2015-16 Kevin Taylor Service Award winner and nominees

Highlights of Peter's nomination letters:

"When I think of Kevin, I always remember his graciousness towards others, willingness to help and listen no matter how busy he was, and his ability to stay even-tempered and focused despite the many personalities involved. I see these same attributes in Peter. Peter is always willing to help and listen to you if you need help even if he is knee deep in concentration on a project. He is always steady and calm not matter what problems or issues come across his desk. And yes, he is extremely funny!" 
~ UIT Chief Financial Officer Lisa Kuhn

• "Peter routinely takes the initiative to solve problems that he sees before they become problems for others. He can always be found in the background, building consensus and including different people and viewpoints."
• "He took the lead on many critical projects for UIT and the University. [on the Procure to Pay project]. Peter had the vision of how we could improve UIT purchasing and persuaded others to join him. Peter also helped KUED and UEN with the transition."
• "Peter is an excellent manager. It’s clear his team respects and responds to him. The mark of true leadership is how your team performs. The Accounting team is gracious, always on task, and quietly performs a vital service to UIT and the University. They have a service-oriented approach to all tasks. This is a result of the culture that Peter cemented with his team."

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Other nominees

Kiston Finney, Information Security Office (ISO)

• "Kiston made an enormous effort in creating high quality work, while simultaneously working with the CISO to engage staff and leaders at all levels and in all departments of the University in order to get [the new security rules] adopted. She engaged nearly 100 different new and existing information system owners in the past year."
• "Kiston is willing to engage all stakeholders in discussion, as well as some who may only have emotional claim to a topic. She is eager to help all understand what our efforts are about, and engage with others on a moral and emotional level, not being confined to just what is “written in policy.” She understands the challenges of organizational change management, and works very hard to be patient and exercise empathy, while still being able to move organizational efforts forward."

Brad Grow, University Support Services (USS)

• "Brad is worth his weight in gold to USS and UIT. Brad’s expertise in Student Systems has been especially helpful … He has recently stepped into a more analytical and leadership role on his team and his team members frequently ask his opinions on various problems."
• "Brad has mentored several student interns in USS. He works through programming errors with them, letting them find the solutions instead of simply providing the answer and missing a learning experience."
• "Brad always cheerfully helps out, whether with someone else’s mistakes, picking up (and resolving) production bugs, and even assisting in areas that are no longer in his official role, e.g. system web page and file system work."

Doug Kenner, University Support Services (USS)

• "Doug has worked so well with our service partners on the HR-IS team and they have accomplished several very high-profile projects together this year. His team not only finished the Benefits Administration project after the project had struggled for several years … he brought the teams together for a final push over the finish line earlier this spring. Doug also lead the HR 9.2 Upgrade project and finished that project in record-breaking time — typically a 9-12 month project, it was completed in only 5 months!"
• "He has been managing the HR/Auxiliary engineering team for the past year and It’s both inclusive and diverse. They have hired programmers and engineers from many different backgrounds and cultures.  Doug has a quiet, calm presence and is always positive and dependable even in very stressful circumstances."