Environmental Progress - Fall 1999

Employees of the Month

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

Cathy Siders,
Division of Laboratories, Springfield organic laboratory, was the May Employee of the Month. Cathy is lead worker in the air canister program readying canisters for field use, managed the purchase of a new preconcentrator for air samples and worked on development of the gas chromatography method to be used in analyzing for ozone precursors. She also works with the drinking water sampling program, has been a GEC mentor, serves on the public water supplies Customer Focus Team and has represented the Agency and her division at university career fairs.

Michelle E. Allen,
Bureau of Land field operations services, Springfield office, was EOM for June. For the IEPA’s annual participation in the Lincoln Trail Boy Scout Hike, she supervised efforts of some 30 Agency volunteers who provided refreshments and support last April to more than 1,350 Boy Scouts who combined a litter clean up and recyclable pickup with the annual hike of the 20 mile Lincoln Trail from New Salem State Park to Springfield. She serves on the IEPA Waste Reduction Committee, worked on a grant proposal to the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs for improvement of the IEPA’s recycling efforts and conducted a waste audit of the Springfield Regional Office. Michelle also serves on the Bureau’s environmental education subcommittee, and participated in Earth Stewardship Day and America Recycles Day educational activities.

Eric Ackerman,
Water Pollution Control field services, Peoria, was EOM for July. An IEPA employee since 1979, he is senior field services agricultural program staffer. Eric’s assignments include working with livestock facilities and agricultural chemical operations in the Peoria region. His selection in part recognizes his work investigating an April fertilizer spill that caused a fish kill in the Mississippi River. Though the Fulton County incident was outside his own region, Eric spent several days on the investigation, working from before dawn until late evening.

Barbara Baxter,
Bureau of Air, Field Services Section, Elk Grove Village field office, was selected as EOM for August. Her selection was based on activities including organizing a Benefits Choice Fair for employees in the VIM field services to provide employees with information on insurance benefits, heading a Mechanics Outreach program for the enhanced vehicle emissions test program, and working closely with the contractor’s public relations manager to coordinate facility tours and respond to technicians’ inquiries, as well as organizing repair industry information seminars conducted by Colorado State University that were attended by approximately 2,500 shop owners.