7.0 PDP Staff

7.1 Annual Awards

Since 2005, PDP has presented annual awards in honor and recognition of outstanding accomplishments and a commitment to excellence. There are five annual awards: Outstanding Service Award, Outstanding Administrative Support Staff Award, Outstanding Professional Staff Award, Outstanding Team Award, and Outstanding Trainer Award.

The purpose of the PDP Award and Recognition program is to:

• Foster a culture that supports and rewards innovation and professional improvement.
• Recognize and reward staff who support and exemplify the PDP vision, mission, core values, and beliefs.
• Encourage excellence in service.
• Recognize and reward significant achievements and contributions.
• Recognize and reward outstanding individual and team performance.

7.1.1 Outstanding Service Award

This award is presented in honor of an individual who demonstrates exceptional dedication and contribution to PDP’s mission and organizational goals.

2022 Recipient—Colleen Faragon

Manager – Department of Media Production, and Department of Regulatory and Child Care Assistance Training

Having been with PDP for over fifteen years, Colleen Faragon has risen through the ranks as an Education Specialist and Sr. Education Specialist from 1996– 2004, returning to PDP as a Training Program Coordinator in 2013, and being named Manager of PDP’s Department of Media Production in 2017. In 2019, she also became Manager of the Department of Regulatory and Child Care Assistance Training. A vision-oriented, participative leader, Colleen sees beyond stated needs and current capabilities to opportunities that others don’t yet recognize.

Colleen has well-honed, exceptional interpersonal and relationship-building skills. She works at cultivating positive and collaborative working relationships with colleagues and sponsors and has earned their trust. Continuously accessible to others, you will often see a line outside her office with staff seeking to collaborate and seek her advice.

Colleen is endlessly empathetic and caring, and at the same time maintains high standards and expectations of quality. With her “can-do” serviceoriented attitude, Colleen is routinely taking on new challenges and finding creative ways to meet needs. 2022 examples of this included the numerous supports she has facilitated for the OCFS Elijah’s Law initiative, expansion of Spanish-language synchronous and asynchronous course offerings, development of a video on prevention of skimming of SNAP Benefits from EBT cards, and production of the virtual New York State Leadership Institute from the PDP studio. In September 2022, Colleen was invited by OCFS staff to be a co-presenter in showcasing the New Regulator Institute and other PDP training developed for Child Care Providers and Regulators at the National Association for Regulatory Administration’s Annual Licensing Seminar. Audience members at this presentation recognized PDP’s work on behalf of OCFS as a national model.

Staff within Colleen’s departments have shared their appreciation of her team-oriented management approach. Able to see the big picture, Colleen recognizes and builds on staff strengths, provides opportunities for them to stretch, learn new things and find new ways to contribute. Constantly looking for better, more innovative ways to do our work, she engages and challenges team members to share their ideas and provides invaluable insights and guidance to support their work. As manager, she has fostered intra and inter-departmental collaboration that strengthens project teams and PDP. She creates a workplace culture that recognizes and celebrates personal and professional accomplishments, and where staff are energized in being at work.

Colleen’s staff note that she has contributed to the development of nearly all Media Production and Child Care training products since joining PDP. The breadth and depth of her subject-matter knowledge inspires her teams.

Beyond leading her departments, Colleen also makes important contributions to PDP organizationally. She is currently serving on PDP’s IACET Reaccreditation Committee and is regularly involved in developing proposals for new funding.

2021 Recipient—Emily Harrison

Project Staff Associate

Emily Harrison first joined PDP in June 2014 as a Project Staff Assistant, reporting to the PDP Finance & Project Support Unit Manager while providing support to now retired PDP Executive Director Eugene Monaco and the senior staff, June Mastan and Debbie McGuire. She very quickly jumped into her role playing a major part in proposal packaging and delivery, as well as coordinating many of the planning needs for the annual PDP Staff Recognition and Awards Program. She provided major assistance with the search and recruitment process, developing a new employee orientation program to help new PDP staff settle in quickly. If she did not know the answer to a staff person’s question, Emily went to work to find it. Shortly after joining PDP, Emily played an integral role in our 2015 move from UAB and Corporate Woods to our current 4 Tower Place offices. In short, Emily quickly became an important “go to” person at PDP.

