We congratulate these No Matter What award winners:
Barbara Black, Office of the Vice President , Administration & Finance
Nominated: Maryann Fox, University Advancement
According to Maryann, Barb can be considered one of SJSU's best employee volunteers. This past semester she volunteered her time and energy for many of our university's events.She worked the entire day for the 2007 San José Grand Prix. She made our donor guests feel welcomed and appreciated. During Homecoming Week she volunteered to work the Campus MovieFest, the Golden Grad Reception, the Alumni College and then she assisted with the Bandana Give-a-way at Spartan Stadium. After work on Monday, Oct. 15th she stood out in the pouring rain and helped direct guests to the Carol Channing Concert. She then high tailed it over to the University Room to help sell Ms. Channing's Audio Books. She stayed until the bitter end, which was 11:00 p.m. We, at University Advancement, want to express our sincere thanks to Barbara Black for making the difference - no matter what! Her spirit and commitment to our university community is exceptional. Thank you, Barb!
Sarah Khan & Lindsay Hamm, Human Resources
Nominated by: Joan Torne
Sarah and Lindsay have done an outstanding job to encourage and promote the value of education and life-long learning throughout the University. They have developed vital partnerships with many members of our university community including being facilitators for the campus reading program. Their MPP 1st Year Experience and University New Employee Orientation Programs are well-thought out and extremely successful. In last year's CSU Customer Satisfaction surveys their Organizational Development and Training unit scored above the CSU mean as compared to five other CSU campuses. Sarah and Lindsay always take the initiative to achieve excellence in everything they do. Thank you, Lindsay and Sarah!
Natasha Jones, University Computing and Telecommunications
Nominated by: Victor Van Leer
In October of 2006, Natasha was faced with the daunting task of creating a way for every campus employee to have an official SJSU email address. Natasha could have simply written a program to create the accounts and publish the address in the campus directory, but she took this project much further. To ease the transition and eliminate a lot of complaints, she built a web-based forwarding application so existing employees could have an official email address, without disrupting their old email address. For new employees, utilizing existing self-mailers, she wrote a new employee Welcome Letter program. New employees are now routinely mailed a letter welcoming them to SJSU that identifies their official email address and includes instructions on how to use it. She also built a Campus Communication system that, for the first time in SJSU history, allows the university to reach out to all employees and easily select communities based on Division, Department or even building. Natasha consistently goes beyond what is expected and achieves what is possible! Thank you, Natasha!
An Nguyen, University Compting & Telecommunications
Nominated by: Victor Van Leer
An joined SJSU in 2006. Only days after his arrival, the volume of spam email attempting to reach the university had doubled. The anti-spam tools were going into shock over the trauma of increasing spam and needed constant resuscitation. An simultaneously kept the existing machines on life support while building larger machines to take the increased load. This would have been sufficient, but An did not stop there. Not only did An perform a heart transplant on our anti-spam system, but he did a ground-up upgrade of every complex component of the anti-spam system and added several new defenses to our anti-spam arsenal. Industry reports later confirmed that spam had doubled during that period and 95% of the email coming to the University was spam. An was able to dramatically reduce the number of spam messages reaching our inboxes, while ensuring that legitimate email was unaffected. Thank you, An!
Marlene Anderson, Finance - Bursar's Office
Nominated by: Deana Genereux, Bobbie Patrick and Marlene Trifilo
According to Deana, Bobbie, and Marlene ... For many years we have offered a payment plan for students who want to defer their fees and pay in equal installments. For this service, non-resident students have had to pay the standard $33 dollars, plus an additional 15% of their remaining fee balance. The 15% fee was discontinued two semesters ago, but was again reinstated for Fall 2007. There was an immediate outcry from the students. Marlene empathized with the students and asked that each complaining student complete a Financial Petition. After reading the Financial Petitions and listening to her staff, she requested that the added 15% be reversed and never charged again. This was not an overnight decision, but rather a thoughtful and deliberate process that required a lot of research. As a result of Marlene's efforts, the 15% fee is no longer charged and the students received refunds. This is only one example of Marlene's commitment to our students. She routinely listens to their concerns and takes action when she sees an injustice.Thank you, Marlene!
