Environmental Progress - Winter 2000

Employees of the Month

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

Jerry Reichle, Division of Laboratories, Springfield Organics Laboratory, was EOM for September. When an employee in the gas chromatography/mass spectrometry unit left the Agency, Jerry took over those duties and worked nights and weekends to complete needed tasks while handling regularly assigned drinking water analyses. While responsible for training a back-up chemist, he also performed the required analysis for the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference testing study involving soil and water samples containing 63 analytes each. Though participants historically fail to quantitate 5 percent of the present analytes, Jerry scored 100 percent, a rating better than statistically possible. Jerry also serves on the laboratory safety committee.

Neelima Reddy, Bureau of Land, was the EOM for October. Neelima was vital to the development of the 33-Abandoned Landfill program, a new initiative that will bring additional funds and staff members into the Agency. Her organizational skills, engineering background, and knowledge of IEPA contract management methods helped in planning and developing this program. Neelima routinely represents the Bureau of Land before the Illinois Attorney General to negotiate terms for large-scale cleanups so that polluted sites can be restored to protect human health and the environment. She recently demonstrated professionalism and organizational skills for a difficult cleanup project in the face of irate neighbors. Neelima successfully managed a state-funded cleanup at an abandoned landfill while also heading up conversion of a Bureau sites database to a new software standard as part of an Agency-wide conversion.

Charles Hayduk, Bureau of Air, Field Operations Section, Marion regional office, was the EOM for November. Responsible for the field operations in a 15 county area in the southern part of the state, he made time to assist with asbestos inspections in not only his area but a second area as well and has consistently provided compliance assistance to any company that was interested. Charlie has worked for the Agency for 15 years and has always had a positive influence on everyone, with qualifications that make him an outstanding employee who brings 100 percent dedication to his work.