1 The first recipient of this year s County Executive Award is, the PWC Office of Criminal Justice Services Group Facilitator Team. Dan VanLeer, Asya Muhammad, Steve Carneal, Regina Myers, Jeffrey McGarry, Pam Heitchew, Thomas Parker, and Loretta Stephens. The group was nominated by Steve Austin. This team works with some of the most at-risk folks in our community and frankly, folks that others may want to forget. They work with people in our community who have been arrested. They provide services to these clients but they didn t want to just do that, they also wanted to target specific identified risk factors that contributed to an offender s arrest and involvement in the criminal justice system. Now, just for the record, this is not part of their regular jobs. These individuals are employed as Pretrial/Probation Supervision Officers with the PWC Office of Criminal Justice Services and have volunteered their skills and knowledge to take on additional responsibilities within the agency to become group facilitators for these in-house treatment groups. According to Steve Austin, the Agency Director (formerly known as the Six Million Dollar Man or Stone Cold Steve Austin depending on your age) he has been able to witness first hand all of their hard work and efforts for the agency and for the citizens of Prince William County. These Facilitators are deeply committed to planting seeds and changing lives on a daily basis. (What a great way of putting that) Providing the services inhouse has reduced our reliance on outside vendors and the reduction in vendor costs is expected to be over $8,000 in FY 2015. Not only do these Officers use their skills for the Probationers they work with, but they also have used their acquired skills to conduct an in service training for their fellow coworkers as well. It is for this that this team is being recognized as County Executive Award winners.
2 The next County Executive Award team recipient is the County Budget Questions Application Team of Rashmi Thakur, Valerie Grayson, Sandy Curtis, Andrew Spence, Brent Heavner, Barbara Quinn, HyungKun Lee, Dinah Young and Tony Smith. The team was nominated by Debbie Avis. As we began the FY15 budget process interaction with citizens in early 2014, we wanted a tool that residents could easily use to ask and receive information about the budget. To accomplish this, this team developed a Budget Questions Application. They designed, developed, tested and provided constant feedback until the budget was adopted at the end of April. They designed an application that made it easy for citizens to ask questions and for staff to answer and they did it in a short period of time. But the hard work did not end with the development and deployment of the application. This team displayed incredibly rapid response to citizen questions, spending immense amounts of time to gather the correct information and get it to our citizens. The questions were also reviewed for accuracy before any answer was posted. The result was a product that not only gave our residents this opportunity but saved staff time and effort by making this information visible throughout the budget process. And now for the statistics in all over the budget period, we answered 246 questions from citizens regarding the budget.
3 The next County Executive Award goes to Barbara Diehl from the Area Agency on Aging; she was nominated by Courtney Tierney. Barbara Diehl, MSW, is a Supportive Services Specialist with the Area Agency on Aging. She saw an unmet need and instead of putting it on a list, she did something about it. The unmet need was for local Veterans and their spouses/widows/widowers that cannot drive, need transportation to their doctors appointments, and do not have the funds for expensive medical transport. Barbara s respect for Veterans stems from being an Army wife and the mother of an active duty Army member. Barbara also had the integrity and humility to know that without funds or the potential for funding to provide a new service, she had to ask for help. Barbara had to be creative to design a program to serve local Veterans without funding. It is called VETS: Veteran Enhanced Transportation Service. Barbara created a team of community partners to work along with Aging to provide transportation for the veterans. Over 30 local Veterans and their spouses have been served with over 220 trips to medical appointments. Barbara is an excellent example of meeting an unmet need by designing a program that partners with our community and doesn t require additional funding.
4 The next team recipient is the Office of Housing & Community Development Receptions Area team of Ebony Slayton and Kim Lawson. They were nominated by Elijah Johnson. Both Ebony & Kim pride themselves on providing excellent customer service for both staff and the public. They have enjoyed a 90 plus percentage customer service survey rating for the past 5 years. Our reception area can be extremely busy, they not only greet our clients and answer all calls that come through our main switchboard they also handle general public patrons and inquiries, which increased when the Ferlazzo Main Reception desk lost its staffing and DSS relocated its intake desk from the main lobby. Our reception area is the first the public sees when they enter the Ferlazzo building. A third staff member left Housing and was not replaced. This left Kim and Ebony on their own on to handle the responsibilities of the reception area. They developed new systems to ensure the daily work was completed in a timely manner. They created a new supply ordering process that controls when each unit order supplies, which allows us to better monitor supply needs and spending patterns by unit. They also worked with the DoIT to automate the phone system to reduce wait time for callers Ebony & Kim are the glue that keeps our office together and for this they desire the County Executive Award.
