming languages, databases, and the school-to-work transition process. Below is the note we received back from the instructor: "Thanks again for this morning - BEST FIELD TRIP SO FARII You and your team all did a great job." - Hildy Dickinson, Instructor, The Career Academy, Information Technology Pathway - Programming These staff demonstrated the best of the excellence that we strive for at OCIO.
Nominated by Dave Hattan
