Volunteer of the Quarter 3Q11:
Suzanne Walsh
Suzanne brings more than
20 years of experience in Healthcare Information Technology to her PMINJ chapter
volunteering. She also brings a detailed oriented and pleasant personality
that is needed for the Symposium Registration Team. Suzanne has been the Team
Co-Lead for symposium Registration Team for the past 5 years and has worked
tirelessly during the year to organize and stream line the annual event registration
process. Suzanne and her team are instrumental for the on-line registration,
confirmations, badges and gifts for attendees for the May Symposiums as well
Nov IPM Day events. Before becoming registration team lead, Suzanne served
as a volunteer on the Registration Team.
The first step for a successful
Symposium is to have smooth registration process. Every year over 600 members
register for the May Symposium and over 500 members register for IPM Day Seminar,
both online. There are significant efforts involved for planning, setting
up team and assign responsibilities, setting up dates, setting up online
registration with web master, continually monitor registration, answering
phone calls related to registration and resolve any issues members might have
registering for the events. On the day of the event, Suzanne and her
team arrives at the facility very early in the morning to set up registration
tables with gifts and name tags. Due to hard work and dedication of volunteers
like Suzanne, the chapter is able to provide quality events like symposiums
to the members.
Suzanne’s thoughts on her
PMINJ volunteering experience:
“Initially when I joined PMINJ I thought that I would be able to attend
some interesting seminars on Project Management and keep my PMP certification
current. After attending a few Chapter Events and seeing the quality
of the programs as well as the knowledgeable membership, I knew I had to be
part of the organization and help make things happen. I am proud and excited
to be an active member of the PMINJ Chapter and encourage everyone to Volunteer
as you not only help the organization, you help yourself and make many new
friends and acquaintances”.
PMINJ is a volunteer organization
and chapter’s success is attributed to volunteers like Suzanne who works tirelessly
to provide quality service for chapter membership and we thank her for that.
Volunteer of the Quarter 2Q11:
Lisa Blake
Lisa brings more than
25 years of experience in telecommunication and information systems to her
PMINJ chapter volunteering. She also brings a detail-oriented and pleasant
personality that is needed for the Symposium Speaker Team. Lisa has
been the Team Lead for symposium speaker team for the past 3 years and has
worked tirelessly, around the year for speaker solicitation, review and
selection. Lisa and her team are instrumental for creating the final
agenda for the May Symposia and the November IPM Day events. Before
becoming speaker team lead, Lisa served as a speaker angel and was a proactive
member of the team for over a year.
The Symposium Speaker
team is the heart of the symposium. The quality of speakers is the
most important factor for the success of the symposium. There are significant
efforts involved with planning, reviewing, and interacting with speakers
to manage their needs. Lisa and her co-lead are responsible for soliciting
speakers, collating and reviewing documents from all the speaker proposals.
They check references and lead a team of volunteer angels through the rigorous
speaker selection process. On the day of the event, Lisa makes sure
each speaker arrives on time, has an assigned angel and satisfies all their
requests.
Lisa’s thoughts on her
PMINJ volunteering experience:
“PMINJ offers a
variety of great professional development opportunities, and volunteering
on the Speaker Team for the Symposium and IPM Day and working to provide
the best experience possible for our Chapter members is my way of saying
"Thank you!" to PMINJ. It's also a fun and rewarding way to meet
and network with other PMs”.
PMINJ's success
is attributed to volunteers like Lisa who work tirelessly to provide quality
programs for the chapter members and we thank her for that.
Volunteer of the Quarter 1Q11:
Dennis Komsa
When you attend PMINJ’s
monthly programs, you will almost always find Dennis Komsa at the sign-in
table ready to help you register for the meeting. In return for his
dedication, strong leadership skills and proactive efforts as team lead
of the On-Site Registration team, Dennis is being recognized as PMINJ’s
Volunteer of the Quarter.
