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Employee Recognition Program

Employees of the Month

• October 2010: OpEx Change Control Committee: Dave Dominish, Tim Van Oss, Mike Thomas, Bob Garcar, Matt Panchur, Dwayne Bible, Ed Rynes, John Sully, Neal Mathur

Over the last 5 months this cross matrix team has met on a regular basis to help take a change control straw-man and make it the reality it is today. In October our change control process will officially use the new tools and processes this team has worked so hard to put together. It is through collaborative efforts like these that drive our division to successful achievements. Thank you to all of those who truly stepped up to take on this additional task above and beyond their normal job responsibilities.


• September 2010: John Landers & Tim Van Oss

John has truly stepped up and delivered a great deal of help with the Operational Excellence initiative. John has been innovative in his thinking and helping drive the behind the scenes activities to achieve the success of the first full week of Operational Excellence initiatives. With our staff availability impacted, John really embraced the challenge with vigor and passion to help make our first week of OpEx really get off the ground. Thank you John!

Tim has repeatedly displayed interest in leading and driving initiatives within ITS. Tim was a part of the OpEx Change Control Committee and expressed interest in leading an OpEx pillar, that had yet to be defined. Tim has since taken on the role of leading the newly formed OpEx committee on Vendor and Procurement Management. This is one of our last pillars that needed leadership and Tim has stepped up to the challenge. Tim has formed a team of cross matrix ITS staff and partnered with university procurement and legal representatives to help drive efficiencies across our organizations. Thank you to Tim for volunteering to lead and see things through.


• August 2010: James Goodman, Curtis Bunner, Paul Kalanish, Jay Kennedy , Kirsten Nagel, Steven Organiscak, Bob Sopko , William Wichert

This team put forth a tremendous amount of coordination, effort and planning to kick off a fabulous school year. Overall response from students and parents was extremely positive. The ITS luncheons and move in help was above and beyond the call of duty. This set of individuals truly made a significant positive impact in the back to school experience. Way to go team and thank you for all your hard work and attention to detail.


• June 2010: Harry Berger, Kelli Caponero, Liju Jacob, Anson Ashby, Tony Kramar, Jeff Lunter

In her nomination Penny Shelby wrote: "I would like to nominateITS's eRecruit Team for EOM. This team consisting of Jeff Lunter, Liju Jacobs, Kelli Caponero, Anson Ashby, and Harry Berger with Tony Kramaras Project Managerworked with the functional team in HR to implement this new functionality within the PeopleSoft HCM application system. The upgrade to HCM 9.0 earlier this fiscal year put us in a position to achieve success with this collaborative project. Implementation of this new functionality greatly eases the paper intensive parts of the hiring process for HR and the departmental hiring managers. It also allowsus in a more competitiveposition with regard to other educational institutions whouse this type of functionality for job applicant processing. External job applicants will benefit from this software application also. Congratulations to this team."


• May 2010: Ken Adams, Gina Bencke, Barb Brennan, Cindy Chen, Jim Heavey, Jennifer Loudiana, Jim Prince

In her nomination Penny Shelby wrote: "I would like to recommend the Financials Upgrade team for Employee of the Month for May 2010. This was a hugely significant project for our customer base allowing us to bring the Financials system up to the current release. Because of this work we no longer are working on old un-supported version of PeopleSoft Financials; also we are not running on an old database platform on old equipment. Each of these aspects presented great risk to the University. Despite the loss of the functional Project Lead the team was able to complete the project on time and under budget. This upgrade not only resolves many support issues with PeopleSoft it also means that new functionality can now be worked on/implemented for the benefit of our customers. The credit for that goes directly to the Financial Upgrade team members."


• Apr 2010: Ruth Cannon




• Mar 2010: Dirk Holsopple, John Morton, Dennis Risen, Eng Wu

This project implemented monitoring of the UPS systems in each SER across campus. This will provide more reliable and faster response to UPS issues. The monitoring implemented during this project are the beginning of our work to monitor not just the UPSs but also the environmental conditions and other equipment in the SERs. The UPS is a critical piece of infrastructure that provides the network connectivity to the campus community. In addition they team proactively replaced and upgraded more the 35 batteries that were at end of life.


