May 6, 2009
Contact: Gordon Hickey
(804) 225-4260
www.governor.virginia.gov
~ Six individuals or teams of state employees honored for exceptional work ~
Governor Timothy M. Kaine today honored state employees selected for outstanding service to the Commonwealth. Six individuals or teams of state employees were honored with a Governor’s Award during a ceremony at the state Capitol. The awards ceremony is part of Public Service Week in Virginia.
“More than 200 nominations were received for the Governor’s Award, and these recipients rose to the top,” Governor Kaine said. “These men and women set an example for all of us in state government and they truly are the best of the best.”
The Governor’s Awards program, now in its ninth year, honors excellence in public service among state employees.
The recipients of the Governor’s Awards were:
· H. Douglas Cox, Department of Education, Career Achievement
· Diane Zimmerman, Department of Medical Assistance Services, Community Service and Volunteerism
· Felicia Matheny, Virginia Military Institute, Customer Service
· Tully Welborn, Department of Motor Vehicles, Innovation
· Department of Taxation, Teamwork
· Dennie Templeton, Radford University, Workplace Safety and Health.
Below are the individual citations:
Career Achievement
H. Douglas Cox
Department of Education
With 36 years of exemplary state service, H. Douglas Cox has worked consistently and tirelessly to lead efforts designed to improve educational opportunities to all of Virginia ‘s children particularly those with learning challenges.
He exhibits the highest levels of professionalism and ethical standards, and he is both a model and motivational leader for his staff. Special education and student services are among the most complex and demanding areas that the state office and school divisions face.
These areas can be litigious, and they constantly change as case law interprets federal regulations. Mr. Cox has launched research, training, and technical assistance initiatives to address state-level needs such as response-to-intervention; improved transition outcomes; and clear standardized testing requirements for students with disabilities. His efforts have resulted in increased learning outcomes for our most challenged students. He recently initiated initiatives to prepare the next generation of special education leaders for the state.
In his current position, Mr. Cox is responsible for special education instructional programs; special education dispute resolution and administrative services; special education monitoring; state operated programs including Virginia's school for the deaf and the blind; and student services, including school health and safety, school psychology and social work.
His successful leadership, contributions to interagency and advocacy endeavors, and recognition by professional organizations demonstrate the commitment that he has brought to the Commonwealth on behalf of its children.
Community Service and Volunteerism
Diane Zimmerman
Department of Medical Assistance Services
Diane Zimmerman, RN, is a long-time employee of the Department of Medical Assistance Services within the Division of Long Term Care. She is an active, vital and tireless advocate, organizer and advocate for breast cancer awareness and research. It is for her daughter, a young women, a mother, and a cancer survivor that Diane has become active.
Together with her husband, Frank, (her first and toughest recruit) Diane has raised thousands of dollars for the fight against breast cancer. Leading a local team for the past eight years, she has won top fund raising honors for three years and finished second in the region in donations in one of those years. Diane has coordinated five annual walks to raise funding and awareness of breast cancer research, lead silent auctions, a shake it up event in local restaurants, Walmart yard sales, silent auctions, a chili cook off and provided countless presentations on breast cancer awareness and training.
Last year, Diane organized the first mobile Mammogram screening during her Spring walk. Under her leadership countless women, who might not otherwise be able to afford a screening for breast cancer, were able to obtain free testing. Most recently, Diane has used her organizational and communication skills and fund raising abilities to recruit recreation vehicle clubs across the Commonwealth.
Having raised tens of thousands of dollars in funding, raised awareness, provided training, and dedicated years of her life to this effort, the most important contribution may well be the lasting impact on the lives of the women and their families that she has touched. Her good works will forever live on.
Customer Service
Felicia C. Matheny
Virginia Military Institute
In the past six months the sudden unexpected deaths of two young faculty members shocked the VMI community. Felicia Matheny served as the primary contact with the employees’ families. She made extra efforts to coordinate matters with the clerk of the court to assure the families knew who to contact for estate matters.
She provided benefit information and directions to the Staunton Social Security Office. Her personal attention and concern helped the families deal with a very difficult time.
Felicia meets personally with every new full-time employee to explain the benefits program. She always takes the time to ensure the new employee understands the importance of his or her choices for pension plan and health insurance options.
New faculty members who are often going into their first full-time employment following the completion of graduate school particularly appreciate this personal attention. Ms. Matheny also assists over 100 retired VMI employees and widows in the local area who rely on her for help with Medicare and other reimbursements and questions concerning the retiree health insurance plan.
When an employee is ill or injured Ms. Matheny is often the first person the employee calls for help with the benefits questions most of us do not think of until we are faced with major health issues. When an employee or retiree passes away Ms. Matheny will travel to the employee ‘s home to meet with the next of kin to assist with insurance claims and survivor pension matters.