Dennis became a member
of the NJ chapter in 2008 and, in the following year, volunteered to take
lead role for the On-Site Registration team. His strong leadership
skills are evident as he deals with scheduling his team, now reaching 15
members in size, to ensure that there is ample registration support for each
meeting. As part of this responsibility, he deals with resolving any
registration issues that are uncovered.
For each of the eight
months that PMINJ holds a dinner meeting, Dennis will insure that there are
sufficient volunteers to work at the meeting’s on-site registration table.
He has demonstrated flexibility in handling last minute changes in scheduling.
With a recent increase in volunteers, Dennis has improved the scheduling
of team efforts so that each volunteer has some time off for dinner and networking.
Also, Dennis takes responsibility for bringing the registration supplies
and name tags early to each meeting.
In addition to handling
the walk-in registrations on the evening of the meeting, Dennis assists
in compiling the payment analysis that is done after registration is completed.
He also follows up on post-meeting issue resolution.
Dennis’ volunteer efforts
do not stop with the PMINJ organization. In addition, Dennis is an
active volunteer with the Somerset County United Way; as a member of the
Resource Development and Marketing Committee, he heads their Social Media
efforts to expand the organization’s outreach program. He has helped
them establish a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, established
a blog on MyCentralJersey.com and is currently in the process of implementing
a high school intern program to lend staffing assistance.
Volunteer
of the Quarter 2Q10:
Michael
Lange
Michael Lange has been a member of the Program Evaluation team for 3 years.
He has been consistent with his support. As a team member, Michael
is required to summarize anywhere from 30 to 50 evaluation forms every month
using the team’s MS Excel spreadsheet. What has set Michael apart is his
initiative. Over the years he has recommended various reporting improvements
and modifications to the spreadsheet calculations which have resulted in
more meaningful data mining.
In addition to his regular monthly activities of collecting data, Michael
recently volunteered to help the chapter test the use of Survey Monkey to
provide an electronic program evaluation survey for the satellite locations.
Michael created the program evaluation survey based on the paper version
while at the same time enhancing the electronic version for ease of use and
data entry.
The electronic survey has demonstrated it is possible for the chapter to
go ‘green’ and improve the satellite location program evaluation reporting.
The electronic evaluation form has reduced handwriting interpretation issues
and reduced the time it takes to summarize and collate the various question’s
answers into a single master MS Excel spreadsheet report.
Michael continues to provide improvements to the electronic evaluation
form. Two great examples are the addition of a ‘pointer’ to the PMI.org
site upon completion of the evaluation which serves as a reminder for program
attendees to submit their PDU's and the addition of check box's for the
various volunteer activities available, making it easier to complete and
faster for chapter leadership to complete data searches.
Michael has helped the program evaluation team make a difference
and provides value added support to the chapter every day.
Volunteer of the Quarter 1Q10:
Dave Case
Dave has been a member
of the New Jersey Chapter since 1999 and received his PMP certification
in 2002. From 2000 through 2006, Dave was the chapter’s newsletter
editor. He continued to generate the newsletter even while he was working
at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once he returned to NJ to work at
Telcordia Technologies as a Senior Project Manager, he became the chapter’s
lead photographer.
For the past three years,
all the pictures taken at the monthly meetings and at the May/November Symposia
have been the responsibility of Dave Case. During this time, he has taken
over 1,800 pictures for the monthly meetings while he and his photo team
have shot over 3,500 pictures for both the May and November events. A portion
of these pictures appear on the chapter’s website. All of the pictures can
be previewed at www.damaca.smugmug.com/pmi/.
Volunteer of the Quarter 4Q09:
Sandy Sandlin
Sandy Sandlin has been
named our Volunteer of the Quarter. Sandy works with the Programs' Evaluation
Team to streamline the process and to make it easier for everyone to review
the results. The team that he is leading tabulates survey results
from each of the eight monthly meetings held each year:
- Around 175 - 200 people
at the main site
- 10 - 25 people at each
of the satellite locations
There are currently satellite
sites in Camden, Fairfield, Iselin, Princeton, and Roseland. While the amount
of work is steadily increasing, the team is looking for ways to provide
the results quickly. Through Sandy's efforts, the Evaluation Team
is a strong team which always remains positive and willing to help.
