Recent Applause
Daniel Moore – GIS /Applications Technician, Town of Normal (May 14, 2020)
Due to COVID 19, every employee within the department had to step up. Daniel's primary role as a GIS technician quickly morphed into GIS/ Applications Technician. He accepted it cheerfully. He created SharePoint based intranet and trained himself on various Microsoft applications, such as Teams, SharePoint, Power Apps, and Power Automate quickly. I am amazed at how quickly he was able to learn and deploy these applications for business continuity purposes. Most importantly, he accepts these challenges with a smile on his face. -Vasudha Gadhiraju
What I appreciate the most about Daniel is that his versatility. He is a true rock star.
Alondre Wilson – I&T Help Desk Technician, Town of Normal (May 13, 2020)
Like many communities across the nation and around the world, Town of Normal, IL continued to do most of its business operations remotely due to COVID 19. This decision came rather quickly. I&T department was asked to enable remote access capabilities for several Town staff, conduct Council meetings virtually, conduct business meetings with both internal and external stakeholders all on a moment’s notice. The entire department stepped up, but some employees truly emerged as stars in this process. Alondre Wilson is one of them. Alondre was very instrumental in enabling remote work capabilities for Town staff and conducting Town Council meetings virtually. He not only did these quickly but had a smile on his face throughout this process. He is one of two technicians supporting the entire Town. These duties are in addition to his regular duties. He never ever complained. As his supervisor, I can tell you that he is a true rock star on my team. I am proud to nominate him. -Vasudha Gadhiraju
Dre is always willing to accept new and challenging tasks. He is a true team player. Most importantly he never complains. Town of Normal I&T Dept. is stronger because of staff like him.
Atanas Entchev – GIS Specialist, Township of Franklin (May 11, 2020)
I am nominating AT (Atanas) as a GMIS star for his excellence in GIS. Since the start of this pandemic, Somerset County, Franklin Township, and the local media report COVID-19 cases (infections and deaths) in absolute numbers. These reports –
while accurate -- do not take into account each municipality’s population, and can thus be (unintentionally) misleading. AT normalized the cases by population to prepare a more meaningful representation of the impact of COVID-19 on all communities.
This work, gave our Mayor more accurate information to provide to the residents relating to the number of positive COVID19 Cases in our Town. -Bob McQueen
Alys Ryales – Desktop Support Analyst, Georgia Department of Law (May 1, 2020)
On behalf of the Georgia Office of Attorney General, Chris Carr and the Department of Law I am pleased to nominate Alys Ryales, Desktop Support Analyst for the 2020 GMIS Stars Award.
After only serving in my new role as CIO for four months now, I have received well over fifty accolades regarding the service and work that Alys has earned from the colleagues and leadership we serve. She makes me look good!
Dedicated to a fault, Alys has been on-site working every day throughout the state of emergency, truly serving as a critical infrastructure employee.
When word of the state of emergency arose and work from home mandate was issued Alys deployed decommissioned laptops, iPhones, mifi’s, and accessories to nearly one hundred employees in the course of just a few days.
As workers come in and out of the office, Alys continues to service any and all break/fix issues with equipment, as well as being the eyes and hands of the office not only for IT, but for all ten divisions within the Department of Law.
She is meticulous about keeping workstations clean, wiping down and sanitizing every piece of equipment that leaves our work area, and those she visits to perform work.
I have a stack of emails from our many business users, many of them attorneys. Here’s one from our Chief Deputy Attorney General, Wright Banks:
Although I will say and I am fine with this being conveyed to Alys specifically, that she is a vital employee and gets nothing but positive reviews and I think we want to focus on her compensation when we are able to once things settle down.
It is with great pleasure and honor that I serve with Alys Ryales, and thank you for your consideration in awarding her with the 2020 Stars Award.
Clark Rainer
CIO – Georgia Attorney General
Eileen O'Leary – IT Manager, Park Ridge Park District (April 30, 2020)
Eileen has gone above and beyond to ensure the district could work remotely during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our district was no prepared to do this on a large scale. In addition, she done a great job coordinating efforts between multiple departments
to to switch our programming to a virtual platform while maintaining the security of the district's network. -Jennifer Meyers
Paul Marcuzzo – Client Services Manager, Client Services Team for Board of County Commissioners Charlotte County FL (April 29, 2020)
The Client Services Team responded to the pandemic crisis in an exemplary fashion. Quickly departing from our previous business model, they smoothly transitioned to facilitating a mobile work from home employee base. While the help desk side
of the team immediately began configuring available laptops in inventory for soft phones and remote desktop use, the Business Analysts worked on recovering any available shared or lightly used laptops to add to the reserves. The Business Analysts
then worked very closely with the help desk techs in scheduling and deploying the laptops as soon as they were ready. During the month of April the team deployed, trained and supported 120+ new laptop users in addition to a significant number of users
that had laptops but used them lightly for travel.
Our team has always been extremely good at communicating and keeping team members informed. When the rules changed for social distancing and a few members were required to work from home, the team immediately embraced a new medium. While
our county had been slowly rolling out Microsoft Teams to handle the change for the general employee population, our team had been using it as a side tool. With the need to change the team culture from active in the aisle communication to an alternative.
Microsoft Teams was the solution. The Client Services Team quick embraced many of the features of Teams. Questions, laptop status, customer requirements and general team discussions smoothly transitioned to the Chat feature. Shared spreadsheets insured
we documented who, what and where the mobile force laptops went. Planner allowed us to control our appointment schedule for issuing laptops and peripherals in a timely fashion. Teams moved from an interesting potential tool to our keystone application.
I have worked with some solid teams during my 30+ year career in the I.T. field and I can say without reservations this is one of the best teams I have had the pleasure to work with. This team of seven came together as no other to meet a
common goal. The amazing part to me is that over half the team is under thirty with two of them are under twenty! Tremendous maturity and dedication in the face of a monumental task. I cannot think of another group of people that deserve this recognition.
-Paul L Marcuzzo
John Dimino – Technical Support Specialist, City of Bristol, CT (April 21, 2020)
John has been a phenomenal employee of the City of Bristol's IT Department for more than 20 years, but he has really stepped up his game in this crisis. I have relied on him to handle a lot of the technical needs to get our employees ready for
remote working. This included preparing and imaging new laptops as they came in the door and turning them around in a day for the users to take home to work from home. He also prepared some desktops for users to bring home to work from home. He has
done this without a complaint and has always shown his professionalism with everything he has done for our department over the years. I would like to recognize John as one of the hardest working people I have known. Whatever it is you need, he is
on it and makes my job much easier. -Scott Smith
Jennifer Krempasky – Computer Specialist, Township of Franklin (April 21, 2020)
Jen has been working remotely to assist up to 75 employees who are working from home. Jen has been able to assist with the remote working setup for many users, and continues to deal with any technical issues that arise. Many of us were not equipped
to deal with setting up remote work for all employees and had to adapt quickly to ensure critical government services were not interrupted. Thank you Jen! -Robert McQueen
Krista Hegedus – Computer Specialist, Township of Franklin (April 16, 2020)
I am nominating Krista as a GMIS star since the start of this pandemic, Krista has stepped up and worked endless hours to develop a dedicated COVID 19 page on our website that includes many resources. Krista has developed Resident Resource pages
that include jobs available during the COVID 19 pandemic, and well as many other useful resources for residents. Krista also developed a Business Resource page that includes information for business on loans etc.
https://www.franklintwpnj.org/what-s-new/covid-19
-Robert McQueen
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