The 5281 Awards ceremony was held Wednesday, February 29, 2012 at the Seawell Grand Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. If you missed it, you can watch it online at www.DenverGov.org/Denver8online

Winners were chosen using the following criteria:

1. City's Five Goals - This award recognizes individuals and teams who have helped the City reach one or more of the City’s Five Goals:  

• Bringing fiscal sustainability and responsibility to city government.
• Driving private-sector economic growth and job creation.
• Improving education and opportunities for all kids.
• Restoring public trust and confidence in the Police Department and all city agencies.
• Becoming number one in customer service.

• Service to Customers
• Teamwork
• Accountability
• Respect for self and others
• Safety

• Improve resource efficiency (fuel/energy, materials, water, and natural resources)
• Advance triple bottom line actions (economic, social, and environmental) of City activities
• Reduce adverse environmental impacts to air, land, and water through:
  • Natural resource savings or enhancement
  • Energy or fuel efficiencies
  • Community improvements
  • Greenhouse gas reductions

These City and County of Denver employees have gone above and beyond in delivering a world class city where everyone matters.

Individual Award Winners
Team Award Winners 
Honorable Mentions

Individual Award Winners

Andrea Albo
Denver Human Services

Andrea Albo's division at DHS serves nearly 183,000 vulnerable individuals in the community - 25% more than two years ago. Andrea planned and implemented a two-phased project, which became known as "The Recovery Effort," to shorten wait times and reduce backlog in the medical, food and cash federal assistance programs at DHS. Because of her leadership, which stressed customer service, teamwork and accountability, the processing time for assistance applications was reduced over 29% in one year - with an even greater reduction in food only assistance processing times.

Dawn Crosswhite
Denver Human Services

Dawn Crosswhite is a tireless advocate for vulnerable youth. She volunteers for the most difficult cases, and spends large amounts of time with each of her clients, to help them find a sense of purpose in their lives. Dawn expects more from her clients and doesn't mind putting in the hours to make them feel respected, worthy of love and inspired to work toward their future. Under her guidance, many of her clients have successfully reconnected with lost families or found new families through adoption.

Stephen Digiacomo
Denver Human Services

Stephen Digiacomo has made a significant impact on DHS by taking DHS hotline training to a new level. He took on the challenging job and through diligence, humor, and ability to organize, improved the teams work environment, work processes and customer service. He is vigilant concerning the safety of children, and brings that passion to the training of new employees. Stephen's positive attitude and expectation that everyone deliver outstanding customer service is infectious to his peers and the community he serves.

Glenn Frieler
Denver International Airport

Glenn Frieler and his team implemented a new technology at DIA that crushed, recycled and reused roadway concrete in-place. This process saves the time, expense and environmental impact of transporting old pavement and new base materials. This first project alone saved 1,250 gallons of diesel and avoided 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions, and most importantly, paved the way for broader applications of sustainable roadway improvement projects at DIA.

Lorrie Kosinski
Human Rights & Community Relations

Lorrie Kosinski is the primary Sign Language interpreter, trainer and advocate for the City and County of Denver. She receives between 35-50 requests for service per month. She helps ensure that hearing impaired residents receive accurate information, and makes sure that their voices are heard. She serves as a resource for multiple agencies including County Courts, Human Rights and Community Relations, the Sheriff’s Department, Parks and Recreation and Human Services. In addition to being a liaison between The City and the deaf community, she trains fellow City employees in Sign Language so that they too can communicate with deaf hard of hearing residents. Because of Lorrie’s work, Denver is one of the country’s most renowned cities for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance.

Joseph Malouff
Safety

Joseph Malouff provides a variety of volunteer opportunities to Denver residents by coordinating DPD’s Volunteers in Policing (VIP) Unit as well as the Denver Explorer Scouts Post 83 (14-20 year old youth). Tech Malouff meets with Explorers each Wednesday at the Police Academy to study and practice, preparing them to be the next generation of police officers. Under Tech Malouff, more than 250 volunteer assist officers by performing duties that will allow them to return to law enforcement. He has also found ways to commemorate outstanding volunteer service and is developing a system to archive information. In the year he has been VIP Coordinator, more than 60 new volunteers have joined the VIP Unit.

Heather McKee
Denver International Airport

Heather McKee is the system administrator for many of DIA’s critical systems, including the DIA Emergency Communication System, the DIA Airfield Lighting Controls and Monitoring, and the in-pavement airfield sensors. She also serves as a subject matter expert for the DIA Lift Station System. In each of these areas, Heather took on various projects that optimized, upgraded or improved the function of these systems using leading edge technology. Because of Heather’s efforts, DIA’s critical systems are more reliable, use less energy and are safer for DIA’s passengers and employees.

Amber McReynolds
Clerk & Recorder

Amber McReynolds developed an efficient and cost effective way for the Denver Elections Division to update voter registration records to include more eligible voters. By transferring National Change of Address data from the U.S. Postal Service to the election administrator to update the voter registration record, the process will become more streamlined and require less data entry. In addition to the benefits to voters, if the legislation that is based on her solution passes, the reduced cost associated with it could be upwards of $75,000 per election for the Denver Elections Division.

Jessica Skibo
General Services, Purchasing

From 2009 to 2011, Jessica Skibo has saved the Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) project more than $500,000. The SCBA project is a region wide effort made up of more than 20 different cities, various agencies and multiple fire protection districts. Because the funding comes through the Department of Homeland Security, there are strict procurement regulations. Jessica’s efforts in overseeing the contract bidding process for all the stakeholders involved in the project, as well as compliance with regulations Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grants, has helped stretch funding in these difficult economic times.

