Pressler Wins Staff Excellence Award

3-28-96
Judith A. Pressler, administrative assistant II with the department of accounting in the Smeal College of Business Administration, has won the University's 1996 Staff Excellence Award.

The award recognizes consistent outstanding performance from staff members who demonstrate the philosophy of continuous quality improvement, team spirit, and managerial excellence in the performance of assigned duties to the betterment of their units and the University. A $500 stipend and certificate will be presented to Ms. Pressler at the Faculty/Staff Achievement Awards ceremony at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 31 at the Nittany Lion Inn.

She has worked for the University for 26 years, starting in 1959 as a secretary with the department of agricultural economics and rural sociology and later serving with the department of bacteriology, the administrative office of the College of Agriculture, and the department of microbiology until 1968. For the next 11 years, she was a homemaker and full-time mother.

She returned to the University in 1979 as a secretary for the department of molecular and cell biology and was promoted to administrative aide in 1985. She joined the department of accounting in 1988.

"Judy has grown and developed in the Penn State system to the point where she must now be counted with the very best staff members," wrote a colleague in nominating Ms. Pressler for the award. "She accepted the challenge of being a major player in the support of the accounting department's goal of attaining 'top ten publics status,' and has contributed significantly to the progress we have made in attaining this goal."

Other honors that she has won are the 1994 Outstanding Office Professional Award from the Penn State Educational Office Professionals (PSEOP) and the 1992 Outstanding Service Award from the accounting department. With PSEOP, she is a coordinator for the WPSX-TV Volunteers program. She recently joined the National Association of Educational Office Professionals.

"In my years of experience I have never observed a person who so selflessly serves her department and others," another colleague wrote about Ms. Pressler. "There is hardly a day that has passed that I have not observed Judy going above and beyond the call of duty."

She presently serves as the Smeal College of Business Administration Staff Sexual Harassment Officer and has served on the College's Staff Awards Committee and Futures Committee Administrative Support Task Force. She is also a member of the Penn State International Hospitality Council Friendship Family Program, and a volunteer with the St. Paul's United Methodist Church Shoe Bank and Hospital Visitation Program.

She is a past coordinating council member of the Professional Women at Penn State, a past president of the Halfmoon United Methodist Women, and a current secretary with Halfmoon Grange #290.

Ms. Pressler has enrolled in nine undergraduate-level courses as a non-degree student since 1990 and is currently taking the English 412 Advanced Fiction Writing course, admittance to which requires English department approval based on a portfolio of completed fiction.

**gwc**