5 The next team recipient of the County Executive Award is the World Trade Center Memorial Design and Construction Team; Pat Thomas, Tracy Gordon, Erika Bukva, Sean McRunnel, Raymond Zuspan, Robert Weiss, Matthew Corneliussen, Lou Ann Dorrier, Brendon Hanafin and Mike Bowman. They were nominated ty Deb Oliver. In 2010, Prince William County acquired four steel beams from the New York/New Jersey Port Authority. The Port Authority is responsible for the debris from the World Trade Center. The Board commissioned an open design competition for the design of the monument. However, the cost of the implementation was very high and the BOCS put the project on hold due to financial considerations. Then in summer 2013, the BOCS decided to ramp up the project again, directing staff to get the beams in place in time for 9/11/2013. That gave this team only months to complete the work. After a period of painstaking restoration work beginning, and months of planning, preparation and construction, the four steel beams from the World Trade Center now stand at the Prince William County Government Center along the Prince William Parkway in Woodbridge. Tasks include the contracting of the design, engineering, permitting, construction, and preservation of the beams. This ambitious project was completed before the 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and brought down Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. A lighted plaza was constructed around the steel to allow guests to touch and connect with the monument. The World Trade Center Monument project was truly a community project. The Monument continues to deepen and further highlight the County s commitment to the9/11 Liberty Memorial and helps to strengthen our resolve as a community and as a nation.
6 The next recipient of the County Executive Awards is Tracy Hannigan, from the Department of Parks & Recreation. She was nominated by Lisa Herr. As the Recreation Services Division Chief, Tracy's job requires her to oversee major facilities to include 2 Waterparks and 2 Indoor Aquatic and Fitness Centers as well as other Park locations and a vast array of recreation programs and leagues. Tracy also oversees the Ranger Division as well as our Marketing Team. Not only does she strive to find new, creative and more efficient ways of doing business on a day-to-day basis, she has also gone outside her job scope to build partnerships and relationships with the community around her. Whether Tracy is working with her staff, the PWC School system or directly with the citizens of our community, she is consistent in what she brings to the table; a true commitment to the PWC community, integrity to do the right thing, a teamwork approach, openness for new ideas and solutions and a consistency in building relationships. She provides perspective, outreach and a true desire to make the lives of PWC citizens happier and healthier. Tracy continues to be a great ambassador for the Department of Parks and Recreation as well as PWC Government as a whole. She provides perspective, outreach and a true desire to make the lives of PWC citizens happier and healthier.
7 The next recipient of the County Executive Award is Francine Thomas from Finance. She was nominated by Teresa Macwelch. On January 1, 2014 the Department of Parks and Recreation started using the County financial reporting system. This presented its challenges to the Parks staff since this is both a new financial system and use of a purchasing module system.the staff had to be trained on multiple modules of the Performance system which included Accounting, Budget, and Purchasing. Francine was a huge part of the transition of the Parks and Recreation and in the training of the Parks staff. She has since given several group training classes at Hellwig as well as one-on-one training classes. Francine continues to be there for support every day. Francine provides the necessary support to Parks and Recreation and also continues to provide Performance support the all of the other remaining agencies in the county as well. Francine works hard to respect each and every employee and others ideas and provide a respectful and professional assistance to all performance users and non-performance users as well. Francine has stayed beyond her normal work day to assist employees when they were having some issues while processing documents in the system. Francine s approach to the training and support to others shows that she works within the County's Vision and Values every day.
8 The next team to receive the County Executive Award is the VRS Hybrid Implementation Team of Andrew Spence, Rashmi Thakur, Bruce Nicholson, Rene Gapasin, Helen Bogart, Bill Cleis, Linda Blair, Van Tran, Cindy Miller, Jeff Stamp, Cynthia Chapates, Gary Presler, Donna Wells, Andrea Brenner, Linda Satlin and Susan Washington. Michelle Attreed, Tom McQuillan and Steve Solomon nominated the team. The recent introduction of a new Virginia Retirement System (VRS) Hybrid Plan was the result of historic pension reform legislation which established the most significant change to the VRS since its inception in 1941. The Hybrid fundamentally changed our pension program, one of the most important components of the County s total compensation package which is critical to attracting and retaining our superior workforce. In order to fulfill all of the mandated requirements, a team of Human Resources, Finance, Communications and DOIT staff members collaborated seamlessly to ensure a successful Hybrid implementation as well as the development of a long- term process for management and administration. This team clearly demonstrated the County Values and Vision statement; as it states to do the right thing for the customer and the community every time. Each individual understood the impact of the Hybrid Plan on the retirement benefits of their customers, their colleagues, as well as their responsibility as stewards of the community.
