Congratulations to the Aerospace Staff Incentive Award Winners
Two Aerospace staff members were recognized for their exceptional service in 2021 with the College of Engineering Staff Incentive Award
2020 was a challenging year, and 2021 quickly followed suit. While the pandemic disrupted many aspects of our lives, the University of Michigan hardly missed a beat. The collective effort of staff and faculty to maintain seamless operations as much as possible was a feat of which we are all proud.
A few staff members went above and beyond last year, and the College of Engineering’s reinstated Staff Incentive Award was an opportunity for some of them to be recognized for these efforts.
The Aerospace department has a lot of strong nominations, thanks to an amazing and dedicated staff, but two rose to the top as providing exceptional service to the Aerospace community.
Recognized this year are Dave McLean, Systems Administrator, and Lydia Marks-Wilt, Research Administrator.
Dave is so much more than ‘Aero’s tech guy’. Besides being great at providing information technology services to the department, Dave is a creative and innovative problem solver, he’s conscientious and dedicated to providing exceptional service in any area, and he’s first in line to help his colleagues.
On receiving this award, Dave comments, “This award carries strong significance for me. Aerospace Engineering has so many brilliant minds, all of them hard at work at building and sharing knowledge. The variety of perspectives from our faculty, staff and students and the solutions required to keep our projects and studies moving forward makes this a unique environment that I am honored to be a part of.”
Lydia is a first step resource for faculty because she’s such a knowledgeable and instrumental part of the research enterprise in Aerospace. Lydia’s excellent customer service and partnership with our faculty in supporting their research administration needs, her loyalty and dedication to the work she does, and her wonderful positive attitude make everyone want to call her.
She says that she tries to be proactive and approach items with much needed foresight and planning, aiming to be flexible with her schedule to accommodate faculty schedules so she can be the most helpful to them.
Department chair Anthony Waas comments, “I’m thrilled that Lydia and Dave received the 2021 Staff Incentive Award. They are so deserving of this recognition, and I’m grateful for the work they do. We are so fortunate in our department to have them – and our other staff – who all go above and beyond to serve the needs of the department. Thank you to all of you!”