Washington – Alaska Awards

People new to the chapter or newly engaged and taking an active role:

• Sarah Paul, for her work on organizing chapter awards archives and getting our new website online with the national Association office for HFMA
• Sara Mendoza, stepping up to help organize the 2022 Mariners games and be installed as the first VP of Innovation and Member Engagement
• Sarah Lucas, for her willingness to jump into both a board role and take on a leading committee roles
• Josh Wood, for his willingness to jump into both a board role and be the 2023 Western Region Symposium (Region 10 & 11) Sponsorship committee, and consider being a future panel facilitator, and Chapter Sponsorship committee.
• Richard Boggess for serving 2 terms as board member, and now moving in to take leadership of our Enterprise Membership Engagement Committee, as he actively engages his staff currently to be involved with HFMA, get education and certification, and more.
• Steve Mardis at Pacific Medicaid Services for his prep work for our October 2021 conference in Spokane at Northern Quest Casino. He made the effort to be on programs planning calls and a speaker introduction call. He submitted “Resilience & Reinvention” as conference theme idea that was later voted in by the planning group via Google Forms.
• Jennifer Reed as a newly elected 2nd term board member has stepped up with newsletter and certification commitments this year and we look forward to more with help on areas!

People with multiple years of chapter service:

• Ann Peterson: Certification workshop in March, leading with passion
• Jason Marshall:  Certification workshop in March, setting up and running webinars, attending board meetings, and running for the board, showing active involvement overall
• Marni Leonard:  Treasury services implementation and transitioning from Treasurer to Secretary/Treasurer
• Column McKannay:  working with Jesse on membership KPIs for chapter and finding us another volunteer Sarah Pratt in his company to help us as he goes to volunteer for another chapter per his day job service area!
• Fred Martin:  COVID tester and AV and so much more he works on per what no one sees
• Cameron Marks:  organizing this March conference, leading programs for many years, stepping into a board role and mentoring next year’s VP Programs, and working with new VP Innovation and Member Engagement special projects
• Greg Mennegar: for stepping from one Chair to another Chair leadership award, from Sponsorship to Programs and challenging our chapter to get more sponsors per the Sponsor Whisperer contest
• Christine Paton:  for her work as Communications Chair for more than two years and running the Newsletter, directing social network, supporting the March conference as Conference Chair, and helping bring a fresh perspective on so many things! She is stepping into a more prominent role in PwC and needs to step away from volunteering at the level that she has been.
• KaLynn Gates:  for representing WA-AK chapter well at LTC and supporting many areas when asked, especially for Membership, Communications, Social/Networking, and for AccessOne supporting the Mariners Suite on May 25th for our next Mariners Suite

• TBD

Individual’s multiple years of chapter leadership and accomplishment: 

• We gave it to Cameron and Nichole last year.  Cameron received his in-person in Spokane Fall Conference in October 2021, and Nichole receives in-person in Tukwila Spring Conference March 2022.

• Jim Heilsberg:  many many times contributing to newsletter articles and CFO Panels and is represented in the upcoming March promo video.  He will not however be at the March 2022 conference and will send him the honor!  He is also on this March 2022 promotional video!

Business Partners with multiple years of service or exemplify chapter values!

• Armada
• HRG
• Access One
• Experian
• PWC

Please click here for details on the categories, values, and definitions for National Founders Awards.

Founders Award	Name	Year Recieved
Gold	Becky Littke	2021
Gold	Vincent Stevens	2019
Silver	Becky Littke	2020
Silver	Jesse Maier	2020
Silver	Kami Matzek	2020
Bronze	Marni Leonard	2021
Bronze	Daniel Frein	2019

With COVID related constrained activities, re organized processes and disrupted communications I believe we missed announcing the award winners outside the chapter board meeting in May 2020:

RISING STAR AWARD (Committee Chair & President’s Recommendations): People new to the chapter or newly engaged and taking an active role:

• MaLisa Westlund from her work in the Women’s
• Greg Mennegar for his efforts in re developing the sponsorship with Randy Blue, chair
• Chris Coon for his work with new members
• Harold Wilson for his work with Reimbursement University

President’s Award: People with multiple years of chapter service (from Vincent Stevens)

• Wyendie Gibson for her continued dedication to the Enterprise Membership Program
• Tom Muller for his continued support of the Founders Award program even after about 10 years of retirement
• Christine Patton for her re-development of the communication programs

Annual Chapter Contribution Award & Scholarship: (Board Approval) Individual’s multiple years of chapter leadership and accomplishment:

• Nicole Wachtman for her dedication to membership and new member programs
• Cameron Marks for his work on the Keynote committee and program support

Chapter Life Membership Award: (Board Approval) People who dedicated multiple years of service to the chapter often during and after retirement:

• Janet Walthew for her dedication to member development, program development and operations, committee leadership and Program Director role
• Catherine Wakefield for her efforts in member development, chapter and regional presentations and written articles in compliance

Business Partner Awards: (President elect and President’s Recommendations)

• HRG: Years of sponsorship, involvement by many committees, WRS leadership, marketing face, speaker presentations
• Merchants Credit: Years of sponsorship and involvement on committees
• Clark Nuber: Chapter leadership, years of sponsorship & location for seminar and board meeting

This year’s awards are all done from a completely remote operational program. All new rules, most of which were made up as we went along and/or government oversite of operational conditions:

RISING STAR AWARD (Committee Chair & President’s Recommendations): People new to the chapter or newly engaged and taking an active role:

• Augustine Johnson, for her taking on a revised mentorship program
• Column McKannay for jumping into the new communication module
• Jason Marshall for membership/volunteer programs
• Ann Peterson, transfer from the Illinois chapter and taking on the secretary officer role

President’s Award: People with multiple years of chapter service (from Michael Smith)

• Randy Blue for his three or four years of Sponsorship efforts and redesigned offerings
• Cameron Marks for the development of an all-virtual program year
• KaLynn Gates for her cross coverage of the membership & communication committees
• Judy Veazie for sharing her passion for writing and offering 4 articles in the last 5 months
• Melissa Hill for her creative socials
• Jim Heilsberg for helping to re-establish the newsletter /local side to communications

Annual Overall Chapter Contribution Award & Scholarship: (Board Approval) Individual’s multiple years of chapter leadership and accomplishment:

• Greg Mennegar for his years of support of the sponsorship committee, helping to redesign and connect with prospective sponsors

Tom Muller Chapter Achievement Award (Officer Group nomination, Board Approval):

• Rik Lewis, for his 20+ years of service as a member through Moss Adams and HRG, securing his own corporate sponsorship, many years in leadership positions including committees, program chair and officer roles including serving as President for two terms, Western Regional Symposium Program and Operations support, the face of WAAK HFMA to many over the years, unofficial greater and poker organizer at the hospitality room.

Please take the time to help me recognize and thank all of these members for their service and dedication. Formal awards will be given out at the October event in Spokane.