Kudos

Kudos

by Kyra Worrell

To: Filipinas Acuario (GCA)
From: Kim Hubbard, Washington National Primate Research Center

I just wanted to pass on a kind word regarding Fil. I have been trying really hard to close a grant for GCA by the end of the week and had 5 purchase orders that needed to be closed ASAP in order for GCA to do a financial status report. Fil stayed late to close the orders and I wanted to extend my appreciation. I feel sometimes these little things such as liquidating a PO doesn't seem like a big deal, but in this case it is a big deal.

To: Ann Anderson (Controller)
From: Jeanne O'Connell, Administrative Manager, Office of the Dean, School of Public Health

The Financial Management Newsletter you send out is a great resource

To: Heidi Anderson, Andrew Monusko (SFS)
From: Bridgette G. Emily, former UW student

Heidi, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your time in handling my account and releasing the hold so promptly. I now know why I chose to further my education at UW. It was because of the WONDERFUL customer service that this institution offers. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me. I can now order my official transcript. I participated in the ceremony in June 2002 but I have never received my degree. Thanks and have a great day. Note from Heidi Anderson: This was really for both Andrew and myself as we both assisted her and she is now finally paid off!

I am aware of the training grant site on the UW website but had not previously looked at the PowerPoint presentation. I'm working on setting up a system to better keep on top of this budget in the future and hopefully decrease the number of questions we have to ask your office. The info. in the PowerPoint will be helpful. Thank you for your support. Also, I'd like to let you know that Alice Bukengolts did a fantastic job working with us to close out our Yr 13 budget. She was very helpful and patient.

To: Sue Camber (GCA)
From: Mary Lidstrom, Vice Provost for Research, Office of Research; Professor, Chemical Engineering

You did a great today at the RAB, many thanks for pulling this together at such short notice! It's so nice to have someone like you to rely on for these very difficult issues.

To: Sue Camber (GCA)
From: Bill Ferris, Executive Director of Administration, Office of the Executive Vice President

Re: Temporary Allocation for GCA
Thanks! Truly a team effort.

To: Sue Camber (GCA)
From: Weldon Ihrig (EVP)

Great work Sue on getting 100% of Medicine faculty to take the course--super progress.
I hope that the rest of the faculty will do as well.

To: Elizabeth Cherry (Risk Management), Judy Peterson (Treasury)
From: Bill Ferris, Executive Director of Administration, Office of the Executive Vice President

Follow up To Administrator's Forum - Elizabeth and Judy represented FM admirably. The participants were engaged in all the subjects presented. Judy really stepped up as being the goto person on issues around appropriate use of endowment funds.

To: Miriam Garvey (SFS)
From: Mike Winans, Grants Administrator - School of Social Work.

Miriam is a stellar representative of SFS as well as FM. Her customer service skills are excellent and she truly takes the time to go far and above her daily duties to ensure all of our customers receive this level of service. I am proud to have her and Peggy, who empowers her staff to perform to this level of service, on my team.

To: Frannie Gladney (SFS)
From: Bernadette Stanek, UW student (Junior, 3.71 GPA)

I have had the pleasure of working with Frannie over this past school year to resolve an overpayment on a student loan. She has spoken with me over the phone at least three times and has met me in her office three times. Frannie was resourceful in finding a grant to reduce this overpayment. She treated me with dignity and respect on the phone – she is patient, warm and helpful. I had to bring my three children in with me to her office on two occasions and she was exceedingly welcoming and friendly with them. She treated them to some candy in her office and acknowledged each of them.

Frannie was considerate and caring by working with me to more easily accommodate this debt within the budget of some financial hardships. Today, I came to her office after having failed to make a payment; I was embarrassed and worried this would be hard to resolve. Yet, she was sweet and asked how I have been. Frannie even walked to the adjacent office to have my paperwork processed immediately and confirmed my financial aid disbursement afterward.

Few people I have worked with, especially concerning financial matters, are as genuinely caring and resourceful as I have found Frannie to be. Most noticeably, her kind accommodation of three children in her office is demonstrative of how she really cares about students.

I believe Frannie is a rare employee – she appears confident in her responsibilities and thorough – but most importantly she is genuinely concerned about the student’s welfare. I hope she knows how much that means.