In recognition of her expanding role with both human resources and finance, Emily received a promotion in 2017 to Assistant Operations Coordinator. She took on even more finance and human resources responsibilities. When the pandemic struck in March 2020, we all quickly learned how to work remotely and use the many technical tools we had available. But Emily happily returned to the office once we received the all-clear to do so. Throughout the later part of 2021 and into 2022, PDP experienced a significant growth in the number of searches and recruitment activity taking place. The University also significantly expanded the role of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in the search process with new policies, procedures and forms showing up regularly. Emily managed these many changes with patience, grace and efficiency – qualities that are her hallmarks. She kept senior staff and managers updated, and she worked with search chairs. Emily also kept the intranet continually updated, so staff always had a current reference place to go to.

It would have been difficult to have made it through 2021 without Emily’s arduous work and efficiency.

7.1.2 Outstanding Administrative Support Staff

This award may be given annually and is designed to recognize an employee who has demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in the area of administrative support as well as commitment to PDP and our sponsors.

2022 Recipient—Fatma Labeb

Administrative Assistant II – Child Care and Child Welfare

Fatma is an Administrative Assistant II working on Child Care and Child Welfare projects. Since joining PDP, Fatma has approached her job tasks with curiosity and determination. Fatma continuously looks for ways to make processes more efficient and beneficial to all stakeholders. She has excellent technological skills and has been able to share those skills with others on the Admin Team. She demonstrates emotional intelligence which translates to better outcomes in dealing with people and meeting their needs. Fatma is patient, kind, and will go the extra mile to help childcare providers calling or emailing for support.

Since her promotion in 2022, Fatma has demonstrated her flexibility and adaptability in a job that requires juggling seemingly unrelated tasks. In addition to her assigned job duties, Fatma has worked to support the CC04 and RC01 teams as they recruited for a vacant administrative position. Fatma has gone above and beyond setting up lastminute travel and hotel stays for these trainers.

2021 Recipient—Alaina Maldonado

In 2019, in addition to her other duties, Alaina Maldonado became the primary project support staff person working on OTDA’s Upstate Homeless Services Training Resource System project. A brand new project for PDP, it provides training to all levels of staff that implement homeless and housing services in the community. In 2019, the project offered in-person training only, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 halted all in-person training. This became particularly difficult for the Homeless Services Training project, as it had not yet done any instructor-led Webex classes. The general assumption at this time held that this method of instruction could not work for shelter provider staff. In addition, the training audience for this project did not use the Human Services Learning System (HSLC), the customary registration system used for OTDA and OCFS projects.

However, as the pandemic continued during the latter part of 2020 and into 2021, the Homeless Services project moved with OTDA approval to convert a number of in-person training courses to the instructor-led Webex platform. Once thought a gamble, the introduction of Webex classes turned out to be extremely successful with attendance numbers increasing dramatically. The issue now became how to streamline the communication and registration process for the training audience.

The project had selected Constant Contact, an email marketing company, as the communication and registration system for the project. Intrigued by the possibilities within Constant Contact, Alaina played a leading role in early 2021 in researching and designing a pilot registration portal. Approved for pilot use by OTDA on May 27, 2021, this new webpage and registration system allowed the Homeless Services training audience to “apply for all upcoming trainings with the click of a button.” The link included descriptions for each training course, along with dates and times for offerings. Updates to course offerings are now sent every six to eight weeks in one email, rather than one for each course, with a link to the portal for registration. Alaina’s critical research and design work helped make this project the ongoing success it has become. Registrations continued at a strong level for all Homeless Services Training project offerings using an effortless process for trainees.

7.1.3 Outstanding Professional Staff

This award may be given annually and is designed to recognize an employee who has demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in their area of expertise as well as commitment to PDP and our sponsors.

