Mainstream Living

Monthly Service Excellence Awards

Service Excellence Awards are given to individuals who have gone "above and beyond" in serving our members and/or the organization. If you would like to nominate a peer or direct report for consideration, please click here.  Congratulations to this month's winners! 

Christina Wendel, nominated by Evelyn Hudson

We have members that are on working on eating healthy or have special diets and Christina is the one who formed a meal plan that would fit their caloric needs. She came up with all the new recipes for the four week plan, cooks the week's meals in advance, and sets them in the freezer so that all the next shift has to do is heat the meals. Due to Christina's efforts with the recipes, meal plans, and cooking, our member's have been able to reach weight loss goals while still getting a filling and healthy meal. One member had lost 39 lbs, is a lot more energetic and shows true improvements to his quality of life. Another member has lost 17 lbs, she gets so excited every time she hears her new weight. Christina has shown deep care and support to our member's by taking so much of even her personal time to do the research of our member's dietary needs, the recipes, arranging each meal.

Jenna Peterson, nominated by Jon Zellweger

Jenna juggles many things while she's at the front desk and has recently taken on the responsibility of being the back up person to process and "hit" the button to submit payroll. Last week I was on vacation when that button needed to be pushed.  Jenna has done a great job of learning and continuing to learn the many different jobs within payroll, things to change, update, review, etc. Thank you Jenna for your excitement to learn and help in the many ways that you do!

Kevin Smith, nominated by Bill Vaughn

In 2013, Kevin Smith suggested that Mainstream began moving from Windows computers to Chromebooks for Direct Service Professional (DSP) use.When Mainstream began the move it was assumed the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) would be less with Chromebooks. That assumption has proved accurate. By October 2013 Mainstream had 202 Windows computers and 10 Chromebooks for an adjusted annualized cost of $50,150. In October 2019 Mainstream had 103 Windows computers and 152 Chromebooks for an annualized cost of $33,965. Because of Kevin's foresight Mainstream Living has increased the number of computers and significantly reduced costs. The above savings does not include the cost savings in IT staff time, which has been significant, allowing the IT department to eliminate one part-time IT position.

Dean Erickson, nominated by Jessica Hensch

Dean took it upon himself to schedule psychological evaluations for many of the members in the Ames area when it was discovered that people didn't have them currently on file.This involved numerous steps and coordinating with many entities. Dean coordinated with at least three separate case managers at Iowa Total Care to gather their needs. He then contacted the doctor who would perform the psych evals and got them to come to the Ames office to complete them.This is a HUGE help to the members, staff and TLs to not have to send the members individually to Des Moines to get the evals done. After he gathered all the names of the members and the doctor, Dean worked with Team Leads to schedule days/times for the members to do their evals and gather insurance information to get to the doctor beforehand. He also coordinated with QA to get releases in place, signed by guardians, to ensure we would get copies of the evals for our files. If it sounds confusing, it's because it is a TON of work that Dean took upon himself to ensure we are up to date in our files.

Also nominated were Angie Beane, Sarah Cornelis, and Michelle Mekemson. 

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