Thank you Lily!!! I will look forward to talking/e-mailing to you tomorrow. I will look at those encumbrances and liquidate them, if possible. And even though I don't work with you face to face I want to let you know that I think you are doing an excellent job over there in GCA, all of Team Four has been really excellent to work with, you are all very responsive, very efficient and very knowledgeable. :) Thank you, Lily Gebrenegus & Team Four.

To: Paul Jeganathan, Lisa Edlin (Treasury)
From: Rheba DeTornyay, Donor

Here and there in our vast bureaucracy there are very special people who do more public relations for the university than is probably realized. Every year I manage to forget how to direct our investment advisor to transfer funds for our annual gift, and through the years I have become friends with Paul Jeganathan who kindly and patiently tells me how to do it. This year he was on vacation and so I talked to Lisa Edlin. What amazes me with both of them is that they are always truly excited about a new gift coming in, and they both express genuine and wonderful gratitude. They always make me feel so good. I think you need to know that the treasury office which ordinarily would be only concerned with putting funds into the appropriate account is doing a wonderful job toward the goal of helping donors feel appreciated.

To: Yee Lam (Payroll)
From: Aaron Siirila, former UW employee

"Thank you so much for your help on this payroll matter, especially in holding and allowing me extra time to get this letter to you.” Yee received this KUDO from an ex-employee who had a stale dated check and she was trying to get him paid.

To: Karen Long, Tom Phillips, Kristen Findley and Jeff Follman
From: Bill Ferris, Executive Director for Administration, Office of the Executive Vice President

Kudos to the FM team. Yesterday at the EVP Tech Planning Group we had two presentations from FM: Karen Long, Tom Phillips, and Kristen Findley presented on ProCarta and Jeff Follman presented on Kuali. All did a wonderful job in presenting complex information in a very understandable manner. Both presentations led to a good dialogue on these important issues. But what continues to impress me most is that FM continues to be at the forefront of these changes and improvements. Your unit is always in front of the curve on these important issues and I can't tell you how much confidence in your organization that provides. Keep up the good work.

To: Judy Peterson (Treasury)
From: Paul Moredock, Assoc. Dean for Development, School of Law

Paul Moredock referred to me as a "goddess" in a recent large Development meeting because of my help with the Gates gift. Dubious term but I'm sure his intentions were good.

To: Judy Peterson (Treasury) and Treasury Team
From: Connie Kravas, Vice President for Development & Alumni Relations, Development Office

Re: law school endowment Great. Sounds like everyone is on the same page. Sure appreciate working with all of you. THANK YOU ALL.

To: Tom Phillips (Financial Services)
From: Andrea A. Lex, Senior Director, Student & Administrative Services, UW Extension

I want to express my appreciation to Tom and to you for sharing the considerable expertise UW Financial Services has gained in implementing your document management system. We at UWEO are considering this path to help us work more responsively and efficiently. We are also looking to save some space.
Tom has been very generous with his time and knowledge as we explore possibilities. He met with me and my entire UWEO administrative support leadership team this morning. We appreciated his insights, good sense and humor in sharing the promises and potential pitfalls of this technology. Tom, thank you again. I'm sure we'll have more questions for you!

To: Tom Phillips (Financial Services)
From: Weldon Ihrig (EVP)

Great to have Tom and his skills as part of the Financial Management team. The type of assistance that he provided to UWEO is invaluable to your groups as well as to your clients in the effective use of the available data.

To: Kiet Tran (GCA)
From: Joyce J. Carlson, Grant & Contract Manager, Finance & Administration UW, Washington National Primate Research Center Administration, Western Facility

Our sincere thanks to Kiet and her hard fought/dedicated efforts to get this FSR "finalized". I will be dropping by Friday am to see you both and say thank you personally. The Primate Center is very appreciative, this is one of the more complex grants within the University, thus no small task to accomplish this feat.

To: Kiet Tran, Alice Bukengolts (GCA)
From: Jean Reeves, Fiscal Specialist Supervisor, UW, Department of Pediatrics

I wanted to take time to acknowledge the support Kiet Tran and Alice Bukengolts in particular offers to our office in the Dept of Pediatrics. We appreciate their responsiveness and thorough documentation. Our Department has many complicated budgets and we rely on their assistance on a regular basis.
I'm sending this email as I think it's important to recognize individuals that provide the type and quality of support that Alice and Kiet do.

