Recently, Ms. Diane Maldonado’s colleague Ms. Debbie Fry and her supervisor Ms. Rajeswari Cabey nominated her for the USPS Employee of the Month award in appreciation of Diane’s invaluable role in the NSTC staff structure and her accomplishments.
Ms. Maldonado received the award for February 2011 and her recognition was celebrated at the NSTC with great enthusiasm and support. UCF HR representative Ms. Patty Farris joined NSTC staff in the celebration and presented Ms. Maldonado’s award on February 18, 2011.
As the Administrative Assistant in the NanoScience Technology Center, Diane Maldonaldo must interact with a very diverse group of Professors, Post docs, graduates and under graduates. Diane is truly a treasure. Her positive attitude and willingness to go the “extra mile” makes her well-liked and respected amongst the staff and the faculty she serves. She is truly a team-player and steps up without having to ask when one team member is either absent or struggling with a task. She takes any new employees under her wing, be it students she works with or new researchers she supports. She is always smiling/laughing and pleasant to her customers and other staff. Diane shows her ability to process purchase orders, get approval to pay invoices, and manage blanket purchase orders from a very diverse, sometimes demanding NanoScience researchers. Diane manages to do this with patience while making sure that all procedures are followed and rules are met. The phrase “that is not my job” does not exist for Diane; from undertaking a large task to doing a very small task, we at NSTC can always count on Diane.
Her tenure at UCF and her job knowledge is a great asset to NSTC. Even if she does not know the solution to issues that crop up, she always take the initiative to find a solution. She has numerous working relationships all over UCF which not only gets her job done, but assists the rest of her team in any obstacles they might face. She also keeps her knowledge current by attending appropriate training and workshops. Her supervisors constantly receive feedback from students, staff and faculty that Diane is positive, efficient at her work, helpful, cheerful and a great person to work with. Not only are her performance evaluations stellar, her drive to keep updating her current role is laudable. Diane takes the initiative to add responsibilities to her plate even though her plate is already full! This has been of great value especially when NSTC was short-staffed from turnovers and the hiring freeze. She’s not only a valuable asset to NSTC but also to UCF overall after 15 years of dedicated service. As a single mother raising two now young adult children on her own with virtually no assistance, Diane is self motivated, driven and her hard-work shines in everything she does. Every day Diane acts like it is her first day, this is a person with a very positive view on life and a shining example of the UCF spirit.