Ms. Matheny ‘s tireless efforts for the welfare and training of all VMI employees make her an exceptional candidate for the Governor ‘s Award for Customer Service.
Innovation
Tully Welborn
DMV
When you mention innovation at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), Tully Welborn's name comes to the forefront. His endless drive to review services and find ways to enhance and streamline processes has led to the development of many innovative processes at DMV.
Most impressively, is the fact that he has taken the lead on DMV's CSI systems redesign project. He produces innovative, high quality results time and time again.
Under Tully's direction, this team has started re-engineering DMV's core business services and infrastructure while incorporating a new system. Prior to taking the lead in the CSI project, Tully was Director of Web Services. While in this department, Tully turned DMV's Website into a full-service customer service center. He implemented the nation's first real-time online driver's license renewal service.
In addition, he was instrumental in identifying ways the mail services department could save money and time by utilizing technology to reduce the number of manual jobs. Tully seems to have an abundant amount of energy as well as an endless supply of creativity.
He is an extremely valuable employee that has become a critical player in most of the innovations that have swept through DMV in the last few years. Recently, a manger was heard to say, "Tully's fellow workers want to rally around him. They know that if he is working on a project, it is guaranteed to succeed."
Tully's passion and his expertise is the key to his success. He consistently demonstrates a strong work ethic and a strong dedication to succeed. He always makes a difference by bringing a strong level of commitment and enthusiasm to all job assignments.
Teamwork
Taxation team
Department of Taxation
When the State Board of Elections sent out a distress call last Election Day its busiest day of the year, TAX ‘s people and technology responded quickly and helped save the day.
At 10 a.m. last Nov. 4, TAX HR Director Karen Doty received an urgent call from the State Board of Elections (SBE) saying its phone system was completely down. The Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) and the Department of Human Resource Management (DHRM) were on-site trying to help SBE find a way to both fix their phone problem and receive calls until the problem was resolved.
Then VITA’s John Kissel thought of TAX. TAX not only had an automated call distribution system, its on-site engineers might be able to quickly configure the system so SBE’s heavy volume of calls could be routed as needed. He was right.
Within 90 minutes, TAX had everything set up and 10 SBE employees were at TAX ‘s Contact Center receiving phone calls from voters.
Six more workers soon joined them. TAX didn‘t think twice about helping in any way possible, according to Sharon Kitchens, Assistant Commissioner of Technology. She called it an exemplary showing of teamwork and cooperation between TAX, VITA, Northrop Grumman and SBE.
There was no bickering, just everyone pitching in to help. After getting the call, Ms. Doty quickly got the ball rolling and coordinated TAX ‘s efforts with Rick Sheldon (a VITA/NG employee assigned to TAX), Jason Barker (IT Liaison for TAX ‘s Contact Center), Senior Technical Architect Kevin Cronin and Contact Center Director Janet Pomier played key roles in getting the technical and logistical issues ironed out.
Working together, the different parts of the team helped avert a major disruption in the electoral process. As Ms. Kitchens noted, “this really was an amazing effort, not just in getting some technical modifications turned around quickly, but it truly exemplifies one of the finest parts of public service, the desire to help others.”
Workplace Safety and Health
Dennie Templeton
Radford University
Few individuals have the intellect, skills, dedication, and juggling ability to manage this magnitude of responsibility, and even fewer can do so with the sense of calmness, collegiality, and good humor that Dennie brings to is job on a day-to-day basis. In the 18 months since Dennie assumed the added responsibility of Emergency Preparedness, his achievements in the area of Workplace Safety have been laudable.
A few of his notable achievements include:
Contender and finalist for the Campus Safety Conference and Campus Safety Magazine 2008 Safety Director of the Year Award, an award program that honors the top police chiefs and security directors of our nation ‘s hospitals, schools and universities.
He developed and implemented RU ‘s emergency plans, protocols and strategic processes designed to ensure the welfare and safety of the university community in the event of an emergency. The result has been a comprehensive and realistic approach for translating emergency response to an academic community that has the active support of all campus constituents.
He engaged the extended community in RU ‘s emergency planning process by including local and regional first responder agencies in table-top exercises as well as full scale emergency drills. The high degree of involvement and buy-in by the key constituents is evidenced by the fact that 45 students volunteered as victims for a day-long full scale emergency drill.
He utilized his expertise in distance education technologies to develop plans and processes that would allow academic continuity and course delivery, without jeopardizing the welfare and safety of the RU community, in the event of a lengthy closure of the university.
Dennie has been an invited presented at national and regional symposiums and conferences to present his plans and research related to emergency preparedness
strategies.