To: Tami Sadusky (GCA) & All GCA Staff
From: James A. Angelosante, Associate Director, Finance and Administration
Washington National Primate Research Center Administration, Western Facility

Thanks to all for the great work in getting the budget closed. We all appreciate the tremendous teamwork that went into this endeavor! Thanks again for your untiring efforts. Thanks again Tami for all of you and your staff's great support.

To: Tami Sadusky, Denise Lam, Monique Bradley, Cecilia Pittman (GCA)
From: Michael Aly, Chief Financial Officer, UW, Dept. of Surgery

Thanks again for coming to our department. It was exceedingly helpful to me an my staff, each of whom has different experience levels with the university, so it was really a great learning experience for them as they learn the different roles & responsibilities of departments, GCA, OSP, A/P & on and on! As I suspected, it also helped us to highlight many of our internal communication issues that can be fixed!

To: Ann Sarna (Treasury)
From: Kamla Hurst, Director of Development, UW World Series, Meany Hall for the Performing Arts

After kindly providing me with help on my endowment presentation for the UW World Series board retreat this November, I wanted to follow up with you both to let you know that we just received a $100,000 endowment gift (our largest single gift ever) from a board member. It's an outright gift, and we are really thrilled. Thanks again for your great assistance in the fall.

To: Ann Sarna (Treasury)
From: Weldon Ihrig (EVP)

Great work and the World Series gift is wonderful.

To: Ann Sarna, Judy Peterson , V'Ella Warren , Ping Tan, Lisa Edlin, Susan Ball, Michael Fero (Treasury)
From: Cheryl Nations, Associate Director of Advancement Communications

Re: CEF 2005: Just got my copy :-) Stunning! Love the design (especially calendar-feel/horizontal-style) and love the cover treatment (how it plays with the back cover design). Congrats to a beautiful piece.

To: Kelly Smith and JR Sloan (Financial Accounting)
From: Mark Ondrake, Budget/Fiscal Analyst UW, Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery

Kelly Smith and JR Sloan did a fine job today on the Desktop Query class. They covered some very advanced aspects of the software, and gave a few review items as well. The presentation was clean, smooth, and informative. Keep up the good work

To: Student Fiscal Services
From: Frank Montgomery

Re: POP Process: That's great news. Congrats to all the SFS people that worked to make this possible.

To: V’Ella Warren and staff
From: Steven Charvat, CEM, Emergency Management Director

Thank you so much for inviting me to address your senior staff today at your meeting at the Ethnic Cultural Center. As you can tell, I have a passion for "spreading the word" about disaster preparedness... not only for departments and units within the UW, but also for individuals and families. As I reiterated during the presentation and Q&A period, my office (Elenka) and I stand ready to help your staff to begin many of the required disaster response, and mostly recovery, efforts as required in various UW plans, policies and procedures. As always, every journey requires a first step. I am grateful that Ann Anderson has opened the door to our peers in Financial Management (FM). Sandra Lier and I have discussed with Weldon and others the importance of more actively involving your staff in the recovery activities for the UW. As noted by you and your staff, we have a long way to go -- but the groundwork has already been established. Once again, I truly value your input and support as OEM works to support the important roles and responsibilities of the various FM units in helping the UW truly become a disaster resistant university global model!

To: V’Ella Warren and Ann Anderson
From: Sandra H. Lier, Associate Vice President for Business Services

I'm adding my thank you for asking Steve to present to your staff. Working on the aftermath of the Nisqually earthquake damages gave me great incentive to have a more organized approach for "the next one" with the leadership of Financial Management.

To: V'Ella Warren & Team (all who helped with the annual report)
From: Connie Kravas, Vice President for Development & Alumni Relations, Development Office

I've just reviewed "Transforming Lives"-----It's a magnificent Annual Report! BRAVO to you and your team. The content is absolutely outstanding.

To: V'Ella Warren, Jeff Follman and Team (All who helped with the annual report)
From: Bill Gates Sr., Regent

I took some time this AM to look through the 2005 annual report for the University, "Transforming Lives". I thought it was very, very effective. Whoever conceived, designed and executed this publication is entitled to high praise. Sent via Weldon Ihrig, who wrote: V’Ella, Jeff and your team did a great job, so wanted to share Bill Gates' comments with you. Weldon

To: V'Ella Warren, Jeff Follman and Team (All who helped with the annual report)
From: Mark Emmert, UW President

Responding to Bill Gates, Sr,: Yes indeed. It is terrific. And I will make sure all who worked on it receive your compliments. >