The PennZone

Governor Tom Wolf congratulated and praised the public service of five Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) employees for the efforts to ensure that individuals and local governments had access to critical funding resources offered through DCED.

The employees are among 51 employees from 10 agencies receiving Governor's Awards for Excellence for exceptional accomplishments in 2020.

"To say the past year has been challenging is a major understatement, so I am honored to celebrate our employees identified by their peers as having gone above and beyond to serve the commonwealth during likely the most unprecedented time we have faced," said Gov. Wolf.

DCED Governor's Awards for Excellence Recipients

Customer Service Center (CSC) – Group Award*
Sarah Smith
Kris Adams
Rene Woods
Christina Kurtz

During the height of the pandemic and while teleworking, the staff of the DCED CSC managed an extraordinary volume of calls and emails and provided technical assistance via phone or correspondence to businesses, community organizations, local, state, and federal governments, and individuals on DCED's programs and services. Additionally, the efforts of CSC supported assisting applicants, managing nearly 28,000 applications for funding sources and responding to over 83,000 CSC inquiries.

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Jared Grissinger – Project Manager, Governor's Action Team
Serving as DCED's agency representative to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), Jared became one of DCED's lead staff members working at PEMA. In addition to his regular job, he was immediately assigned additional responsibilities working nearly around the clock to provide support and answers to businesses during the early weeks of the pandemic. Jared also serves as the lead for Recovery Support Function 2 (RSF-2), coordinating with state agency and external partners on recovery efforts related to economic development, aligning directly with the administration's pandemic economic recovery plans.

The Governor's Awards for Excellence is a prestigious and competitive program that recognizes commonwealth employees for exemplary job performance that reflects initiative, leadership, innovation, and outstanding public service. This year's virtual Governor's Awards for Excellence recognition event will take place Wednesday, May 5, 2020 at 9:30 AM and is open to anyone to watch.

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Nominations are based on service, achievements, or accomplishments that go beyond an individual agency program and have multi-agency impact, have significant impact on the general public, or the life, safety, or property of others, have significantly enhanced the image, prestige, or effectiveness of the commonwealth, or exemplify outstanding public service to the commonwealth.

For more information, visit the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) website or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

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