Environmental Progress - Summer 1999

Editor’s Note: Each month the Illinois EPA recognizes outstanding employees for their efforts to make quality part of every job they do. Four recent honorees are listed here.

Mary Remmers, Bureau of Land, was the EOM for January. A longtime Agency employee, she handles fiscal management activities, helped budget system revisions, and helped organize a fiscal management unit in the Bureau of Land.

Pat Dixon, Bureau of Laboratories, Champaign, was the EOM for February. A 25 year member of the Champaign Inorganic Laboratory team, Pat initiates and maintains internal chain-of-custody records of samples for evidentiary purposes. She handles more than 60 parameters and 250 parameter groups at the Champaign laboratory which in 1998 received more than 48,000 samples for chemical analyses and 25,000 bacteriological samples from Agency Bureaus. She serves on several internal improvement committees, helps train fellow workers and enters analytical data.

Daniel Bounds, an engineer in the Field Operations Section of the Bureau of Water in the Champaign Regional Office, was the EOM for March. During 1998, Dan coordinated the Central Illinois Professional Wastewater Operators meetings to provide training in safety operations and compliance issues. He designed and implemented a computer tracking system for letters and compliance, assists with other computer work, completed Criminal Investigator Training, and five-day facilitator training for the Total Quality Management process. As a Governors Environmental Corps mentor, he organized intern field trips.

Gina Search, who works in the Collinsville Regional Office for the Bureau of Land, was the EOM for April. Responsible for monitoring compliance of all RCRA Subpart F facilities for the Collinsville and Marion regional offices covering most of southern Illinois, she provides groundwater expertise for both regional facilities. She is Collinsville Regional Groundwater Coordinator and an active member of the Groundwater Planning and Education Committee.