Employee of the Month

Wow, the stars are really out  this month!

There was a ton of great work done in April. A lot of it was done by teams. I have tried to name everyone on those teams, but I am sure I failed here and there. My apologies for that, but in a very important way it is a great problem to have.

One person was nominated by many for multiple reasons.  So, the Employee of the Month is…

Debbie Jordan, nominated by a number of people for being a key part of the Alton Brown book signing as well as the Store’s and Guest Services’ excellent performance and for being part of the EarthFest team.

Debbie was essential to a great Alton Brown book signing. Well over 300 books sold, many Alton Brown fans smiling, and right at $10,000 in the cash register for the event!

Above and Beyonds to...

Debbie’s Guest Services team— Sheila Geary, Ashley Whitten, Leigh McElwee, Chris Fant, Shannon O’Daniel, Shawn Roy,Cole Weintraub,Stephen Pope, Tammy Johnson,Shirley Galvin, Charlotte Brakefield, Jo Burford, Sherrie Dugan, Adrienne Faires,  Anika Fageol, Margaret Graves, Mary Hensley,  Amanda Holcomb, Barbara McReedy, and Sheri Richardson for an AMAZING 70 per cent plus in cross sales.

And much applause to another part of Debbie’s team, for an excellent month in the Museum Store: Betsy (Mary) Hume, Jackie Johnson, Chandra Bailey, Eileen Biniakewitz, Omar Cauby, LaKeisha Chism, Loretta Counce, Katharine Huffman, Geary Irwin, Tara Measells, Nancy Muse, James Edward Neeley, Donna Powers, Mary Reed, Bethany Reisner, Erin Sauer, Alice Claire Van Drimmelen, and Leslie Webb all worked to make it the first $40,000 plus month in a long time.

Ronda Cloud deserves commendation for also playing a critical role in engineering the Alton Brown event, especially the PR (those eager book buyers heard about it somewhere.)and going above and beyond on PR for EarthFest.

David Branch and Shelby Furr get big cheers for handling tons of events and booking even more future ones.

Kudos to Cynthia Williams who thought way outside the box in designing new banners for the Nature Center.

Chuck Britt was the “Hero of the AKA exhibit,”  There were multiple problems with the exhibit when it arrived, but Chuck performed miracles on it.

Hurray to Steve Masler who also handled innumerable special requests related to the AKA exhibit with deftness and aplomb.

Andy Williams and his entire team at Lichterman Nature Center for a superb EarthFest.

That includes Charity Novick, Joann McGinnis,  Mother Nature, aka Audrey Bohl and her opossum, Barbara Moses, plus Teacher/Naturalists: Cindy Black, Reece Daugherty, Adrienne Graves, Joe Gatlin, Cathy Justis, Cheri Kimes, Shannon Maris, TJ McMichael, Wendy Robson, Gay Ryan, Christina Sexton, and Josephine Williams. Also, Allan Fletchall, Barry Moore & Tory Bohl, Steve Swift Mary & Tammy Johnson (no relation to each other), Sally Roberds and Julie McCoullo Camille Gotten. Aaaand….Diane McKinna for raising (again) a small army of volunteers and the many folks from other departments who helped. I won’t try to name them all because I would fail terribly..

Kia White and Lauren Pate for a successful Member’s Day at Coon Creek (the same day we also scored a big success with Alton Brown.

Richard Pugh for his excellent work managing the creation of our new website!.

And kudos to the staff members who nominated people for employees of the month! It makes me very proud each month when I see the nominations and the large number of people doing the nominating. It is gratifying, too, that there are so many excellent examples of teamwork to honor this month.

As always, thanks to everyone for all the good work!

Cheers,

Steve