9 The next team to receive the County Executive s Award is the Wet Lab Construction Management Team of Lisa Sloan, Linda Winslow, Dawn Gordon and Mike Gibbs. The team was nominated by Matthew Villarealle. In order to generate interest and provide opportunities for startup biotechnology companies within the County, Economic Development determined it was essential to create a wet lab that these companies could use as a springboard. This team was tasked with overseeing the construction phase of the project and ensuring it was ready for occupancy by spring 2014. It is a difficult task to manage a project after all the design work is completed, but the team willingly took on the challenge knowing it was important to our community. Working closely with consultants, contractors, budget restrictions, equipment selection, research, purchasing, furnishings and eventually leasing-this team was successful in accomplishing the project and making Prince William County s economic development efforts to attract new business successful. The new Wet Lab allows the County to provide a viable work space for startup companies that complement the mission of the current businesses and research at Innovation Park. As these companies thrive and grow, they will become a viable business to benefit our community. Now this team is also helping on the facilities management aspect of the Lab as we attract clients.
10 The next individual recipient of the County Executive Award is Detective Josh Lane. He was nominated by Greg Pass. Detective Josh Lane is assigned to the Police Department s Special Investigations Bureau. Detective Lane serves as a narcotics detective as well as a handler of his canine partner Max. Detective Lane has a stellar reputation and a work ethic second to none. In addition to his investigative and canine duties, he is also responsible for the Bureau s inventory, deployment and repair of a variety of electronic surveillance and investigative equipment. Detective Lane became involved as the case agent in the controlled delivery of a shipment of bulk marijuana. Detective Lane was able to determine that a delivery driver, while working for a major international shipping company, was directly involved, and proceeded to build a solid case against the delivery driver. All this while continuing to pursue other cases and securing other arrests. Detective Lane has always maintained a very high case load in complexity and volume, while maintaining his expertise in the area of electronics technology and as a canine handler. Detective Lane is able to demonstrate genuine respectful communication with our diverse cultural work force and community. Detective Lane s commitment to the Values of Respect, Integrity, Creativity, and Teamwork are contagious, inspiring others by example, to work as a team, to provide the best solutions to complex community problems, issues, and concerns.
11 The next team recipient of the County Executive s award is the Access Redesign Process Action Team of Beth Dugan, Danielle Pfost-Banks, Nancy Rickey, Linda Beaty, Doris Miller, Jessica Maybar, Ansar Ali-Shand, Betsy Strawderman, Carol Thacker, Rita Romano, Laurie Oliveri, Mary Lou Fahey and Linda Pemberton. They were nominated by Alan Wooten. Community Services serves people with serious mental health issues, many of whom are in crisis. Many of these individuals have no insurance and are unable to afford care in the private sector. During 2013, we began the process of implementing a new electronic health record. The Community Services Management Team chartered a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Process Action Team (PAT). Access Redesign is designed to increase savings, reduce staff time, cut wait times, and strengthen consumer engagement in services. The team outlined an efficient centralized scheduling process for clinic-based services, redesigned the agency s intake process establishing a free-standing Access Unit, and developed processes for reducing client no shows for appointments. The recommendations involved changes to the physical layout of the offices, changes in staff responsibilities, and re-assignment of staff to the new Access Unit. Titles and seniority were left at the door. Team members were honest in analyzing data even though changes were looming that could affect their programs, including staffing patterns. Data, although questioned at times, was the basis of decisions, not holding onto the past just because we ve always done it that way. Throughout the ongoing data analysis, team members kept the focus on what was the most efficient and effective processes. The filters through which decisions were made also included what is best for our clients and is it a good use of taxpayer dollars.