2022 Recipient—Dan Meade

Senior Programmer/Analyst – Instructional Technologies Unit

Dan, a Senior Programmer/Analyst with ITU, creates and maintains websites, and designs digital and print materials. Dan readily shares information with his colleagues and supports other PDP staff in their efforts. Dan goes above and beyond in fulfilling external and internal requests for project work. He regularly adds value to work requests, thrilling his coworkers and sponsor staff. In August of 2022, ITU received a request to rework a dozen Desk References under the OCFS Child Care contract. Dan reviewed the request and communicated the probable phases of the project, along with the required effort, and preliminary timeline. As part of this effort (but obviously at least already thinking about it) Dan delved into the depths of Adobe InDesign layout software to build a templating system that can be applied to any NYS-branded project. Dan created a system of parent pages and linked styles and swatches to create a way to efficiently build similarly styled documents in one file. Dan used this same system to construct a template for three “Tip Sheet” projects. As part of this system, Dan created custom New York Statestyled icons and “holding shapes” that can be used in a layout as needed. Dan amazed his co-workers by introducing this system in an ITUesday staff meeting. Dan distributed copies of the style files to fellow designers and offered his assistance as they applied it to their projects.

In late 2022, Dan was also part of the “Data Transfer Project” team, who earned PDP’s 4th Quarter 2022 PDP Team Spotlight Award, for the “design and implementation of Phase 1 of a Data Transfer project that will ultimately push ECETP training records to CCFS2.” Dan helped to jump-start the project by proactively developing mockups to help guide OCFS staff through the user’s view of the profile editing process. “The revised profile was launched on November 16 and within a month had associated over 13,000 childcare providers with their programs within CCFS2.” In recognition of Dan’s personal efforts and in addition to his team award, Dan also received the 4th Quarter 2022 Customer Service Award for his work on this project.

As competition for agency work continues to grow, PDP seeks to add value to every sponsor project. For example, as part of the ECETP responsive web design conversion (making the site mobile friendly), Dan not only completed the conversion, but also added new designs and features to improve the user experience. Dan’s work continues to yield benefits to users, who are spending more time working from home and accessing various web-based resources from phones and tablets. Dan’s efforts to make incremental changes to the site directly leads to increased readability, usability, and accessibility.

Dan constantly shows innovation in his work, pushing the boundaries of what is known, to make work more efficient and effective. Dan is a constant champion for web accessibility and web usability and demonstrates this commitment to those principles through his work and in communicating with clients and sponsors. In 2022, Dan attended several accessibility sessions during the Axe-Con “Building Accessible Experiences” virtual conference.

2021 Recipient—Edward Skawinski

Manager – Instructional Technologies Unit

Ed constantly goes above and beyond to help the people he manages do their job. Specifically, he has a habit of rolling up his sleeves and jumping into his team’s projects to help them meet the deadlines. He does this in addition to the many tasks associated with being a manager. He has a genuine desire to see his team succeed. Comment from his team: “Ed often takes time to review work that I have done, even when it is for another manager’s department. Ed is also thorough in these reviews—he often takes the time to offer alternate ideas, constructive critique, and fresh eyes—all greatly helpful when looking at a project for a long time. The end result is that the product comes out even better!”

PDP “makes government work better.” Ed makes his team work better, which allows PDP ITU to fulfill this mission. It is clear to everyone on his team that their efforts are appreciated. He does this by being supportive and trusting his team to deliver. Ed does not micromanage. Comments from his team:

• “Ed’s ability and willingness to help out however necessary is so crucial to the success of not only the project I work on, but my success as his employee.”
• “Very understanding and respectful of the fact that we are all professionals here. He’s also very complimentary in his responses to daily goingson. Daily pats on the back keep us motivated and make this a great work environment.”

Ed cares about each and every project his team works on. He offers thoughtful and helpful criticism that improves/supports the project and worker’s confidence. Comment from his team: “To ensure a project was done to clients’ specifications, Ed spent many hours after closing time talking with client to ensure we provided exactly what they wanted.”

Ed manages 12 people. He takes it upon himself to learn the specific details of each of our jobs and situations, which allows him to understand current or potential deadline obstacles. Comment from his team: “I most appreciate Ed familiarizing himself with our programs and processes, so he understands the challenges of the work... the many application flukes to be overcome, and myriad details that go into each course. He has first-hand experience that course development is complicated and timeconsuming, and he is a strong advocate.”