Volunteer of the Quarter 3Q09:
Barbara Fuller
Volunteer extraordinaire
would best describe Barbara Fuller. Barbara has been a member of the
New Jersey Chapter since 2001. Barbara has been a PMP for over 10
years.
She has been actively
involved in leading the Career Networking Group since 2006. Under Barbara’s
direction, she has transformed the Career Networking Group from chapter members
in transition searching for a job to a true networking forum. In addition
to providing a venue for chapter members to network with each other, Barbara
has been very instrumental in bringing in speakers to educate and motivate.
Speakers have coached Career Networking Group members in the art of communication,
as well as boosting confidence. Group members and participants have
truly mastered the art of networking that goes well beyond job search. The
group meets at 5:30 prior to regularly scheduled chapter meetings each month.
By attending these meetings and sessions, members have learned how to create
a resume that gets a second look, honed interviewing skills and perfected
the effective 30 second elevator pitch.
Barbara was the program
manger for the Seminar @ Sea event in 2008. It was the first time
such an event was offered by the New Jersey Chapter and Barbara accepted
and rose to the challenge! She worked tirelessly to negotiate contracts
with suppliers, including the cruise ship, attract sponsors to participate
in the event, secure dynamic speakers, and provide a venue of overall fun.
Barbara successfully achieved a mix of fun and learning to all participants’
satisfaction.
Most recently Barbara
program managed the successful Career Workshop held at Rutgers University
this past June. The theme of the workshop was getting your career in shape
for summer. In addition to securing Rutgers School of Business as a host/sponsor
and inviting career coaches, Barbara also taught an elevator pitch session
herself.
After completing her undergraduate
and graduate education in Ohio, she relocated to Dallas, Texas and soon
connected with AT&T where she worked for 21 years. To take on additional
challenges as an in-house consultant, AT&T relocated her to New Jersey.
While at AT&T, Barbara held various positions of increasing responsibility
focused on program and project delivery. Her final assignment at AT&T
was establishing and running a PMO. Her work there caused a transformation
in the information technology organization; the people, the processes and
the client perception.
Barbara left AT&T
to pursue her own business within the project management consulting arena.
Her company is called Process and Project Solutions, Inc.. She has
successfully built her client base utilizing project management skills to
manage large scale initiatives for customers or to provide process or project
consulting expertise. Recently she formed a professional and personal coaching
business for individuals, entrepreneurs and companies called “Focus on You,
Now”. It embraces her passion of developing people and teams using her many
years of coaching experience.
When asked about her successes
whether in her corporate life, as an entrepreneur or a leader of volunteers,
she recognizes the talent, and excellence of the people on the teams she
has led.
Volunteer of the Quarter 2Q09:
Maureen Sammis
Maureen Sammis has been
a member of the New Jersey Chapter since 1992, when she achieved her PMP
status. She has been a role model of a volunteer for more than 7 years, mainly
supporting the Symposium and the International Project Management Day events
with communications. She has also contributed two poster presentations
to chapter symposia.
The Symposium Communications
Team that Maureen leads is our connection to the world. The role has grown
through the years. Currently, Maureen’s team develops content and writes
articles for the chapter web site, for specific e-mail notifications, for
chapter newsletters, and for PMI News articles. These pieces of journalism
involve pre-event and post-event objectives, and rely on input from the entire
Symposium Team. Maureen’s team takes feedback gracefully, while meeting
the deadlines. You know what is going on with upcoming symposium and International
Project Management Day events, thanks to Maureen and her team members.
Maureen spent 35 years
of her career with AT&T. For her last 5 years, she was the Vice President
of Customer Service, serving large business customers with worldwide networks.
She was one of the first executives on the AT&T Project Management Organization
board. After retiring from AT&T in 2004, Maureen has taken on new challenges.
