Classified staff honored for going above and beyond

This year’s recipients of Classified Employee Recognition Awards all go the extra mile in their jobs to make UW–Madison a better place.

Chancellor John Wiley will recognize the five employees at an April 23 ceremony that honors the best of UW–Madison’s approximately 4,800 classified employees. Each recipient will receive a cash award from the UW Foundation, a certificate for a program at the Management Institute, and a plaque and pin from the Wisconsin Alumni Association.

Supervisors and colleagues nominated a strong pool of 66 candidates to the Classified Personnel Office. A committee then chose the five winners based on their promotion of excellence, job performance, innovative ideas, and outside service.

Rosemary “Rose” Birzer
Program assistant supervisor
Department of Engineering Physics

Birzer is often the first person her colleagues in the Department of Engineering Physics turn to when there is a question of how to do something and how to pay for it. They say she is a natural leader who handles her ever-increasing lists of tasks with grace and professionalism.

Since Birzer joined the department 20 years ago as a fiscal clerk, her responsibilities have steadily increased to the point where she oversees the department’s budget and designs its financial procedures. She also trains and counsels classified staff for both the department office and many of the research centers run by departmental faculty.

“As a result, the department and the many centers its faculty run have progressively improved their operations and are now widely recognized within the College of Engineering to be by far the best run and to have the highest degree of professionalism,” James Callen, professor of engineering physics and director of the Center for Plasma Theory and Computation, says.

Birzer has been involved in her church and her daughter’s schools. She has also helped organize groups of women to participate in self-defense courses.

Susan Kabat
Program assistant 2
Aerospace Studies/Air Force ROTC

Kabat’s caring and cooperative attitude toward colleagues and students is a morale booster in the Air Force ROTC, her supervisors say.

Those qualities are above and beyond the undivided attention to detail and superb performance she brings to carrying out budgetary and administrative responsibilities for the department.

“If Ms. Kabat was not present for an extended period of time, the department would suffer without her efficiency, expertise, cooperation, professional manner and organizational skills. She would be greatly missed,” Lt. Col. Thomas Garin, professor of aerospace studies, says.

Kabat earned the Air Force ROTC Northwest Region Outstanding Civilian of the Quarter Award for July 1 – Sept. 30, 2002 and the Air Force ROTC Northwest Region Outstanding Civilian Annual Award for 2002. She is also credited with helping the department win the Air Force Organization Excellence Award, granted to the top 12 of 145 departments nationwide.

Aside from Kabat’s normal duties, she was very instrumental in her department’s smooth transition last spring from its now demolished former facility to a newly remodeled building just across the street at 1327 University Ave.

Kabat regularly volunteers at the Monroe Street Library and contributes to local charities.

Dennis Manthey
Financial specialist program supervisor
College of Engineering

Colleagues say Manthey’s positive attitude is contagious, regardless of whether he is handling a routine transaction or tackling complex problems and reinventing work practices.

Manthey consistently goes beyond his official job duties to improve efficiency in his department and the university as a whole. He helped form a financial managers group that has brings together his colleagues from other departments to network and find solutions to common problems.

Manthey also worked with several departments within the College of Engineering to improve employee orientation and evaluations, increase efficiency and improve communication.

“I think Dennis’s interests and work are campus-focused, not just limited to his office, or the College of Engineering. He can see beyond his immediate workplace and look at things in the context of the university and what’s good for the whole,” Jan Richardson, associate director of Accounting Services, says.

In addition to his hard work on campus, Manthey also supports the Sun Prairie High School Band, and has coached youth hockey and soccer teams, and was involved with the Cub Scouts. He currently builds bookcases for elementary school classrooms.

Elizabeth Tuschen
Program assistant 3
UW Medical School

From the time Tuschen became program administrator for the Medical School’s four-semester Patient, Doctor and Society Course, she has been a driving force behind many constructive changes.

A particularly challenging part of the course for Tuschen is overseeing the Generalist Partners Program, which partners 225 volunteer community physicians with 300 medical students.

In addition to managing the physicians’ unpredictable schedules, Tuschen has added 45 volunteer physicians to the program over the past three years, virtually solving the staffing shortage the program once faced.

“Simply put, Elizabeth is never satisfied. She is constantly striving to make things better. She is a master at conveying the course importance and relevance to the education of UW medical students to both our internal and external constituencies,” Laura Zakowski, assistant professor of medicine, says.

Tuschen is also responsible for a number of other innovations that have made the course run more smoothly, including development of a database of physicians and students, a goal that has eluded her predecessors.

Tuschen is deeply involved in a Cerebral Palsy e-mail listserv that assists parents with treatments and other support. She is also very active in politics and local schools.

Carolyn Teegardin
Secretary 2
Department of Human Oncology

Teegardin will do what she can to boost the image of her department and the university as a whole, even if it means putting in extra hours performing tasks that normally fall to others.

When a group of faculty from another medical school were scheduled to visit UW–Madison last year and the normal organizer of the event left the university, Teegardin stepped in and made sure everything ran smoothly.

“When asked why she was working so hard to make to make sure things were in order for the visit when it wasn’t rightfully her job to do so, she replied, ‘How would it make us look if we were unprepared for this visit?'” Karen Steiner, her supervisor in the Department of Human Oncology, says.

Among her many duties, Teegardin is the administrative coordinator for the department’s residency training program, a task she fulfills with great poise and organization despite being responsible for the applications of nearly 200 students.

Teegardin, who is a Certified Professional Secretary (CPS), is also the president of the 90-member Madison chapter of the International Association of Administrative Professionals, a member of the international women’s friendship network Beta Sigma Phi, and an active member of her church.