7.1.4 Outstanding Trainer

This award may be given annually and is designed to recognize an employee who has demonstrated outstanding accomplishments as a PDP trainer as well as commitment to their training team, PDP, and sponsors.

2022 Recipient—Eric Gleason

Senior Trainer – Department of Computer Training Services (DCTS)

Eric Gleason, Senior Trainer in the Department of Computer Training Services (DCTS) assigned to the SYS04, TECH01, and EISP01 projects, has always been a great trainer. Although the 2022 year brought a number of challenges related to new systems, tight time frames, and available resources, Eric made it all look easy – especially to sponsors. In addition to leading classes and developing training on a variety of existing OCFS and OTDA computer systems, he served as the lead trainer on the new Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program (KinGAP) Online System.

As the lead trainer, Eric had to learn the system as it was being built and the curriculum was finalized, handling system and curriculum changes at a moment’s notice. Eric was responsible for learning five different courses and leading pilots for all of them, with four of the courses being piloted within a two-month window. Changing expectations and requirements by OCFS regarding the focus of the planned courses also meant that a number of courses underwent fairly substantive content changes. As part of this process, Eric had to cope with numerous system and curriculum changes, including some on the day of a pilot offering of a course! OCFS and ITS staff on the KinGAP team often asked for his input on the curriculum or approach in delivering certain content, in recognition of his expertise with the new system. Eric also took the lead in mentoring adjunct and other staff on the system, providing thoughtful insights and suggestions so that other staff could deliver KinGAP training more effectively. Eric’s patience in mentoring and ability to distill complex language mandated by the state into easily understandable concepts was invaluable, enabling trainers with different levels of system expertise to present training and respond to questions in the physical and virtual classroom.

Eric’s expertise in delivering training on state systems is not limited to OCFS proprietary systems. He serves as the lead system trainer on the OTDA Welfare To Work Caseload Management System (WTWCMS). Eric’s ability to “speak the same language” as ITS developers and OTDA experts is critical to the swift resolution of system problems that impact training and enables PDP to update the curriculum in response to system changes and enhancements within tight time frames. He is known for his ability to remain calm in the midst of what others might regard as a system or technical crisis during training delivery. Early in 2022, WTWCMS launched a new version of the system with changes in navigation and key functionality. PDP developed a 2.5-hour webinar training which was delivered by Eric 16 times over a 6-week period. During that time, he trained over 900 WTWCMS users.

Staffing and project changes have also required Eric to spend more time on curriculum development than in previous years. He has responded to this challenge by updating curriculum on a number of courses for which he also leads training, most notably those courses related to the Juvenile Detention Automated System ( JDAS), the Juvenile Justice Information System for Child Welfare Users ( JJIS-CW), and the Adult Services Automation Project (ASAP).NET.

Eric conducted training virtually (within Webex) or in person at various locations across the state. In-person classes use lab equipment. Although such labs are not formally maintained by PDP, Eric is often called upon to configure or support changes to lab equipment and diagnose issues, such as a burnt out projection bulb, a firewall issue, or the wrong profile settings on computers used in training. And like any technical issue, these issues often seem to crop up close to the start of, or during, a training class. Yet somehow, Eric always maintained his composure, fixing things when he could or making sure that lab administrators were fully aware of the issues and the urgency for any solutions.

In total, Eric delivered 18 offerings of 28 different courses to 1976 trainees in 2022. Trainees note that Eric is a great presenter, very knowledgeable, engaging, and thorough.

2021 Recipient—Susan Bippus

Consistently throughout 2021, Susan shined as master trainer and training team leader. She consistently demonstrated her subject matter expertise and outstanding training skills. Susan exceeded the expected level of performance as a Senior Trainer and made outstanding contributions to the work of PDP. Susan is an outstanding trainer and subject matter expert/coach for eleven active training programs delivered via Webex in 2021. She is also highly effective in her role as training team leader for three of these training programs. In addition, she served as a subject matter expert and coach for trainers supporting three in-person training programs (two of which were delivered in 2021 and one was being prepared for 2022).