She currently consults for Creative Resources, interfacing with customers
in the gourmet food industry to design, develop, and deliver custom packaging,
which is created in China. Her extensive project management skills,
as well as her communication and diplomacy skills, are used daily.
Volunteer of the Quarter 1Q09:
Steve Gould
While many students who
have taken PMINJ Chapter’s PMP Exam Prep class are familiar with our talented
instructor team, the class would not be possible without the tremendous
dedication of Steve Gould, a less visible volunteer who works behind the
scenes to ensure the course runs smoothly and professionally. And although
the instructor team has varied from class to class, Steve has remained a
constant - supporting this class quietly and relentlessly since 2001.
Steve has multiple responsibilities.
All students receive a large binder of materials that include a variety
of formats. Steve is responsible for coordinating the printing and distribution
of these materials, using his excellent negotiation skills to find the lowest
price and resolve various problems with printing facilities. His dedication
and flexibility has enabled smooth transitions over the years as our materials
grew from 500 to 800 pages, from overhead transparencies to computer-based
slides, from hotel sites to formal training facilities. And on 3 Saturdays
of each year for the past 8 years, no matter the location, no matter the
weather, while the rest of the world is sleeping, Steve is up at the crack
of dawn delivering the handouts to the class.
But Steve is not the kind
of person to let his responsibilities end at the delivery. He always takes
the extra step to distribute materials during class and follow-up with diverse
student requests, whether to adjust a thermostat, or replace a light bulb
in the LCD projector; he's even moved walls in training rooms. No
matter the situation, Steve always embodies the PMP Code of Conduct by treating
everyone with courtesy and respect. While tensions may rise, he remains
a cool and calming presence, and always gets the job done.
Probably the most difficult
of his responsibilities is maintaining version control of the materials.
Because different instructors customize their sections, or the PMBOK undergoes
revisions, or updates are made in the spirit of continuous improvement, there
are always changes being made. Therefore managing the version control is
an absolute essential element. It is a very difficult task, and like
everything else, Steve handles it with aplomb and good humor. Steve's relentless
dedication makes the chapter’s PMP Prep Course a best in class offering.
Volunteer of the Quarter 4Q08:
Jane Banfield
Countless contributions
were made by volunteers on the 2007-2008 PMI/NJ Programs team.
While everyone worked
hard to make these meetings successful, Jane Banfield efforts have been instrumental
in the success of the programs.
Besides working with the
caterers and the audiovisual contacts, she has also interacted closely with
the satellite sites to ensure that the people in these locations are able
to hear what is going on at the meetings as well having the ability to ask
questions. This has resulted in her visiting the main meeting locations
and arriving at the main location the day of the meeting anywhere from mid
afternoon to a couple of hours before the start of the meeting. She has
spent hours working with the audiovisual contact at the main meeting location
adjusting the equipment to improve the sound quality. Due to her patience
and attention to detail, the attendees at the satellite locations have had
very good experiences. In fact, the contact for the Marlton location sent
a note to the Board thanking us for our efforts.
Volunteer of the Quarter 3Q08:
Eileen Szperka
Eileen Szperka brings
more than 30 years of experience in health care, financial, clinical and
management information systems to her PMI NJ chapter volunteering. She also
brings a can-do attitude and terrific people skills, which are needed on
the Symposium Facilities Team. Eileen has been the Team Lead for Facilities
for the past 3 symposium events, including new locations with record-setting
attendance. Before that, Eileen was a proactive member of the Symposium Facilities
Team for over a year.
The Symposium Facilities
Team is where the rubber hits the road. There are significant planning as
well as execution and closing activities, and tremendous amounts of interdependencies
to be managed. Eileen is responsible for selecting the symposium locations,
negotiating the facilities, A/V, and hotel contracts, addressing the changing
needs of speakers and vendors, providing the essential layout diagrams that
help attendees navigate the events easily, ensuring that the A/V is perfect
and has back-ups, and most importantly, that the food part of the experience
is excellent both in terms of quality and service. As we have more events
and events get longer and more complicated in terms of programs, the challenges
of the Facilities Team increase, but Eileen has built a strong team and
mentored a co-lead, which will help us continue in this area with excellence.
