We congratulate these No Matter What Team Award Winners:
Facilities Development and Operations: Detective Dave & the After Dark Superstars
Dave Barber, Calvin Brown, Guillermo Garcia, Jim Weber, Mark Hancock, Reginald Perry, Matilde Martinez-Mata, Oscar Canizales, Raymond Sotelo, Gary Bassett, Gary Hammonds, Lorena Guzman
This nomination was submitted by Betty Luna (FD&O) & Frank Belcastro (UPD)
Webster defines our job title of custodian as – one that guards and protects or maintains; one entrusted with guarding and keeping property. We take our job seriously and here are a few examples of how some of our superstars have gone above and beyond to protect SJSU over the past couple of years. Detective Dave, the leader of the group, aka David Barber has coached many on tactical observation and reporting.
It is very common for our night custodial staff to be surprised by uncommon and often illegal activities being conducted by people during their shift. Our unknown and faceless superstars have seen it all.
In December 2009, Reginald was buffing the lobby area of YUH around 5:30 a.m. when he noticed someone just standing by the base of the 4th St garage stairway on the Paseo San Carlos parkway smoking a cigarette. Reggie noticed that the person kept looking up the stairs and just walking around that spot. The lobby area that Reggie was working in had a flier posted and Reggie noticed that the description was similar to the person he was observing. Reggie kept an eye on the person of interest as he buffed the floor. Within minutes, the person of interest put on a baseball cap and flipped on his sweatshirt hood. Reggie immediately called UPD to notify them of this person's peculiar behavior. UPD arrived on the scene within "seconds" of Reggie’s call. The person of interest took off running, but was caught due to UPD’s immediate reaction to Reggie’s call.
In August 2010 about 11:00 p.m. in the Engineering Building a person was found sleeping inside of a little closet. Two week later the custodian found the same person sleeping in the lobby on second floor in Engineering. UPD was called and the person was handcuffed and taken away.
In October 2010 around 11:00 p.m., in YUH 206 which faces the flat roof of YUH. The window was open and the custodial saw some peculiar activity, including a computer moved, a printer unplugged and personal type stuff in disarray. He called UPD. UPD responded to a possible theft in progress and a person was "taken in" by UPD.
In November 2010 about 11:00 p.m. a custodian found a person sleeping in the Engineering 301 and called his manager. The manager arrived on the scene, opened the door, and the person woke up and left. A week Later on December 5, 2010 about around 11:00 p.m. the custodian found the same person asleep in the same room. The manager was notified again and when in route to Engineering he saw four UPD patrol units parked in front of the Cesar Chavez Plaza. The manager approached the officers, and they immediately went to ENG where they found the person fixing his blankets and back pack into a bed. He was searched and handcuffed and taken away.
In December 2010, at 11:30 p.m. Guillermo received a call from Lorena, an employee. She stated that a young Hispanic person in their mid twenties approached her and asked that if she had access to the offices on the first floor of Engineering Building. She replied that she did not. This person insisted that she did and that he knew the custodial staff carried master keys. He told her that if she would open the door for him, he would give her $300, cash. Lorena refused, telling the person that she would not jeopardize her job and that she was going to call her manager, Guillermo Garcia. The unidentified person replied that she did not have to worry about it since he only needed to get some paper out of the room and he would not leave a trail, since he was wearing gloves. She refused and the unidentified person left. UPD was called and given the details of the encounter.
In January 2011, at approximately 11:45 p.m., Guillermo Garcia received a call from new custodial employee, Matilde, to advise him that a female, who had previously been looking for Guillermo regarding an earlier incident, was back and in one of the computer labs in her work area. Guillermo proceeded to the lab in question and found the female working on a computer. He immediately called UPD and gave them the details. UPD arrived on the scene within minutes. The officer questioned the female who was later handcuffed and taken away. This female was the only person in the building other than our night custodial staff and she was inside a computer lab that can only be opened with the omnilock code or the A185 Master Key.
Again, in January 2011 at around 1:00AM, Oscar was collecting trash and recycle from class rooms and offices in ENG building while Raymond was cleaning rest-rooms. When Oscar tried to enter into room ENG 268, he noticed that our custodial omnilock code did not work. So he used the A185 master key to gain entrance to the room which was completely dark. He emptied the first trash can at the front door. He proceeded deeper into the room and he found a person apparently using a lap-top. Oscan contacted Raymond who in turn called into the keyroom and told Gary Bassett. Gary called UPD and UPD arrived on the scene within minutes and found the person, who by this time was on his way out of the room but was identified by Oscar. UPD Officers detained him and minutes later he was hand cuffed and taken away. We later learned that this person of interest had in his possession multiple ID’s and break in tools. He was present in an SJSU facility after normal business hours without authority and was arrested for Trespassing. The prompt actions of the FD&O team led to the successful arrest of the perpetrator and enhanced the security of the SJSU community. Congratulations and Thank You for your keen eyes and ears !
