In October, a group of FP&M employees attended the MAPPA/CAPPA conference in St. Louis, Missouri. APPA is an organization known for Leadership in Educational Facilities, while MAPPA and CAPPA are the Midwest and Central regions of APPA. FP&M staff attended learning sessions, gave presentations and accepted an APPA award that the university received.
FP&M training and development employees Lorraine Schwager, Jacy Whitehead and Kayla McConville gave two presentations for attendees related to employee development and technical training.
Did you know? All FP&M employees are APPA members. Learn more about APPA and the free professional development resources they provide.
APPA Institutional Award for Effective and Innovative Practices
The University of Wisconsin-Madison received the 2024 APPA Institutional Award for Effective and Innovative Practices due to the efforts of Megan Fry and Al Yingling in managing “Helium Shortage 4.0.” FP&M staff at the conference accepted the award on their behalf.
Megan and Al with FP&M Physical Plant’s Utilities and Energy Management team addressed challenges posed during a helium shortage. The supply of helium — a gas needed to run some of UW-Madison’s state-of-the-art research instruments 24/7 — was running out. Megan and Al were dedicated to solving this problem so that research could continue despite the global shortage. They worked tirelessly, collecting extensive data in order to anticipate the demand for helium and proactively manage inventory, which helped researchers to recover and recycle more helium.
“Al and Megan, thank you for your dedication, collaboration and problem solving to keep our research going through wise management of this important resource! Ryan, thank you for nominating our team and being a great partner to our Physical Plant – Helium Recycling Plant staff!”
– Cindy Torstveit, Associate Vice Chancellor, FP&M
See more of what people are saying and join in congratulating Al and Megan!
What people are saying
“Congratulations on this recognition for your hard work and teamwork effort. This is a testament to your work ethic with both of your ‘get it done’ attitudes. I am proud to have you both on the UEM team.”
– Mike Hanson, Director of Utilities and Energy Management“Al and Megan, please accept my most sincere congratulations! What a fantastic and well-deserved recognition!”
– Dorota A. Grejner-Brzezinska, Ph.D., Vice Chancellor for Research“I returned from vacation last week and was pleasantly surprised by all the appreciation. Thanks everyone, it’s nice to be recognized after all the hard work that we put in to make this happen.”
–Al Yingling, Cryogenics Technician“As a new employee at UW, it was inspiring to see a large organization come together to overcome a huge challenge. Though Al and I are grateful for the award, we would not have been successful without: substantial support from researchers, collaboration between OVCRGE and FP&M, quick work by knowledgeable tradespeople, and management’s support for our time spent on this issue. Purchasing advocacy and financial support for projects during and after the shortage has helped ensure we can still ‘control our own destiny’ when another shortage comes our way.”
– Megan Fry, Utilities Engineer“Both Al and Megan received last year’s FP&M Creative Solutions Award with humility and gratitude and deserve to represent FP&M at a higher level. Being involved with APPA for some time, I learned of their awards program. Thinking back to past Employee Recognition Award recipients Megan and Al, their work during ‘Helium Shortage 2.0’ seemed to be a great fit. I ran the idea past Ryan Pingel who had submitted the original detailed nomination for our awards, and we used this to re-submit to APPA. Thanks again, Ryan.”
–Donovan Kron, CEFP, Instructional Spaces Manager, Employee Recognition Co-Chair
Learn more about the helium recovery efforts: watch FP&M’s 2023 employee recognition Creative Solutions award video
See more photos from the 2024 CAPPA/MAPPA conference
