Kudos

by Kyra Worrell

To: Charles Bennet, Decision Support Center; Nate Findley, Decision Support Center; Dinah Walters, Decision Support Center; Brandon Whitehead, Academic HR

From: Daniel A. Duffy, Senior Manager, Client Services & Learning Technologies, C & C, UW

I wanted to take a moment and provide you with some feedback on the DMUG meetings. I wanted to let you know that I appreciate the level of preparation that you and your staff put into the meetings. It is evident in well planned, well run, and productive meetings.

So, just a quick "thanks" to you, Nate, Brandon, Dinah and the other behind the scenes folks who do the work to help make the DMUG meetings are productive as they are.

It makes a difference!!

To: John Cady, GCA

From: Kathleen McEwen, Fiscal Specialist, Medicine/Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, UW

I don't know how you all do the job you do over there. You are all miraculous. And, your work is so hard....

To: Sue Camber, RAA; Cristi Chapman, MAA

From: Asuman Kiyak, Professor, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (Dentistry), Adjunct Professor, Architecture, Psychology, Director - Institute on Aging

Re: F&A rate agreement

Congratulations Sue! What a coup in this age of shrinking federal budgets! I vote for a major bonus for you and Christi, and...?

To: Sue Camber, RAA; Cristi Chapman, MAA; and MAA staff:

From: Arthur Nowell, Dean, College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences

Re: F&A rate agreement

Truly excellent work by Sue and her team.

With the exception of NIH which does not list IC on the budget pages, most
PIs will see this increase in a different colored light than many directly concerned with the maintenance of the infrastructure.

It is going to take some good PR to get the word out as most PIs are watching declining overall agency budgets going forward…especially NSF, NASA, NOAA, and even Navy.

But, like always...you can't house great books and keep great people productive without a great library building.

To: Sue Camber, RAA; and RAA staff:

From: Bill Ferris, Executive Director of Administration, Office of the Executive Vice President, UW

Re: F&A rate agreement

I had heard the rumors, but thrilled with this news. What a wonderful validation of the entire RAA team and organization (and especially its leader!).

How can they not fund us now!!!!

To: Cristi Chapman, MAA; Sue Camber, RAA; V’Ella Warren, Financial Management

From: Ruth Mahan, Vice Dean for Administration and Finance, School of Medicine, UW

Re: F&A rate agreement

You have done a great job! Thank you for all of the hard work.

To: GCA staff

From: Richard Glover, J.D., Grant and Contracts Administrator, Office of Sponsored Programs, UW

GCA *rocks*

To: Miriam Garvey, SFS

From: Lynn Catlett, Administrator, Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, College of Engineering, UW

Thanks for a great training on Monday! It all begins to come together! I'm not sure if you know your own power: I had tried to do the same thing (authorizing aid) with 2 different students. It worked fine for one, and did some obscure other thing for the other. I tried four times. Then I started writing you an email. While checking something on SDB to show what I'd done, I tried once more: in it went! Even gremlins bow before you!

To: Frannie Gladney, SFS

From: Maude Marzan, Former UW student

I am a former student at the University of Washington and I had an overpayment. Frannie was very accommodating whenever I have any questions regarding my overpayment. She updated me with my account balance. Frannie was very considerate with my financial hardships and established a payment plan agreement. I called Frannie last week to mail me a summary of my account, I immediately received it the following day. Frannie provided me with excellent customer services because she was efficient and she would call me right away after leaving her a message.

To: Frannie Gladney, SFS

From: David Meland, UW student

When I was first notified of my overdue balance I had a lot of questions. I wrote you with them after I had been sent from office to office in Schmitz Hall with little success. I expected a reply telling me to return to one of those offices with my questions as I received the notion that you were the person receiving my monthly payments and that was all. However, you wrote back requesting that I come in and you would try your best. Although you were not able to answer all of my questions that day, you answered most with great clarity and told me where I could find answers to the few that remained. I left your office understanding what I did wrong and what I needed to do to make it right. This was above and beyond what I expected and you continue to exceed my expectations to this day. After that day I occasionally wrote you with a question and you always took the time to respond promptly with a clear and concise e-mail.

I was in Schmitz Hall at least every 2 months last year and every time you saw me, you recognized me by name. This is a great deal in a school as large as the UW and it also reminded me how much care you took in helping me tackle my overdue balance. Overall, you made what I found to be an extremely frustrating, confusing and stressful situation very clear and easy. This is what I needed most at that time. From past experience with the Financial Aid Office I know you are a great asset to the University of Washington and its students.

Thanks you so much. This would have been much more difficult without you and you were a great pleasure to work with.

To: Cindy Gregovich, Payroll

From: Kathleen Dwyer, Director of Benefits, Benefits Office, UW

I've said it to you each individually, but I want to reiterate that it's just great working with Cindy as Payroll Director. Whether it's an unfortunate crisis like last week or just on a day to day basis, she's wonderful to work, a very good leader of people, and a very positive force for change.

It's great to have a peer in the building who has a similar vision for where we need to go and also someone to share the challenges we face! We are lucky to have her.

To: Cindy Gregovich, Payroll; Janelle Browne, Health Sciences and Medical Centers, HR; Vicky Stormo, University Police

From: Weldon Ihrig, Executive Vice President, FM

I would like to add my appreciation to Cindy, Janelle and Vicky for your leadership in creating UW's proactive response to the SS mismatch issue. The appreciation by the Federal agencies involved will serve UW well in the future as well as these efforts being the right thing to do by the University.

