UNCW Staff Award for Excellence
2010 Nominees
The 2010 award recipient was Chip Bobbert!
Following are excerpts from the winning nomination and a full list of nominees…….
Dana “Chip” Bobbert, Public Service
Nominated by: Tom Barth
Category: Innovations
It is with genuine pleasure that we nominate Dana (Chip) Bobbert for the Staff Award of
Excellence. Chip is an essential asset in the Media Production department in Public
Service and Continuing Studies, but he’s generously spread his talents far beyond his
home assignment. Chip designs and manages the Media Production mainframe network
so that it’s literally the pinnacle of cutting-edge technology, even significantly
surpassing the facilities of UNC-TV, but he didn’t stop there. Anytime Chip hears about
limitations or frustrations anywhere on campus, he jumps in to offer solutions and
pursue their implementation.
For example, Chip innovated and carried out a partnership with the UNCW Department
of Communication Studies that resulted in saving thousands of dollars in potentially
redundant equipment and resources. He networked their student editing suite to share
with UNCW-TV so that students have access to video footage, photographs, copyrightfree music, and other resources to make their projects more professional and to enable
the students to train on industry standard equipment. In addition, he invited the Chair to
co-sponsor an innovative cloud computing project to install the power in another lab to
facilitate 3D imaging classes. He conceived, initiated, implemented, and maintained
several such efforts so that the level of professionalism and pedagogy in the
Communication Studies labs has been raised significantly.
In addition, Chip works tirelessly to help UNCW Photo Services archive its growing
collection of still photographs and multimedia projects. He helped Marketing and
Communications to devise an efficient, effective digital database on UNCW-TV’s Final
Cut Server, allowing them to safely archive all of their photography and to make those
photographs available to publishers and web editors across campus. The seamless
system offers easy uploading to the server from Photo Services plus user-intuitive
searches of the 25,000+ images currently in the database. Chip saw a problem, offered
and innovative solution, and made it happen…all to the benefit of the campus
community.
Chip’s latest shining achievement is the OLLI Metropolitan Opera project. He partnered
with Student Affairs to rebuild the Lumina Theatre infrastructure so that it could
broadcast in HD. This included installation of a dual satellite dish network and an optical
fiber upgrade needed to facilitate the broadcast and backup recording. He’s currently in
the process of installing an HD system in the new OLLI Building. These
accomplishments have contributed to a tremendously positive reflection on a largely
outside audience regarding the professionalism of the University. Without Chip’s
knowledge and fortitude, the technical delivery of the OLLI Met project would not have
been possible.
All of these efforts have little or nothing to do with Chip’s job description or primary
areas of responsibility. He simply has a drive to find solutions, approaches problemsolving with innovative ideas, and his raw technical knowledge is amazing. From The
Learning Network to CHWK Network, Chip has enabled a more efficient and timely
delivery of the university strategic mission in a way that puts most universities to shame.
He influences other departments to combine efforts for the betterment of the students
and university as a whole rather than just making one department superior to another,
and he propels those departments to become a state-of-the-art learning tool for the
benefit of students, faculty and staff. Chip Bobbert is an ideal candidate for any award
for excellence. His personal passion for IT, his work ethic, his high standards, and his
collaborative skills are exceptional to the point of inspirational.
Nominees
Academic Affairs Resource Management Team – Sherri Batson, Susan Gray, Jan
Johnson, Claire Primrose and Jessie Sova, Academic Affairs
Nominated by: Lawrence Clark
Category: Outstanding State Government Service
Sandy Anderson, Controller’s Office
Nominated by: Nadine Flint, Mary Forsythe, Jan Riemersma, Bob Russell, Carol
Strickland and Rick Whitfield
Category: Outstanding State Government Service
Megan Hubbard, Creative Writing
Nominated by: Philip Gerard
Category: Human Relations
Linda Padezanin, Student Accounts
Nominated by: Nadine Flint, Mary Forsythe, Jan Riemersma, Bob Russell, Carol
Strickland and Rick Whitfield
Category: Outstanding Government State Service
Thom Rakes, Career Center
Nominated by: Nathan Lindsay and Diane Reed
Category: Spirit of North Carolina Award
Donna Kay Treolo, Public and International Affairs
Nominated by: Roger Lowery
Category: Public Service