• Feb 2010: Curtis Bunner, James Goodman

In his nomination Bill Wichert wrote "Over the last few months Curtis Bunner and James Goodman have gone above and beyond the demands of their positions. They both acted as team lead each managing two other technicians for the Identity Finder and Google Apps migration projects. Both of these projects have high visibility within the campus community and are critical to supporting the mission of the University. They diligently worked through the process of both projects and did so in stunning fashion. They helped move the bulk of the staff and faculty population from the various mix of clients and service options they were using to a set of fairly standard and approved options. They coordinated with CTOs staff faculty managers Deans Chairs and the ITS PMO staff to ensure the projects were handled professionally and efficiently. Without their hard work and incredible customer focus I do not feel that the Google Apps migration would have occurred as cleanly as it did or would the IDF project be working as well as it currently is. It is for all these reasons that I would like to nominate both Curtis Bunner and James Goodman for Employees of the Month."


• Jan 2010: Peter Beurmann

Wendy Shapiro nominated Peter Beurmann, saying "I would like to nominate Peter Beurmann for the January employee of the month. Peter assumed the leadership role in keeping MediaVision Courseware up and running. As the 2010 Spring semester began, MediaVision Courseware hit several major bumps in the road. Due to the departure of key ITAC staff who were instrumental for all of the courseware programming (both the interface and all the code necessary for the communication between backend servers) Peter stepped up to the challenge of coordinating ITAC/Mediavision and TIS staff to diagnosis, prescribe and implement the necessary fixes to keep the courseware functioning. At the start of the semester there was a cascade of issues in the hardware. Working with TIS, standing vigilant with his staff and working with others in ITAC Peter was able to bring courseware back into operation and begin the planning of a transition to a new, more stable system."


• Dec 2009: Jessica Walders

Colleen Nagy nominated Project Manager as Employee of the month for December, 2009: "I would like to nominate Jess Walders for employee of the month for December. During the month of December, Jess continued to develop her relationship with many of the CTOs and got them engaged on two very large projects, Identity Finder and Google Apps. Some of the CTOs asked for help and by using the Peer Review Process for additional funds, Jess along with Mike Kubit were able to secure funding for additional desktop support for the School of Medicine, Engineering and Arts and Science. Jess has traveled all over campus communicating with faculty and staff delivering the message on Identity Finder and Google Apps, while keeping the folks in the focused on the tasks at hand. She has created great relationships along the way."


• Nov 2009: Hadrian Djohari

In his nomination, Roger Bielefeld wrote, "I nominate Hadrian Djohari as employee of the month for November, 2009. Hadrian stepped up in Jon Cline's absence so that the cluster continued operations without a glitch. Similarly, when Jon resigned upon his return, Hadrian's efforts continued in providing excellent service to our customers. He has contributed in very significant ways in advancing the cluster upgrade effort in a very short period of time and has quickly begun making effective use of Sanjaya Gajurel's expertise and skills in maintaining HPC operations and advancing the upgrade efforts."


• Oct 2009: Steven Organiscak

In his nomination of Steven Organiscak, Mike Kubit wrote "Steven's contributions have been critical to many of the early successes realized by ITS Customer Service & Support. His hard work, insight and experience has helped our new organization get established during the busiest time of year. In addition, Steven is leading several key initiatives that will help ITS establish a solid foundation towards building a world class customer service organization."