Facilities Development and Operations: Plumbing Shop
Kym Bersuch, Regino Garcia, Michael Kerrebijn, Enrique Lopez, Larry McCurdy, Al Palacios, Al Perez, Reuben Soto, Gary Tarnowski
The individuals that make up the Plumbing Shop have been doing some remarkable things. They go out of their way everyday to meet the needs of as many people as they can. They take pride and ownership in every aspect of their work. Collectively, they have decided that they can do more if they function as a team - a team concentrating on becoming the best shop in FD&O. They rotate all job assignments monthly or even weekly by choice so that each has an opportunity to shine. They collectively critique their work and actions, assisting each other in training and sharing of solutions. When something is not going right, they all accept responsibility for it as a Shop and set out together to correct the situation. They consistently weigh each task and ask themselves, among other things, "Will my choices provide a savings in the future? Will my work last 100 years?" Two years ago the Plumbing Shop asked to be the pilot shop for using TMA, our maintenance management system. They have now demonstrated that it is possible to go paperless, to enter labor online, to receive scheduled work online, to enter tech reports online, and to do all this daily, with an average time per day at the terminal of 2-5 minutes. Their determination to excel is best measured by the extremely low rework count they have. The job is done right the first time. No cutting corners. The statement, "it's not my job" does not exist in the Plumbing Shop. They demonstrate what can be achieved when a group of individuals choose to measure their success as a team. Let's recognize and confirm their drive, spirit, and achievement as the right way to do business as a Shop of Choice.Thank you, Plumbing Shop!
We congratulate the following Moment of Magic award winners:
Atul Pala, University Computing & Telecommunications
Nominated by: Victor Van Leer
Atul went out of his way to help two departments, Human Resources and Academic Technology, save thousands of dollars in IT hardware expenses. Atul learned that each department was preparing to purchase new servers for their programs. Knowing that some existing servers could accommodate the two new systems, Atul contacted the departments and helped them fit their systems on existing servers that were under utilized. With Atul's help, the departments did not have to face the delays of pricing, ordering, waiting for the machines to arrive and then struggling with the installation. They were able to immediately make use of the systems. In both cases, the customers had aggressive timelines to meet and Atul helped them recover much needed time. Atul created a Moment of Magic for both departments. Thank you Atul!
Donna Duval, Facilities Development & Operations
Nominated by: Terry Crisp
In August 2007, an FD&O maintenance action at the SPX pool area resulted in an office flood. As a result, a number of books were damaged or destroyed. Donna Duval, FD&O's Customer Service and Logistics Lead was assigned the task to find a way to replace or restore the books. Using a great deal of creative thinking, ingenuity, and perseverance Donna was able to find and replace all of the damaged books. This assignment was outside of Donna's normal job duties and she handled it with a great sense of commitment and enthusiasm. She truly went the extra mile to ensure that FD&O would do everything possible to restore customer confidence and satisfaction. Needless to say, the customer was delighted with the end result! Thank you, Donna!
Facilities Development and Operations: The King Custodial Staff:
Sonia Baltodano, Calvin Brown, Placentina Chagolla, Ace Ebalobor, Dalia Garcia, Maria Gonzalez, Margarita Guillen, Mark Hancock, Paulino Herrera, Nghiep Le, Soledad Lopez, Teresa Macias, Steve Mam, Sang Nao, Russell O'Brien, Sarah Portales, Maria Quinonez, Raul Rosales, Lai Saechao, Yian Saechao, E Fou Saelee, Cheng Saephanh, Nai Saevang, Melody Sek, Phal Sek, Chris Smythe, Luz Sturgill, Bunthan Um, Jim Weber
Nominated by: Betty Luna
According to Betty, at 8:06 p.m. on Wednesday October 16, 2007, the earth shook and so did the King Library. The building stood strong, but the farther up you were in the building, the harder it shook. When I called our Swing Shift Manager, Mark Hancock, at 8:15 p.m. to see how hard the campus was hit, he said he did not know yet as he was holding the doors open for the people evacuating King. I replied, "They are in the safest building on campus." He replied, "You tell them that!." After the shaking and rolling stopped, the library looked like someone had taken a huge jar of baby powder and dusted the entire library. Books from the stacks lined the passageways on six of the nine floors. Our King Custodial staff worked all through the night and into the next morning cleaning up the place. The building inspectors who came the next morning were in awe that the building had faired so well. Although it took two extra days to get the books of 7, 8, and 9 back in the stacks, no one not having gone through the earthquake would have known it had even occurred. Thank you King Custodians! You certainly created a Moment of Magic for both the University and the City of San José.
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