We congratulate these Moment of Magic Individual and Team award winners:
Tommy Lee, University Police Department: Awarded for Excellence
This nomination was submitted by Claire Kotowski
Tommy Lee has shown on-going above and beyond service to the University Police and the University Community. He has volunteered on many occasions to fill in for a “short shift” or when extra Officers are needed for a Special Event. He stepped up in May, 2010 when UPD requested an external audit of the Property & Evidence Program including Policies, Procedures and Methods used by the Department. Prior to the audit, Officer Lee spent countless hours working with the Property & Evidence student employee to bring the program into compliance. Officer Lee worked to dispose of firearms, drug-related evidence, and making deposits of currency stored as evidence according to the law. His willingness to get this part of the UPD house in order, made a significant difference in passing the external audit and demonstrating that our Property & Evidence Program meets acceptable standards.
Most recently Officer Lee revised the University Police Cadet Program. Through his efforts and coordination with others in the Department and the University Community, the Cadet Program has graduated its first cadets in several years. The goal of the Police Department Cadet Program is to provide college students an opportunity to gain hands-on experience and knowledge in preparation for successful careers in the criminal justice field. They are extra eyes and ears on campus for UPD in this time of budget restraints. The initial class of six Cadets are volunteering a minimum of 12 hours per month – This gives a quantifiable increase of 84 hours of knowledgeable assistance to the University Police Department Field Services program. In addition to the 40 Hours of In-House training, Officer Lee also arranged for the 40 hours of Field Training Program and serves as a “hands on” mentor for these young men and women. Congratulations and Thank you Tommy.
Barbara Black, Administration & Finance: Awarded for Community Service
This nomination was submitted by Dorothy Poole
Due to an increased workload, the Human Resources department was not able to handle one of their regularly assigned duties, i.e., coordinating the University-wide participation in the United Way giving campaign. The AVP for HR requested assistance, and Barb readily agreed to coordinate this University-wide activity. Barb worked with the outside agency (i.e., attended meetings, maintained regular communications) as well as internal volunteers to solicit donations. Barb collated the donation forms, distributed them to various internal coordinators (across all university departments) collected them and delivered them to the United Way. Barb handled this time-consuming activity in addition to her regular work responsibilities. Because of Barb’s above and beyond performance, the University was able to continue its commitment to giving to the United Way Charitable campaign. The United Way Giving Campaign Development Officer (Caitlin Johnston) sent Barb a letter and a certificate thanking her for her “invaluable volunteer support”. Thank you Barb for your community support.
Spartan Shops, Inc. Accounting Team: Awarded for Excellence
Ann Bui, Ivy Vo, Cindy Nimrud, Irene Payne, Trisha Vo, Danielle Price, Stephanie Portnoff
This nomination was submitted by Lisa Thomas
The Accounting team has been and continues to be an integral part of the implementation of the Spartan Shops ERP/Financial System. The process began in early 2008, and while primarily complete, continues to challenge the way we look at our business processes. The leadership of Ann and the initiative taken by her entire group has been a model effort to say the least. They took the lead in dissecting each module and pushing other departments to analyze how the system would improve the way we do business. Ann encouraged her team to practice, test and complete the necessary tasks associated with accessing our financial information prior to each deadline and was the first to report shortcomings and offer alternative options for obstacles. Ann and her staff soon became the SME’s on a very complicated system whose intent was to make many processes easier to access and more usable to the operations managers. Often times it was discovered that work-arounds had to be created, but her willing and determined staff persevered through long hours and tons of paper to streamline and create efficiencies where there once had been none. Today the results equate to:
1. Our ability to more efficiently purchase goods via data resident in the system; shrinking cost of sales by making smarter purchasing decisions company-wide.
2. Repetitive data entry has been minimized by leveraging integration. Less paper pushing means less errors during data entry.
3. Our ability to quickly identify business process problems and troubleshoot them for appropriate resolution. Without the data in the system and the ability to access it, errors in our business process were going unnoticed, and having negative impacts on our bottom line.
