Employee Recognition
The hard work and dedication of employees are at the core of the F&S’ goal to support the university’s education, research, and outreach missions. Employee recognition is an important way of rewarding loyalty and recognizing our staff for its service and engagement on a monthly and annual basis.
F&S employees–and anyone on campus–are encouraged to nominate deserving co-workers for F&S awards and extend thanks and appreciation to others through the recognition programs.
Pats on the Back
Want to recognize an F&S employee for a job well done? Shout out a star team member by sending a thank you to fscustomerrelations@illinois.edu. Pats on the Back are distributed to staff weekly. Submissions may be edited for style and length.
Below are just a few exemplary stories of how F&S employees rose to the occasion.
F&S, UIPD Help Save a Life
Brian Barto (water station), Lucas Burton, and Bryan Helfrich (carpenters) exhibited calm and grace under pressure when they assisted another F&S employee, Vinh Nguyen, who was experiencing a life-threatening health emergency.
Their quick action allowed emergency personnel to get to the scene quickly to administer life-saving techniques and transport him to the hospital.
“I and my family are forever grateful to everyone who was involved in saving my life that day, especially to Brian for his quick response to my medical emergency and for his leadership, professionalism, and calmness he displayed in the midst of what must have been a very stressful and chaotic situation.”
Vinh Nguyen
To read the full story, visit F&S INSIDER Magazine: https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2021/09/24/fs-uipd-help-save-a-life/
F&S Help a “Matter of Life and Death”
Rose Sisco, an Illinois Extension employee working at Mumford Hall, got tremendous help from an F&S employee during a winter day in a ‘life-threatening’ position.
“I got out of my car where I park out back at Mumford Hall,” Sisco said. “That day, it was a sheet of ice. I couldn’t get out.” Before Rose could think or notice, Luis Michel, an F&S pipefitter was on his way to assist her to the door.
“He took my other arm and walked me on the ice all the way up and in the building. He stopped what he was doing, getting something out of his truck, stopped dead when he saw me. I didn’t even ask, he just came over and said, ‘do you need help into the building.’ That would be great.”
To read the full story, visit F&S INSIDER Magazine: https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2024/02/01/fs-luis-michels-help-a-matter-of-life-and-death/
IGB ‘Catastrophic Flooding’ Addressed Quickly
I wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation for the timely response and excellent workmanship that the Institute of Genomic Biology (IGB) experienced from F&S Staff when a roof drainpipe failed and flooded our computer server and poster printing rooms during the storm of August 3, 2022.
When the pipe failed, it caused catastrophic flooding in and on top of our computer servers. These servers are crucial to the research of hundreds of researchers at the IGB and around campus, and support several high-profile projects funded by federal agencies and private foundations such as the one that is developing an entirely new way to improve crop yield funded by the Gates Foundation. Our staff worked to divert the water away from important parts of the computer infrastructure, but we needed F&S support to address the root cause of the issue. The following individuals played significant roles in helping us avert a major loss of data by quickly identifying the source of the leak and repairing it.
James Scherer, Service Office
Jayson Oskard, Adam Bituin, Dave Odenweller, BSW
Chris Harrison, Roofer
Brad Etchison, Josh Hale, Joe Rudicil, Terry Paris, Plumbers
We know F&S was under tremendous pressure with situations like ours (and worse) all across campus during that massive storm and we very much appreciate the quick and effective response. Thanks to the superb efforts of these individuals, delivered in timely fashion, we were able to manage this crisis without a catastrophic loss of data, which would have impacted many scientists and the careers of their students.
We are using this opportunity to take proactive measures to stress-test our building for other vulnerabilities and F&S is assisting us with a pipe audit. I greatly appreciate the support from F&S and our continued partnership to support the campus research enterprise.
Best,
GENE E. ROBINSON Director, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Oh, Deer!
Adam Pannbacker, Water Station
Casey Reisner, Electrician
Jeff Ingold, Water Station
One morning in June 2023, an unexpected visitor broke a window entering the Engineering Sciences Building: a deer. F&S, UIPD, and Grainger College of Engineering staff safely secured and released the animal back onto campus grounds. The deer had some minor abrasions and cuts from glass, but otherwise is expected to be okay.
F&S’ Adam Pannbacker and Jeff Ingold from the water station, and Casey Reisner, an electrician, participated in the rescue and release.
Ensuring Building Systems in Extreme Cold
On Friday, December 23, 2022 Champaign Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) along with most of the country was hit with extremely cold weather (-13 degrees) as well as snow and very high winds 45-50 mph gust bringing the wind chill down to around -40 degrees with white out conditions most of the day due to the high wind and snow.
Despite these dangerous conditions Cory Roseman and Dustin Rhodes from Refrigeration Shop made it into CERL that day. They knew it was important to make it into work to assure that CERL was safe. They checked all HVAC units and boilers were working, and went to all CERL out-buildings and made sure all were maintaining safe temperatures. At 9 a.m. CERL lost power for approximately an hour and the backup generator failed to start, thus we lost all heating to all buildings. Once power was restored, they went through every building to make sure everything was working properly (heating units, fan drives, back-up power units for ACET-IT, lab equipment, and freezers). This required many trips out into very cold and potentially dangers weather conditions that day.
Their dedication to being here and quick thinking helped save the lab from what could have been a very costly situation. As Facility Manager for CERL, I am recommending both an award.
Gary Davis
CERL Facilities Specialist
Service Awards
The organization also recognizes employees who have reached a university employment milestone at its annual Service Awards Banquet. There, the employee of the year is also honored.
Employee of the Month/Team of the Month
F&S employs many hard-working, dedicated and often extraordinary people who demonstrate exemplary service. Some employees distinguish themselves by consistently going above and beyond while making an improvement in a process, enhancing their output so that both their team and the campus benefit, or even by performing a Good Samaritan or humanitarian act while on the job.
The F&S “Employee of the Month Award” and “Team of the Month Award” (EOM/TOM) are given monthly to employees and teams who have demonstrated one or more of the guiding principles that are essential to our organization, our university and our community.
An Employee of the Year is selected annually from among the two categories of monthly winners. The EOM/TOM committee meets monthly.
