2014 Bravo Award Recipients for Entomology
The Bravo Award seeks to highlight the excellence found across all areas and job functions at Purdue University by recognizing and rewarding extraordinary achievements on every scale. Acknowledging employee accomplishments that help Purdue move the world forward is vital to the University's mission and the morale of its faculty and staff. Below are the recipients of the Bravo Award for 2014. Many thanks to all who took the time to nominate a fellow employee for this award.
FACULTY
Gary Bennett
(not pictured)The 78th Purdue Pest Management Conference almost did not happen this year. Severe winter weather and the closing of the University for two of the three day conference appeared to doom the event, but thanks to the initiative and leadership of Gary, the conference was held for the reduced audience that did make it to campus. Gary quickly prepared a new program with the staff available and made the meeting one to remember. This assured an unbroken string of conferences dating back to 1937.
Jeff Holland
Jeff took the initiative to develop and teach a new graduate course on spatial and advance statistical analysis. This course filled a gap in our statistical analysis course offerings, and satisfied a demand for high-level quantitative analysis tools not offered elsewhere. He attracted 25 graduate students from across the college with his inaugural course was well-received by the students.
Jonathan Neal
(not pictured)Jon contributed in a substantial way to the “Celebration of Entomology” recruitment event held at the Co-Rec this past February. He helped plan, promote and run the event that exceeded expectations. His efforts above and beyond the call of duty made this event a success.
AP CERIS
Victoria Cassens
Ms. Cassens is deserving of this award based on her development of the Accepted Labels State Tracking and Repository (ALSTAR) project within NPIRS. She was responsible for the initial concept of the project in 2004 and has been solely responsible for the technical development of the ALSTAR software. Since 2004, she has organized over 30 ALSTAR meetings bringing together over 400 registrant company participants and state regulatory officials to share ideas and facilitate communication. In 2013, the ALSTAR project generated $113,700 in revenues. Ms. Cassens continues to add new functionality and is currently working to implement a new database within ALSTAR that will dramatically help state regulators manage state specific pesticide registrations. It is impressive to note that over 350,000 electronic pesticide product labels have been transferred to 41 states participating in ALSTAR. The ALSTAR membership continues to grow on a daily basis and annual revenues will only increase over time. The ALSTAR pesticide product labels are available on the NPIRS State Public website which received over 2 million hits per year.
Eileen Luke
Eileen spearheaded a number of new initiatives to broaden the reach and funding base for CERIS. In addition to new efforts in developing smartphone applications with faculty in multiple departments, she initiated a new cooperative agreement with the US Forest Service to manage a new urban tree database system built by CERIS. She is currently negotiating an agreement with AGIT to provide administrative leadership and programming expertise for the college.
David McClure
(not pictured)NAPIS provides information services to a USDA program. Like many groups, our group has lost staff over the past few years. Despite this we have continued to provide a high level of service to our sponsors. This is due in large part to the applications that David has developed. When David came to NAPIS we were maintaining static web sites and updating survey maps manually. David has built custom software that updates and publishes survey maps for hundreds of exotic pests each week. He has built innovative work-flow applications that are mission critical to our sponsors and ensure our continued funding. The products that David develops are easy to use and add value to our service portfolio.
AP STAFF
Larry Bledsoe
Larry has for many years provided assistance to graduate students in the field crops area. More recently, he has been helping graduate students from other program areas. For example, he recently helped Ulinova Vidal Gomez construct an elaborate olfactometer and helped Paola Olaya Arenas find and assess research sites. He is allowing Paola to travel with the survey crew to evaluate woodlots around the state. Also, Larry brings sweet corn to the entire department every summer.
Jamal Faghihi
Jamal took on the task of creating a seasonal maintenance schedule and developing a set of best operating practices for the department greenhouses behind EEL. He coordinated users to identify maintenance needs and operational expectations before approaching physical facilities to negotiate seasonal maintenance service. A fee has been agreed to and scheduled maintenance begins this spring. This benefits all the programs that use these greenhouses throughout the year.
John Obermeyer
John has frequently been called upon to provide videography services for projects outside the scope of his job duties. Some examples would be the Bug Scout videos that he prepared for the Centennial celebration which were filmed at all times of day and night throughout a year’s time span, videos for Turpin’s Honors class, videos for undergraduate capstone projects, and most recently, the gypsy moth spraying at 6:00 AM.
CLERICAL
Cara Fila
Cara provides critical support to our business office and student services. In the short time that she has been with the department, her contributions have significantly reduced the workload on her colleagues, and increased the overall quality of the work being performed in a couple of areas in the department. Her peers recognize her performance and routinely praise her work. Cara more than meets the mark with her performance.
Holly Fletcher-Timmons
Holly, a part-time employee, agreed to help fill the gaps of the open Outreach Education Coordinator position. With only two months to prepare, she took charge and successfully carried out Insectaganza, an annual department event, with attendance of 740 students, teachers and chaperones. Holly scheduled committee meetings, updated contact information, mailed announcement and registration packets, arranged all space and logistics on campus, and solicited volunteers. Going the extra mile after the event, Holly took the time to develop a revised Planning Guide and organize an electronic shared file for easy search of documents related to the event.
Jody Pearson
(not pictured)Her work is excellent in ordering, payroll and all around assistance in keeping the operations of the department running smoothly and seamlessly. She knows this dept. so well and understands how to work with all the personalities and needs that the department has. I know it goes above and beyond in assisting to get this through. For example – her willingness to sit in the conference room and help faculty, staff and students with their travel after ESA is an example of how customer-service oriented she is.