What began as a “bold idea” in the 2017 Bold Ideas Challenge has now come to fruition in Fresno State’s newest employee recognition program — High Five. Click here to read about how the program began.

High Fives are easy to give — simply go to the High Five website on the Organizational Excellence webpage, click “Give a High Five” and fill out the form to send kudos to anyone on campus. Your message will be delivered straight to their inbox, and recipients will be acknowledged weekly in Campus News.

Read below how your colleagues are going above and beyond to help the campus community.

(Note: Campus News edited comments only for misspellings and missing or incomplete words. They appear mostly as written for each employee.)

Goes Above & Beyond

Vivian Fang, Technology Services
Vivian has come to the University as one of the last TS hires before the whole hiring freeze, and has spent the entire time here working remotely. However, she has jumped into the work with both feet. She is learning our processes and campus idiosyncrasies from afar. As a seasoned PeopleSoft and Integration programmer, she has taken on all kinds of new assignments and projects. She is almost always online, and responsive to any and every emergency (whether real or perceived). We are all so happy that she has joined our team (and our workload), and is very quickly becoming an integral part of our group.

Barbara Windmiller, Library - Administrative Offices
Barbara works above and beyond to organize the work of the Library Administration Office. She has always played an integral role in planning and establishing a project management program this year. When workforce reductions impacted the admin team, Barbara stepped up on very short notice to take up some slack. Most critically, she took on leadership for space planning so that the library could have a reopening plan that ensures the safety of faculty, staff, and students consistent with campus and CDC protocols. Her thorough, thoughtful, and effective plans should make library staff and Fresno State community confident that they can use the space effectively to meet essential needs. This was absolutely critical work.

Department

Facilities Management
Shout out to our entire facilities team for all they are doing to serve our campus during this time. From the amazing custodial staff to our hardworking grounds workers to the facilities operations superstars and planning/design and construction. Thank you, thank you! You continue to shine and we appreciate you.

Dining Services
A HUGE thank you to the Dining Services team for preparing, packaging and providing lunches to the employees working on campus during the summer. The meals were great and we were always greeted with a friendly smile. Also, thank you to campus administration for offering free lunches during this time. It's greatly appreciated!

Provides Excellent Customer Service

Juan Torres, Technology Services
From the middle of March until now, Juan Torres has been diligently setting up employees for working from home. He has set up and instructed employees how the X-One works, along with setting up ACD applications, to better handle the student calls to Financial Aid and other services they need to access during these trying times. Juan was on vacation, and he still made himself available to me for service requests that needed his expertise, so customers didn’t have to wait until his return. This dedication to the University is something we should all strive for.

Herbert Denny, Technology Services
Herbert is always friendly, kind, understanding and patient. He is always happy to help solve any problems that I have. He responds quickly and gives suggestions to make working remotely from home easier and more productive. We are blessed to have such great technology staff.

Eric West, Academic Technology
Mr. Eric West helped with live streaming the tree planting event for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing on Aug. 6. He double checked all the equipment and the locations of the video shooting. With his careful planning, we received a lot of compliments about the live streaming.

Saved my Bacon!

John Wagenleitner, Technology Services
John always comes through for the Enterprise Applications Group (and I'm sure a lot of other groups on campus). Our team worked on an issue with the new portal for two weeks while John was on vacation. When he returned, he had the problem corrected within 30 minutes. He has so much technical and institutional knowledge, and he is so willing to help us out of every problem. Just cannot thank him enough!

Alejandra Estrella, Upward Bound
This kudos goes to Alejandra Estrella for always having my back and is always there for me at the exact time I needed her assistance. During our summer program, she played a vital role in making our virtual Summer Program a successful one. There always seem to be no time, but Alejandra was by my side, sweating along with me, to get things done quickly. It was such a pleasure to have the honor of working with her this summer! Thank you so much Alejandra for everything you do for us. I wish you much success in your new role and of course in all your future goals.