• Sept 2009: HCM Team

Consisting of: Ken Adams, Anson Ashby, Gina Beneke, Garry Berger, Kevin Chan, Brian Christian, Bob Garcer, Teresa Grewell, Liju Jacov, Tony Kramar, Jeff Lunter, Nate Murphy, Jim Nauer, Jim Prince, Chet ramey, Jess Walders, and Tim Wildow

In her nomination of the HCM upgrade team as employees of the month for September, 2009, EAS Director Penny Shelby wrote: "This team successfully upgraded the PeopleSoft HCM Application System from version 8.8 to version 9.0 within a very short project window. This achievement will allow us to keep the system up-to-date with recurring bundles as well as implement to-date unused features of the system such as e-Recruit and e-Verify. Further it will allow us to avoid paying added fees above and beyond the regular maintenance costs just to get required tax updates. This team pulled together during an extremely compressed timeframe to overcome some very knotty technical problems which resulted in a very successful upgrade of both hardware and software."


• Aug 2009: Kevin Chan, Dave Kovacic, Jess Walders, Dave Weilacher

In his nomination, Chet Ramey wrote that Kevin Chan, Dave Kovacic, Jess Walders and Dave Weilacher should be named Employees of the Month for August, 2009 as they were able to successfully complete two separate projects, replacing nearly all of the Case voice system infrastructure, in a very short time. The projects were implemented simultaneously, completed on-time with minimal user disruption, and were successful with no drop in operational support.


• Jul 2009: Mike Thomas

Mike Thomas has been with the University for 24 years serving ITS in a variety of roles. For the past 5 years he has managing the installation and maintenance of Case's Technology Enhanced Classrooms (TEC). Under Mike's leadership we have seen progressive growth from year to year. He now supports 190 classrooms. Faculty demand these rooms and expect error free operation at all times. With support of University funds Mike is meeting these demands.

Not much is said about TECs except the demand continues to grow and the number classrooms continues to grow. Not much is said about the quality of support. Using Mike's words - "no news is good news". Without much ado Mike has handled the daily operation, upgrade and maintenance of each of these rooms. Behind the scenes he works with vendors, facilities staff and engineers to determine current and future needs. He provides near instant onsite support to classrooms requesting help. For these reasons I would like to recognize Mike for the excellent service he provides to the University and bring light to the quality of his work, effort and dedication.


• Jun 2009: University Annual Report Team

Consisting of: Michael Becher, Peter Beurmann, DJ Dohanyos, Mike Kubit, Steve Kupchik, Sean Maxwell, David Ullman

MediaVision's digital video production team created, produced and directed Case Western Reserve University's annual report video in a joint partnership with University's Marketing and Communication department. This highly talented team developed a visual representation of the accomplishments and forward thinking of the University's past year's progress. Included in the video-based annual report was videotaped interviews, editing and graphic design. The 2008 Annual Report was delivery in early February and is available at http://www.case.edu/speedofideas/indexnointro.html

• May 2009: Paul Jarc

Nominated by: Jeff Shaw

Paul Jarc has worked in ITS since 1998 and has held several positions within the division. One of his most notable responsibilities is the primary Application Developer responsible for support of the Blackboard Learning System. In that role, Paul was responsible for the technical components of the Blackboard 8 Upgrade that occurred on Saturday, May 16. In addition to spending all day that Saturday running the scripts for the production update, Paul completed several test runs earlier this year and resolved issues discovered throughout the testing process. The test runs paid off because the upgrade was smooth from the user perspective and there were no significant technical issues. In addition to his responsibilities for Blackboard, Paul also developed and supports the university's central Online Course Evaluation System. Course Evaluations for the spring semester were open from April 15 through April 29. This semester Paul was able to add some improvements to the reporting module of the Course Evaluation system to allow better filtering by instructor.

• Apr 2009: Sean Maxwell

Nominated by: Mike Kubit

Sean Maxwell serves in a variety of roles as part of the ITAC/MediaVision team. He is a gifted programmer/developer, who has taken the time to understand the architecture of a variety of technical platforms and provides outstanding customer service. It is not unusual for him to come to campus in the evening, weekend or even while on vacation to address a system failure or respond to the needs of a customer. There has not been a challenge that he has not been able to address and shows incredible tenacity while working to provide solutions. He is a valued member of our team and often goes above and beyond to contribute, even in areas that are outside of his job description. Sean Maxwell is a key factor in the success of ITAC/MediaVision.