Eileen’s thoughts on her
PMI NJ volunteering experience:
“After passing my PMP Certification in July, 2005, I decided that I didn’t
want to belong to an organization and not be active. Then I went to
the PMI NJ November Symposium and was so impressed with the group that I
signed-up to be on a committee. Since then I have been active on the
Facilities Team for the Symposium, first as a team member and in 2007 as
Team Lead.
Although working on the Facilities Team can be challenging at times, it
is very rewarding when things come together and you hear from the attendees
that it is the best event they have attended. Volunteering has broadened
my understanding of how project management impacts other industries.
It allows you to network with people you might otherwise not have met.
I have had the chance to be mentored by some individuals that I see as role
models and I have developed friendships that I know will last.”
Volunteer of the Quarter 1Q08:
Kelly Rasmussen
For years, she has been
a great asset to the PMI NJ Chapter successfully supporting the monthly
meetings, the Annual Symposium, PMP training class, International Project
Management day, and more. Kelly started volunteering as the Project Manager
– On-Line Registration in 2004. At that time, there was a project manager
responsible for manual registration and one for on-line registration. Due
to her diligence and willingness to please, this volunteer position has
expanded. Starting this year, registration is only available through the
on-line registration and therefore the entire registration process is her
responsibility.
She works behind the scenes
to ensure that the online registration system runs smoothly and the resulting
list of registrants is correct. She is the one who you contact if you encounter
such issues as your password for the on-line registration system is suddenly
no longer valid or if you never received an e-mail message indicating that
your registration was accepted by the system. In addition, she maintains
the list of those individuals who decided to take advantage of registering
for the 8 meetings to be held during the program year in September and checks
that the final registration list is accurate. She also creates the formatted
registration list used by the On-Site Registration Team and Career Networking
Program Group as well as the one for generating the name tags for each evening
meeting. She trained someone to print the name tags and serves as the backup
to this position.
In addition, Kelly has
become in many cases the first point of contact for not only questions related
to Programs registration but also the other events sponsored by our chapter.
She takes the time to find the appropriate individual to respond directly
to each member’s inquiries. Given all of Kelly's efforts to support the
chapter, Kelly is well deserving of this PMI/NJ "Volunteer of the Quarter”
recognition.
Volunteer of the Quarter 4Q07:
Harry Chiovarou
Being “The A/V Guy” is
one of those jobs that if done well, is in fact invisible! So, many of you
may not know Harry the way the PMI NJ Symposium Planning Team does! But
join us in recognizing Harry as our first "Volunteer of the Quarter”. We
are starting this form of recognition to show our appreciation for some
invaluable team players, without whom our events would not be successful.
Harry joined our Facilities
Team as the point person for audio-visual needs in 2004. He has now successfully
supported 5 major events at four different locations! Every space has different
challenges in terms of ensuring that the speaker can be seen and heard by
everyone in the audience. He is responsible to solicit, select, manage,
and work with subcontractors. There are the technology unknowns! And there
is the holding your breath phenomenon on the day of the event, in between
responding to calls to fix a microphone that has suddenly stopped working
or other glitch. In all of this, Harry has shown leadership, patience, perseverance,
adherence to the highest standards of quality, and, yes, good cheer! For this
we honor him!
Harry can only recall
“one time when there was a potential for problems. It was before the 2006
Symposium, when the in-house A/V contractor could not get the dual projectors
working in the General Session room. He was up until about 1:00 AM trying
to fix it. Luckily the technician who came at 6:00 AM was able to fix the
problem.” And no one except the planning team knew about it!
Harry recommends volunteering
to chapter members: “Volunteering is not only a good way to get PDUs, it
is also good for getting noticed and for networking. I’m glad the chapter
has given me the opportunity to do something I enjoy.”
Stop by at the upcoming
IPM Day Event November 1 or at next May’s Symposium to let Harry know what
a great contribution he is making!
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