Susan is a 50% part-time employee with a set schedule who works fully remotely. Despite this, Susan is always willing to adjust her work schedule/ days or work extra hours to meet PDP and sponsor needs. Susan regularly makes herself available to training staff in the Department of Temporary Assistance Training. She readily shares her training and subject matter expertise. She is an outstanding trainer coach and has helped to on-board and develop the skills of new trainers. Susan is highly adaptable, flexible, and navigates challenges with ease and grace.

Susan is a positive member of each of her teams and a great colleague to work with. She has strong SNAP and Welfare Fraud Investigations subject matter expertise, and she readily shares her expertise with team members regarding state policy and trainee job tasks. She is also detail oriented and considers how a training’s target audience will respond to the curricula and training methods and makes training adjustments as needed. In 2021, Susan delivered 20 trainings via Webex for nine different training programs representing 15 days and 30 sessions. The training topics and target audiences for Susan’s trainings were diverse and varied—ranging from OTDA Hearing Officers/Administrative Law Judges, to Welfare Fraud Investigators, to SNAP Supervisors and Eligibility Workers. She demonstrated mastery of the subject matter for each of these programs and is masterful in her delivery of training on complex OTDA policy and regulations and related worker job tasks. She consistently impressed audiences and achieved high to very high Participant Reaction Questionnaire results (4.5 to 5 range) and positive trainee and sponsor feedback.

Below are a few trainee comments that exemplify Susan’s expertise:

• “Appreciated the small group and ability to ask questions. Enjoyed Susan’s manner of teaching and explanation.”
• “Susan Bippus is the best trainer I’ve had. She’s personable and knowledgeable.”
• “The course pace was great, and Susan was a wonderful presenter! She made the information interesting and held everyone’s attention. Very knowledgeable!”
• “Course was awesome, the instructor Susan Bippus was great.”
• “Looking forward to more trainings with Susan. Great job.”
• “Trainer made it interesting.”
• “The course was delivered in an interactive manner, which made it engaging, and the content and delivery were excellent.”
• “The course was very understandable and the instructor went at a speed fast enough for me to get the chance to understand.”
• “Susan is absolutely amazing, she needs to do all of our trainings!” (from an OTDA Hearing Officer).

In addition to excelling as a trainer, Susan is an outstanding leader, coach, and mentor. The department had been carrying several trainer vacancies resulting from the 2020 pandemic related hiring freeze. Once hiring resumed in 2021, Susan contributed to rebuilding multiple training teams and aiding the on-boarding of three new Education Specialists and one new Senior Trainer. Susan spent numerous hours teaching them the training content and how to deliver a range of training programs, teaching the trainers how to effectively use Webex, coaching the trainers on developing and enhancing their training skills, and helping them to develop subject matter expertise. Via Webex, Teams, and Zoom, Susan attended numerous trainer preparations meetings and trainer practice sessions. Trainers recurrently commented to supervisors on how helpful Susan has been to them. Susan’s deep understanding of our training programs and objectives, her ability to clearly explain complex OTDA policy, and her general positive attitude contributed to building positive morale and enhanced staff competencies.

Because of Susan’s outstanding training skills and subject matter expertise, supervisors selected her to aid curriculum development and serve as the sole trainer for a special delivery of Hearing Officer Training: Intentional Program Violations (IPVs) and Administrative Disqualification Hearings (ADHs) for TA and SNAP. She put a great deal of thought, care, and preparation into this program, which was delivered in two sessions (one day total) to 144 OTDA Hearing Officers/Administrative Law Judges and administrators in November and December. Although the audience was new to Susan, she confidently took charge to successfully update an older curriculum (last delivered in 2013) and convert the material from an in-person to a virtual format. She then walked OTDA stakeholders through the training plan and material, adjusted to meet the sponsor’s needs, and successfully delivered the training. This audience immediately took to Susan’s confident, engaging, and self-aware style and recognized Susan with numerous kudos (see supporting documentation for specific information). Susan also played a key role in working with a colleague to convert the TA Overpayments, Recoupments, and Claims training from a one-day in-person format to a one-day virtual classroom format for delivery via Webex. Susan put diligent efforts into the leader guide, presentation slides, and training preparations. She and a colleague completed a successful internal pilot prior to the end of the year and are gearing up for statewide implementation in 2022.

