UWPD presents Chief’s Awards

Several members of the university community received Chief’s Awards from the UW Police Department at its 15th annual awards ceremony on March 20.

• Gene Turk and his Environmental Services crew, Physical Plant landscape architect Peggy Chung and alumnus John Kastner were honored for their cooperative efforts to improve the landscaping on Library Mall to make the area safer. Lower Campus Community Officer Heidi Laundrie asked for their assistance after she identified a problem with the homeless and others hiding and sleeping in the bushes. Kastner organized a group of student volunteers to help with the project.
• Doug Beard, John Chadima, Barry Fox, Todd Nelson and Corbin Hunt of the Athletic Department, along with Jeremy Schecterle of J.P. Cullen and Sons Inc., were honored for developing the new student ticket exchange program for Badger football home games.

  “The new process is a huge success,” said Chief Susan Riseling. “It works almost flawlessly and we love it. I think everybody involved is much happier.”

• Benjamin Soriano, an employee at the Camp Randall Memorial Shell, received an award for attempting to save the life of a student who collapsed while playing basketball at the facility. Justin Ronca and Miao Ching of University Housing were honored for helping to locate and communicate with the student’s family.
• Kevin Zitka, a custodian at Mechanical Engineering, was honored for notifying police that a fire had broken out in the building’s basement on Sept. 27 and alerting everyone to evacuate after he noticed that the alarms had not gone off.
• Brian Bowmil and Patrick Garcia, hockey players at the Camp Randall Sports Center, received awards for restraining a suspected thief to prevent him from escaping from the facility before police arrived.
• Detectives Bruce Carroll and Brett Fernholz and officers Anthony Barnes, Jeffrey Ellis and Kristin Radtke were the recipients of lifesaving awards. It was Carroll’s third award in that category.
• Thirty department employees were honored for excellent service.