Staff Awards

This award is given to a College of Business staff member who exemplifies the College of Business’ core values: student success, excellence, integrity, professionalism, innovation, and building relationships. The award is determined by a vote of the members of the faculty and staff in the College of Business. 

A few highlights from colleagues:

• Meghan has been tasked once again to revamp the entire external-facing programming of the College and has fully launched the ROAR program with very little College support.
• Meghan has taken on additional responsibility and has been able to manage her workload efficiently without increasing staff in her unit.
• Meghan has demonstrated what it means to be an outstanding staff member. She not only oversees four major areas of the college's external functions, but she teaches multiple ROAR courses, facilitates numerous discussions weekly with external parties, networking both inside and outside the campus with the intention of putting student needs front and center, and manages all of her work with the most professional, positive, and forward-thinking vision possible.
• Meghan exemplified all of our core values in a pandemic - very impressive and deserving.
• In addition to her already full plate, Meghan took over executive education, revamped the Mini-MBA, and handled the ongoing changes with the Lifetime Entrepreneurship Award Luncheon. She absolutely deserves the Outstanding Staff Award!
• Meghan has taken on so much this year, between ROAR, OPED, and her regular career development, external relations, and supervisory duties. She has done it all with an exemplary level of customer service, professionalism, and efficiency.
• Meghan's contributions to students within the COB are too numerous to list!
• Meghan continues to work to connect our students with organizations and industry professionals while she has taken on other responsibilities over the past several years.
• Meghan has worked tirelessly over the pandemic to keep programs running and making up for lost personnel.

The staff of the College of Business chooses the recipient of the Staff Choice Award for the staff member’s dedication to the College of Business above and beyond the individual’s day-to-day duties.

A few highlights from colleagues: 

• Dan always responds to any issue with urgency. He goes out of his way to help in any way he can and this positively influences the way the entire COBIT performs. It gives a great sense of relief that anytime there is an issue, it will be taken care of.
• Goes beyond the day-to-day tasks to ensure all tech needs are met.
• Dan played a critical role in helping people work remotely in 2020.
• Dan held down Dwire Hall while everyone was remote, sorting and organizing mail and being a point of contact for students, faculty, and staff who needed building access. He worked with EOC to facilitate info gathering for ongoing research needs. He also made house calls as needed to help with technology issues at home for issues that could not be resolved remotely. He quickly managed to learn and facilitate virtual events as in-person activities were shut down.
• Dan is one of the most flexible and charismatic people in the College of Business. He goes out of his way to make time for any unexpected technical issues and to help anyone in need - with a friendly and positive attitude, too! He also has made it a point to continue to check in with people even in this virtual environment. I appreciate all he does for the college!

This award is given to a College of Business staff member who excels in service to internal partners within the UCCS campus. Some examples of internal partners include administration, faculty, staff, and students.

A few highlights from colleagues:

• Tracy has kept things together for the COB instructors throughout the craziness. As a faculty, we aren't that adept with technology so having to do everything remotely has upped the difficulty level, to say the least. I like to think I am in the upper 50% technology-wise, but I still manage to come across problems/issues for which I can't find a solution. Tracy always seems to have an answer. It could be that I'm asking obvious simpleton questions, in which case I applaud her people skills and patience. It could also be that her breadth of knowledge in our tools is deep, in which case I applaud her expertise. Either way, she is deserving of this award.
• Tracy has been a tremendous asset this past year to all of the faculty and staff navigating the switch to remote teaching and working. She has been proactive in her training and assistance, and willing to help out where needed.
• Tracy facilitated two separate swings from normal academic operations to remote operations. She facilitated creating two canvas sites; one to support faculty and one to support students. She helped devised an emergency issuing of laptops to faculty, staff, and students. She has maintained constant communication with faculty and lecturers to help ensure the academic mission succeeds.

This award is given to a COB staff member who excels in service to external partners outside of UCCS campus. Some examples of external partners include community members, business partners, and alumni.

A few highlights from colleagues:

• I am nominating Mark Paquette for the Staff Excellence in External Service Award for his outstanding work in our internship program - which I am considering External Service. Despite COVID challenges, Mark has ensured our interns are out in the community, learning and working with our business partners. Mark's tireless interfaces with our business partners ensured COB students worked in challenging and productive environments, either remotely or in person. His daily leadership of the program has been flawless - even though Mark has been working remotely himself from Massachusetts. Communication is key in this program and Mark has ensured faculty and employers know exactly where we are in the program, specifics in due dates for reports/ratings/grades, and progress of students in their internship roles. Even during COVID and working remotely across the country, our Internship Program shines as one of the COB's best efforts.
• Mark has done an amazing job growing and maintaining our corporate relationships with the Career Development Center. His work on moving CNN to a virtual event due to COVID was a herculean effort and has made CNN even more successful. He and Meghan's development of a new process for vetting employers with the BBB won Innovation Award with the CU system. Mark goes above and beyond to connect students with employers and vice versa. Mark is a huge asset to the COB team and our community partners.

This award is to recognize new staff members who have been with the College of Business for less than two years and who have shown commitment to building relationships and excelling in their job duties. The winner of the award was determined by nominations from fellow staff members. 

A few highlights from colleagues:

• Julia developed strategic partnerships with over 20 national employers, including IBM, Google, Facebook, AT&T, Bank of America, Verizon, and Tesla. The impact of these agreements will be employment opportunities for our apprentices and support of our program.
• Julia worked with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment and started the registration process and completed the CCAP apprenticeship standards for Cybersecurity Analyst and Cybersecurity Consultant tracks.
• Julia helps the C-CAP team enroll 76 students in our first-semester cohort – this generated revenues for Spring 2021 of over $205,000.
• Julia developed 12 partnerships with workforce development boards in both Colorado and Florida spanning 12 different counties. These partnerships provide funding to students to cover tuition, employer support services for students, and community engagement with employers e Rockstar Rookie Award represents.