12 The next recipient of the County Executive Award is Tish Como of RELIC at the Bull Run Regional Library. Tish was nominated by Pamela Sackett. Mention that today is the 70 th anniversary of D-Day. With compassion and personal dedication, Tish has quietly, methodically and graciously extended use of county resources coupled with her own hospitality, on behalf of Prince William County, to build a bridge of friendship between two former World War II adversaries. On March 26, 2013, members of Kuentai, a Japanese non-profit organization tasked with the repatriation of remains of over one million Japanese World War II soldiers, uncovered the remains of three American soldiers (preliminarily identified by their dog tags) on Saipan. One of the dog tags belonged to PFC Richard N. Bean of Manassas. Knowing that American families want the same type of closure as the families of long lost Japanese soldiers, the Japanese organization came to locate any living relatives of PFC Bean. They ended up at RELIC where they met Tish Como, who enthusiastically took on the challenge of trying to find living Bean relatives and reconstruct a biography of PFC Richard N. Bean, American Hero. Through dedicated and painstaking efforts, both within the resources of the library and using other outside groups, Tish was able to give Bean s family the missing information and bring an honorable end to the story of a small town local man who volunteered to serve his country. Tish also assisted the group with locating information on a soldier from Brooklyn, New York.
13 The next individual selection for this year s County Executive Award is Ed Egan, from Development Services. He was nominated by Sia Shahrzad. On August 11, 2011 a vigorous ground shaking occurred in this region due to a 5.8 magnitude earthquake which was followed a few days later by Hurricane Irene. It took the region, including Prince William County, by surprise. Following a damage assessment after these events, a team of different agencies and departments, including the Development Services Department were put together to put in place to form the Earthquake Preparedness Committee. Ed from the Plan Review Section, volunteered to represent the Development Services Department as a subject matter expect. Ed s involvement, presentations, and training materials prepared to educate professionals, employees, and citizens of the county for earthquake preparedness demonstrates his respect and value for human life. His consistency, preparedness and timeliness in his overall contributions towards the goals of the Committee demonstrate his integrity. His ability to translate feedback and recommendations for agency requirements for safety, into presentations and training materials demonstrates his creativity. His team work was evidenced by his interactions and communication with the committee to provide the appropriate need to reach a successful goal.
14 The next County Executive Award goes to Kris Spoon of the Department of Information Technology. She was nominated by Andrew Spence. As the first Customer Advocate representing the Department of Information Technology, Kris took on an incredible task of embracing the position. She has made it her mission to become a conduit from the customer to the technicians. Even when a problem presents itself outside of her control, and even her responsibilities, she finds a way to solve the obstacle by either finding the right person or doing it herself. Kris represents our Values in every way. For instance, the process of upgrading everyone s computer to Windows 7 was very complicated and confusing. Our office required many different types of computers and laptops. Our requests were met with integrity no matter how strenuous the task would be for her and her colleagues. Kris committed herself to walk me through the process, and after three months of conversations, meetings and procedures, we received the computers we needed. Her responsibility to do the right thing for my office no matter the challenge, and the ability to exceed my Director s expectations and mine shows me that no one could be more deserving of a County Executive Award for Kris excellence to doing the right thing!
15 The last County Executive Award goes to John Sawicki in Public Works; he was nominated by Kim Downen. John was nominated for his meticulous and diligent emergency lighting upgrades he coordinated for the County Police Motor Squad Units. John rose to the challenge that presented itself after a horrible accident with one of our Motor Squad Unit Officers Chris Yung who died in the Line of Duty on December 31, 2012. John worked with the Motor Squad Unit to determine their needs, while researching and communicating with emergency lighting equipment vendors. This process went through draft after draft. When there was a snag in the progress, John used creativity through various vendors and different lighting configurations. John sought a final consensus from all parties as to how many lights and display sequence there would be. The story could end there, but John went a little further. He negotiated pricing with those vendors. He was able to secure a $4,000 cost savings for the emergency lighting equipment. There was
16 also a significant cost savings reached as John also worked many evenings and weekends, using his home computer, printer, and other personal resources showing progress of the project to the customers and his peers. His respect for the Police and feeling of personal responsibility drove him to take on this mission and help make a difference. Our Motor Squad Units are now going to be visible and far safer on the streets. That will not just be John s legacy in his career but also honored the life of Chris Young by helping to ensure this tragedy will not happen in the future. As always, I am so proud of all of you and the work you do. Thank you for making this a great place to work and for making our community a great place to live. I look forward to seeing you all next year! LASTLY: Would all of the award winners please go to the stairs out in the lobby for a group photo