Ann Williams
Public Works

Ann Williams spearheaded many of of the great public communications campaigns for Public Works in 2011. Because of her efforts, Public Works has improved their service delivery and Denver is an even more livable city. Campaigns that Ann worked on included the “Show Your Pride, Move Your Ride“ street sweeping reminder campaign, the “DenverSnowPlan.com” snow removal tracking website, and the “ParkSmarkDenver” campaign to educate residents on the new rules for overnight parking. Ann also formed the team that puts on the “Brush Off Community Challenge” graffiti removal events twice a year. In addition to her work in Public Works, in 2011 Ann Williams served as Mayor Vidal’s Communications Director. She made the City and County of Denver look good by routinely dealt with community safety issues in a professional and sensitive manner.

Team Award Winners

Arts & Venues Denver Team
Kent Rice
Jan Brennan
Tad Bowman
Mark Najarian
Ginger White
Brian Kitts

In June, 2011, the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs merged with Theatres and Arena, creating a new City agency called Arts & Venues Denver. The efficiencies created through combing resources will generate a savings of 1.2 million dollars annually. In addition, the merger is expected to further Denver’s goal to be the Creative Capital of the West with opportunities for expanded arts, education, entertainment, sponsorship and economic development partnerships.

Central Park Core Leadership Team
Charlene Branch
Tracy Breckenridge
Mary Carriero
Matt Draper
Tony Hernandez
Naomi Pratt
Felicia Rodriguez
Henry Sena

The new Central Park Recreation Center breaks new ground because of its size (57,000 square feet operating 7 days a week) and because of the funding partnership between the City and a special district. The staff had to implement 30+ fitness programs, develop procedures and order supplies and equipment from scratch, all in time for the grand opening. They also recruited community members to help facilitate many of the youth sports programs. Central Park’s projected revenue for the first year was exceeded by $250,000, with a member usage that was 2.5 times higher than expected. This center has raised the bar for all Recreations centers, in Denver and beyond.

DEH Environmental Sustainability Team
Tom Herrod
Sharon Procopio
Liz Babcock
Janet Burgesser
Jeremy Lauffenburger
Todd Bevington
Julie Carlton

The Environmental Sustainability Team helps resident and businesses save money through reduced energy costs, improved waste management practices and increased natural resource conservation. Through the Denver Energy Challenge and the Certifiably Green Denver programs, nearly 700 businesses and 2,700 homes received free assistance with their sustainability efforts– 18 businesses even met the certification requirements for exemplary environmental achievement. It is estimated that this endeavors will save a combined 6.5 million kilowatt hours of electricity, which will equate to about $650,000. In addition, 17 million points of greenhouse gases and 1200 tons of landfill waste have been avoided or diverted.

Enterprise Cashiering Solution Team
Angel Muse
Rae Alarid-Santore
Alexandra Esquibel
Alyssa White
Susan Ingle
Sean Curley
Lisa Walker
Michelle Herrera
Jamie Bartel
Autumn Valdez
Caroline Hendrickson
Mike Love
Liz Clymer
Susan Ingle
Shea Scott

The Enterprise Cashiering System fully automates the acceptance of payments o line and at point of sale locations so it improves customer service, while saving time for manual entry, processing and reconciliation. The ECS Team selected and implemented the first phase of the Point of Sale cashiering System in Treasury, CPD and PW Wastewater. In addition, they gave online functionality to Police Records, composting and Parks and Rec donations. The system is now compliant with the compliant with the payment card industry’s security standards, limiting a customers’ exposure to fraud. It also offers customers additional online payment option types. In 2011, the system process nearly 40,000 transactions, equaling $103,000. The system also accelerated the deposit of funds into City accounts by at least one day.

Overnight Parking Program Team
Kelly Duffy
Matt Wagner
Sean Mackin
Kelly Colvin
Cindy Patton
Tina Scardina
Bill Miles
Roberta Munoz

The overnight parking program team worked with the Downtown Denver Partnership, the LoDo Business District and City Council to make changes that would allow for overnight parking in Denver. In addition to bringing together stakeholder to undertake this project, the team launched a comprehensive communications campaign to educate the public and businesses about the change. They even developed new wording for the meter stickers to make the rules more clear. From May through September, 125,000 total hours were purchased for the time period when parking was previously free or forbidden. This has positively affected businesses in the Denver area – especially those who have late night or early-morning customers, or employees that work graveyard shifts.

Strategic Initiatives Energy Team
Susie Zeylmaker
Dawn Levin
Christian Willis
Judy Rigg

In 2011, the Strategic Initiatives Energy team changed their mission from a bill paying unit, to a dedicated energy management team. One of their first endeavors was to transition to a paperless billing system. The effort as reduced duplicity in account payment processes reduced turn-around time for payments and stopped all prompt payment interest charges. In addition, the team can now track all energy use and cost data electronically to develop new cost saving initiatives. They have organized energy audits of City facilities that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, and laid the foundation for many future energy saving efforts in various initiatives. Through rebate programs and stringent contract management, they were able collect $400,000 worth of energy rebates and save an additional $500,000. They even finished the year with a utility budget savings surplus of about 1 million dollars!

Honorable Mentions

Detective Nash Gurule
Denver Police Department

Detective Nash Gurule went above and beyond the call of duty in solving the five month long Kenia Monge case. Because of the confidential nature of his work, details are unavailable, but suffice to say that Detective Gurule's perseverance and diligence brought a suspect to justice and gave a grieving family closure.