7.1.5 Outstanding Team

This award may be given annually and is designed to recognize and reward employees who combine their individual talents to produce outcomes that would not be possible without effective collaboration. Any team organized to accomplish a specific task or work on a project is eligible for this award.

2022 Recipient—DTAT Event Planning Team

Team Members: Christine King and Allison Stevens

The Department of Temporary Assistance Training (DTAT) provides educational interventions and training support under four OTDA contracts totaling over $5.8 million. Under DTAT projects in 2022, 561 days of training for 81 different courses were provided to 10,469 state, county, and contract social services staff. Programs were delivered in both in-person and online/virtual classrooms. Program durations ranged from one or two-hour events to five, six, and 10-day residential training institutes with catering, overnight accommodations, and trainee travel reimbursements. The DTAT Event Planning Team was responsible for all aspects of event planning and coordinating logistical support for these events.

Their work included but was not limited to; assessing event needs, identifying and securing appropriate venues, negotiating and processing venue and consultant agreements, managing registration, monitoring budgets, and serving as liaison to event stakeholders.

PDP would not have been able to achieve our project objectives in 2022 for these OTDA projects without this small, but mighty two-person team.

This team completed a high volume of work, most times within short timeframes, and they collectively went well above and beyond the norm to meet emerging projects and customer needs. They did whatever was needed to support the projects and meet the sponsor’s and customers’ known and emerging needs. This team served multiple internal and external customers, including PDP staff seeking event planning guidance, OTDA Program and TSD staff, numerous Staff Development Coordinators and the many trainees attending these training events.

Christine and Allison expanded their event planning assistance to include atypical project support tasks. For example, they facilitated the posting of materials and training manuals to TrainingSpace.ny.gov for trainees who were unable to attend in-person training in 2022. The team also took on a broader role in quarterly reporting of training activities and easing some of the burden on trainers’ time. They also completed the added task of preparing COVID-19 pandemic health and safety protocols for our in-person trainings, preparing, and providing training teams with the necessary sanitizing supplies and signage on a weekly to monthly basis, and doing periodic cost projections for 2022 training events to ensure sufficient funds to cover additional costs (i.e., trainees in single rooms, boxed lunches, room rental costs). For in-person training in 2022 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and new variant surges at different points, it was a wonder that we made it through the year without any incidents or spreading issues thanks to the training site choices, room sizes and set-up plans, health and safety protocols and signage, and disinfecting supply allocations that this team personally ensured were in place. This sent a strong message to our sponsor and customers/ trainees that it is possible to successfully deliver in-person training and meet the in-person learning needs of our statewide customers. As a result, we were asked to increase our in-person training deliveries in 2023.

2021 Recipient—New EIP Processing System Implementation Team

Team Members: Julie Aversa, Ally Buonanno Tardy, Kristine Choppa, Christopher Dutkiewicz, Meaghan Hurley, Katie LeClair, Lily Lee, Yehui Liu, Kaitlyn McCormack, Deborah McGuire, Dan Meade, Aria Moshari, Michele Reedy, Mesfin Solomon, Bryan Sotherden, and Bridget Sutton

After many months of developing and planning, the new EIP scholarship award system launched December 2, 2021. The features of the new system remove nearly 100% of paper-based communications, enhance document security and significantly speed up processing time. Applicants upload application supporting documents during the application submission process rather than faxing or emailing or mailing them. Applications and awards are signed electronically, and email notifications regarding new awards, status changes and reminders are automatically generated and sent. With this new system, applications have the potential to be awarded, electronically signed, and prepared for payment within 1 day rather than weeks.

The team spent months discussing, developing, and fine-tuning programming, conducted thorough testing, demonstrated the system to the program sponsor and educated training organizations about the new process. Details had to be coordinated between multiple departments: EIP, Information Services, Media, Finance, and University Sponsored Programs Administration.

This system has been years in the making and as we were in the final stretch, the lead programmer left PDP. The team pulled together, and with some ongoing support from Aria Moshari, successfully launched on Dec 2nd. EIP team worked closely with ISP detailing eligibility requirements for multiple programs, testing and conducting quality assurance.

The system was demonstrated to the program sponsors on November 2nd and received accolades.