• Mar 2009: Debbie Andrews

Nominated by: Chet Ramey

Debbie did excellent work managing the successful conversion of the CWRU Telemetry network to a completely new routed architecture. She managed an IBM contractor's work and completed the first two phases of the project on time and under budget. The third phase is underway, but the first two comprise a significant majority of the effort.

• Feb 2009: Peggy Wats Gup

Nominated by: Tom Knob

Peggy has done huge and excellent work for the IT Support Services (Help Desk) RFP/vendor review process, supporting the very active committee in person and online, as well as coordinating vendor presentations and other communications. The process has involved a very demanding schedule, confidential information, complex process, public events, remote participants, and many demanding people and vendors.

Peggy has also been doing very valuable work in communicating ITS planned outages during data center remediation and has been actively trying to foster good communication and Help Desk Services for the campus community IT users at a time during which there have also been some unanticipated outages and when we are preparing for the impending password change requirement. She is a valued and always-pleasant colleague, and the queen of the helpful FAQ.

• Jan 2009: Colleen Meneely-Kobe

Nominated by: Jeff Shaw

"Colleen has done a remarkable job in preparing and conducting end user training for Business Objects XI. As part of the current Data Warehouse initiative a new version of Business Objects is being rolled out to end users. Colleen was tasked with preparing a training course to familiarize nearly 300 users with the changes in the new version."

On November 12th, 2008, Colleen conducted the first training session which received much positive feedback. Ongoing, Colleen will continue to offer the course twice monthly until the demand for training has been met.

A similar eLearning (online) course is offered through SAP at an approximate cost of $220 per user. With approximately 300 end-users expected to attend the course over the next year, Colleen's work equates to a savings of over $60,000 to the university."

• Dec 2008: Lou Changeri, John Ozanich

  Nominated by: Chet Ramey
  
  "...for their long hours of effort to update the University's firewalls and edge security, and battling and finally overcoming several denial of service attacks."

• Nov 2008: Peter Beurmann

  Nominated by: Mike Kubit
  
  Since taking over as the MediaVision Production Manager, Peter has been working tirelessly to plan, lead, organize and coordinate the projects and services provided by our production team. The demand for these services have been growing exponentially and would provide a challenge for even a seasoned manager. Peter has demonstrated great instincts and a genuine concern for the well-being of his staff. He is very deserving of this recognition.

• Oct 2008: John Sully

  Nominated by: Tom Siu
  
  In response to security incident 2008-08-018, John undertook an audit of the entire Case web server space to find Tier III information. He researched various tools, found a likely candidate, installed, tested, and ran the audit. He was able to compile the results in a few days time, permitting the Information Security Office staff to evaluate the data on a secured server. His rapid actions clearly met an emergent need during the prosecution of a security incident, and led to a substantial cost savings by the subsequent prevention of any future disclosures.

• Sep 2008: Ruth Cannon

  Nominated by: Tom Siu
  
  In performing the analysis of a post-incident audit of public file systems, Ruth systematically examined over 4000 files for potentially sensitive information. By running online queries and investigation of logs and audit results, she was able to confirm and close possible data disclosures for a number of 'near miss' events, saving the university in approximately $602,560.00 in incident losses.

• Aug 2008: Nate Murphy

  Nominated by: Joan McFaul
  
  Nate has been the glue that has held the SIS team together during some potentially disruptive transitions. He has been steadfast and unflappable in his determination to make the SIS project a success. His colleagues and team members, without exception, acknowledge the superior talent and generally good disposition Nate possesses.

• Jul 2008: Genevieve Matthieson

  Nominated by: Wendy Shapiro
  
  "I consider Genevieve to be our silent warrior. As we assign her more responsibilities, she consistently delivers excellent work. We are pleased and proud to have Genevieve as part of the ITAC team."