Ann & the Accounting team were able to meet existing month-end and year-end deadlines despite the effects of transitioning staff, financial and CSU audit requirements and the impact of the budget crisis as it affects all departments, units and business operations at SJSU. Her team attended countless training sessions and went farther than any other department by creating post-tests to ensure they could use and apply their new skills immediately upon returning to the user environment. The conversion of years of financial data became the goal and she was determined to accept nothing less than complete accuracy throughout. For these reasons Ann and her staff should be recognized and commended for going above and beyond in support of Spartan Shops’ core values of commitment, solution orientation and accountability as it related to the implementation of our ERP/Financial System. Congratulations.
Finance & Administrative Technology CASHNet Team: Awarded for Student Success
Mike Dunefsky, Katie Hill, Andrew Nguyen, Michael Peth, Paul Siegel, Jerry Crawford, Chris Bradford, Peter Pham, Regina Villanueva, Zaheda Shaikh, Satish Patel, Derrick Koh, Kristy Wilce, Matt Witty, Rachel DeLucchi, Violeta Munoz
This nomination was submitted by Marlene Trifilo
In late March 2010, it was decided that the Bursar’s Office would change cashiering vendors on June 30th when our 5 year contract with Touchnet ended. This encompassed student online payments, over-the-counter payments, and ecommerce storefronts. The individuals on this team represented areas affected by this transition. They spent countless hours defining and communicating specifications to the new vendor, CASHNet, working on interfaces, testing, defining needed reports, and documentation - all with the goal of meeting the target go-live of June 30th. The former vendor Touchnet indicated that a project of this magnitude could not be done in the short timeframe. However, as a result of the teamwork and collaboration of this group, the project was successfully completed on time without any additional resources needed. Most importantly, the transition was seamless to students and there was no interruption in service to our campus community. This speaks to the excellent teamwork of this group from various departments and their ability to come together to meet this aggressive timeline.
Spartan Shops, Inc. MacQuarrie Hall Moving Team: Awarded for Integrity
Daniel Rodriguez, Nick Rodriguez, Tony Hernandez, James Ruiz, Mark Stickler, Dominic Carruci
This nomination was submitted by Lisa Thomas
Spartan Shops occupied the Old Cafeteria Building as early as 1958 and began providing meals to the campus community. Our business operations grew to include offices and staff, and the rest is Spartan Shops history. In early 2009 a new location had been identified for Spartan Shops’ administrative offices and staff, and in the fall of that same year construction on the MacQuarrie Hall project began. However, so did the push for us to uproot from what was our home for more than 50 years. The exodus from OCB was a priority to ensure the plans to develop the new Student Union could begin. For many, the move was a distant event that would not affect normal operations. However, for those who worked in Burger King, Sbarro/Pizza & Pasta, or the Market Café and especially for our customers (faculty, staff and students) this would be a monumental relocation.
In March of 2010 a committee was formed to drive and orchestrate the logistics of getting everything out of the OCB and into three categories - the new location MQH, stored at our warehouse, or recycled/dumped. With the final event in the University Room (associated with commencement) being held on May 31, 2010 the clock began to tick with a sounding boom and every moment we delayed had an effect on the progression of the new Student Union. Due to budgetary limitations the decision was made to complete this overwhelming task in-house using limited staff and student help for the move to MQH. Enter – Daniel Rodriguez, a Spartan Shops employee since 8/2001. Daniel is the type of warm and friendly person that has a positive and pleasant rapport with everyone. A “gentle giant” whose duties and responsibilities range from capable handy man to knowledgeable technician on a variety of equipment, tools and machinery. Daniel Rodriguez would lead this crusade and he had our full and complete confidence that it would be accomplished on schedule. Daniel and his team pre-planned this effort by taking several walk-thrus with post-its and caution tape identifying what would be moved and with that the transition began.
Within three weeks Daniel and his team began to box up and break down the offices/cubes, unit operations large equipment, office and dining room furniture, as well as Payroll documents that dated back to as early as 1968. Daniel was responsible for transporting everything to its future location and its rightful owner in the new building, and he made it happen. This sometimes involved cutting and breaking down large equipment and coordinating its resale to anyone interested, all with the impending hard deadline of June 18, 2010, that we had to be gone from the OCB. Daniel made this incredible feat easy for everyone involved although he had the brunt of the dirty work, literally. On July 7, 2010 we moved into our new location at MQH and on Monday, July 12, 2010 Spartan Shops was fully operational. Our relocation would not have been successful if it were not for Daniel’s leadership and hardworking staff. They were attentive and careful to deliver not only our personal belongings, but ensure that the business operations would be functional by getting important documents, computers and hard drives into our new space in a timely manner. We are so grateful for his patience, keen eye for detail and excellent planning ability. He clearly demonstrates the University’s core values of excellence, integrity and community and is so deserving of this recognition for himself and his team.
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