To: Ruth Johnston, SFS; Ann Anderson, Controller; Diane Cooley, SFS; Norm Englund, SFS; Nancy Hurja, SFS; Evelyn Jagoring, Financial Accounting: Catherine Sleipnes, Payables Administration; David Wright, Financial Services:

From: Ken Sinarski, Associate Comptroller, University of Virginia

Ruth, we met at a conference in Colorado last fall and I want to let you know that I think your cash management class is an excellent tool. Steve Kimata speaks highly of you and we often look to your website for information and updates on the balanced scorecard. Currently we are trying to enhance on training materials. I'm over several of areas you refer to in the training class such as cash handling, electronic payments and credit cards. Would you mind if we used some of it in designing our materials.

To: Ruth Johnston, SFS, and SFS staff:

From: Mark Ondrake, Operations Management Specialist/ Budget Analyst, Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, UW

Congratulations, your team in SFS has finished yet another round of UW Tuition Payments.

As always, the managers were helpful with my strategic "systems" questions, and the staff was very responsive on entering the payments. Your Web-based-forms work quite well, and the SFS data inputs were quick, accurate and efficient.
*** In brief, continue the excellent work!

Once again, I appreciate the fine efforts of SFS, with their superior results in customer service and systems enhancements. You and your team have advanced the cause of "UW productivity!"

In summary, this is a case-study of Quality Improvement in action.

To: Sharon Langlois, Payroll

From: Hien Tran, Accounting Supervisor, Applied Physics Laboratory, UW

I received all of it, even the letter. :-)
Thanks for going the extra miles.

To: The Payroll Office

From: Gary Farris, Administrator, Graduate School, UW

The excellent work that the Payroll staff have put into this problem and the difficulty of their situation in dealing with pulling information out of the system or making the system work to deal with intricacies in the appointments cannot be overstated. They are a tremendous staff to work with and deserve high praise for the extra effort here but also for the great work they do every day. I know you know this already but I wanted you to know that there are others who greatly appreciate their commitment to making things work under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

To: Amy Pierce, Payables Administration

From: Peggy Smith, Assistant to the Acting Director, WA National Primate Research Center, U.W.

I wanted to let you know how much we appreciate the effort Amy Pierce (Payables Administration) put forth on our behalf yesterday afternoon. The Primate Center had a time-sensitive payment that needed additional information. Amy contacted me and worked diligently and patiently with me and our Director, Dave Anderson, to translate the problem and work towards a resolution. I had never met Amy before, nor had I had any direct interactions with the Payables Department. Amy provided an incredibly positive first - and lasting - impression of your Department.
Thank you for the excellent service you provide.

To: Team Six – Adam Orchard, Mary Girgis, Marisa Honig, GCA; Sue Camber, RAA

From: Mark Ondrake, Operations Management Specialist/ Budget Analyst, Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, UW

Sue: Thank you, as always, for your attention to strategic issues and tactical details.
Please note: Team Six has been very helpful in setting up some Advance Budgets for Oto over the last few months. As you know, and as you have stated, new budget set-up is a top GCA priority, and we value this service. The prompt creation of a new budget helps us immensely for accurate payroll entry, the posting of expenses to the proper budgets, etc. Team Six deserves some praise for superior customer service during their cross-training period!

To: The Travel Office

From: Sandra Rochon, Assistant to the Assistant Provost, Equal Opportunity Office, UW

My appreciation goes out to your staff at the Travel Office for the great customer service I always receive. Other departments around campus give out a 24 hour turn-around, which often turns into 48 plus hours. Your folks are helpful, friendly and prompt.

To: Mike Anthony, MAA; Sue Camber, RAA, Weldon Ihrig, EVP

From: Weldon Ihrig, Executive Vice President, Phyllis Wise, UW Provost

Re: F&A rate agreement

(Phyllis Wise writes Weldon Ihrig, in regard to his response to a faculty member’s concerns about the new F & A rate agreement): This is such an excellent response. Faculty do not understand this concept and you have done a beautiful job to try to explain it!

(Weldon Ihrig forwards the email on to Sue Camber): Sue, thought you would like to see the new Provost's comments about the email response to Cliff Mass. Thanks for you great work on the response, and I will make certain that Phyllis knows the real brains behind UW's indirect costs efforts. Weldon
(Sue Camber responses): Thanks Weldon. But, I must pass the credit too! Most of the credit goes to Mike Anthony, our new Executive Director for MAA. He came on board on July 1 and with his F&A experience and just a little coaching from me on the UW approach and sensitivities, he was able to draft this for me with ease.

To: Lisa Whitehead, SFS

From: Carol Brown, Manager, Student Services & Admissions, School of Dentistry, UW

I wanted to take just a second to tell you that I think Lisa Whitehead is incredible. She knows virtually everything and has the best customer service skills. Frankly, I don't know what I'd do without her -- she has saved me dozens of times.

Just wanted to share this -- I think Lisa is truly a special UW employee.

To: Lisa Whitehead, SFS

From: Kay Lewis, Director, Financial Aid Office, UW

Now that most of the Hurricane Katrina students have received some funding from us, I wanted to thank you for printing all those same day or next day checks. You were always quick, efficient and good natured about my requests during this very busy time. I know these students were so relieved and amazed at how easy we made the process to get them assistance--and you were a big part of that effort. Thanks again, Kay.

To: Lisa Whitehead, SFS

From: Weldon Ihrig, Executive Vice President, FM

Lisa, thanks for going the extra mile to assist the Katrina students--you are making people's lives better.

To: Kyra Worrell, SFS; Heidi Anderson, SFS

From: Maureen Shadair

Kyra and Heidi,

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your financial planning expertise with our class this quarter. I know the students got a lot of good information and practical help from the Money 101 session you presented. And the Cranium game was fun and helped to reinforce the message. Thanks again for your time and energy. You make a difference for sure.