On May 23, Facilities/Construction Management hosted their annual department lunch and awards celebration. Over 300 guests attended the celebration at the Student Center South Houston Room including F/CM staff, campus partners and building coordinators.
During this time together, Senior Associate Vice Chancellor/Associate Vice President David Oliver gave appreciation to F/CM staff, campus partners and building coordinators for their collaboration and support with F/CM’s 2023 APPA Award for Excellence in Facilities Management. Every table in the Houston Room was decorated with beautiful paperweights and lapel pins for each guest to take with them as a representation of the APPA Award. Recognition was also given to the twenty-four APPA Ambassadors that traveled to Nashville, Tennessee in April and represented F/CM as the national award was presented.
The celebration also included the announcement of the Strategic Teams for 2024 and a recognition of the staff that participated in trainings as part of the Leadership Education and Development Program.
The Building Futures, Maintaining Excellence Awards is the core purpose of the annual lunch. There are four awards distributed, including individual and team awards.
The top nominated employee finalists were individually emailed to let them know they had been considered for the award. The finalists included Alfonso Marroquin, Angel Latchley, April Simon, Carl Johansen, Cesar Villagran, Charles Edison, Jai Ranganath, Maite Trasancos, Rey Tajonera, Ron Gonyea and Erica Vazquez.
The Building Futures Employee award was given to Facilities Manager Rey Tajonera for his remarkable job inspiring and mentoring his team members. He is constantly going above and beyond and helping others. His positive attitude and mentorship are vital to building futures.
The Maintaining Excellence Employee award was presented to Sr Project Inspector Cesar Villagran for his leadership to the project team through his enthusiasm and professionalism attitude. He regularly reviews and updates policies and procedures that improve the effectiveness and maintain excellence of F/CM.
The Elevator Task Force was awarded the Building Futures Cross-Team award for working diligently to identify opportunities to improve elevators’ maintenance, emergency response and design guidelines.
It is imperative for all units to collaborate on these improvements to not only maintain the existing elevators but also future ones.
The winner of the Maintaining Excellence Cross-Team award was given to the Old Law Move Preparations Team. This was a collaboration of multiple teams working together to successfully coordinate and manage the major relocation to Old Law in a timely and efficient manner.
Facilities/Construction Management encourages all employees to build futures and maintain excellence throughout the year and looks forward to continuing this annual tradition.