Office of the President
1201 S. State Street
Timme Center, CSS 301
Big Rapids, MI 49307
Congratulations to —
I would like a Pat on the Back award to go to Calla Dean in Telecommunications. She never fails to act promptly on a problem to get it resolved as quickly as possible and always with a smile; one can "see" over the phone line. In all my years at Ferris, regardless of what office I was calling from, for whatever reason I was calling, she has always been a very pleasant person to work with to resolve problems or to answer whatever questions I had.
I would like to give thanks to all of the Technology Assistance Center staff with special thanks going to David Bowers, Todd Clemm, Chris Cunningham, Mel Danes, Adam Fortman, Mark Hunt, Jaime Gerow, Adam Keally, Mike Kehoe, Daniel Moellering, Josh Mullard, Brady Mulligan, Karie Saylor, Joe Viviano, Bob Horner, Tina Jensen, Gary Lutz, Susan Cherry, Rathbun Chuck, Phyllis Sherman, and Bruce Werner. Ferris' network suffered massive attacks and outages during the first week of the Spring semester and these guys were my eyes and ears throughout the entire ordeal. Their continual commitment to assisting Faculty, Staff, and Students exceeded even my wildest expectations. Their assistance was not just limited to fielding calls, Gary and Sue continually offered me their precious resources including time, man power, and anything else I needed every second of every minute. While I am not sure of the exact number of calls fielded by this fantastic department I do know that in one evening they had well over 900 calls. My estimates put them at over 2500 calls throughout the first week of classes, more than enough to tire the most determined soul. While we are still not in the clear, it is nice to know that I can depend upon this department to assist me in Ferris time of need. I would also like to nominate my co-worker Victor Empie who worked with me Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday around the clock with a total of about 11 hours of sleep. We worked side by side day and night to resolve the issues with the network. In total we each put in about 80 hours in 5 days with about half that being on Monday and Tuesday and alone.
I would like to nominate Charlie Carpenter for a Pat-on-the-Back award. He handled the sale of some used equipment by taking care of all the necessary details and posting it on eBay. He handled all the details for us including moving the equipment, taking pictures, creating the description, answering questions, and making arrangements for the buyer to pick it up. The final bid was way beyond our expectations. I am sure we would not have received as much without all of his extra effort on behalf of Hospitality Programs.
I would like to nominate Jenny Ososki, Medical Records, Michigan College of Optometry. I was denied a referral to a specialist my by insurance provider. I tried on several occasions to get an authorization, but was not successful. Jenny stepped up and took my case to the insurance company and succeeded in getting an authorization for me. Jenny will probably say that she was just doing her job, and technically, that may be true. The reason for the nomination is that she didn't take the easy way out. It would have been easy for her to say, sorry, I couldn't do it, and move on to the next thing in her in-basket. She didn't take the path of least resistance and just put in her 8 hours; she did her job to the best of her ability and made a positive impact on my life.
Karen Ottobre always goes out of her way to be helpful. Recently she facilitated finding a classroom for a special event that would have displaced a faculty member from the classroom. All went smoothly and she went out of her way to make sure every detail was arranged. I would like her to receive a pat-on-the-back.