For immediate release: Jan. 7, 2015
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta awarded its annual President's Award for Excellence to Dan Carney, Maria Frazier, Shawn Gorrell and Harold Voss in the Atlanta office, and Linda Waguespack in the New Orleans Branch. Dennis Lockhart, president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Fed, presented the awards in a recent ceremony. The President's Award recognizes Sixth Federal Reserve District employees who have distinguished themselves by their outstanding performance.
Carney has been the driving force behind the Sixth District's highly successful sustainability program and Green Team since joining the Bank in 2009. The District has seen a 27 percent reduction in energy consumption and a 32 percent reduction in water usage, together generating an annual savings of more than $1 million. Carney leads the Sustainability Community of Interest (COI), the Cost Savings Initiative and the Energy and Water Usage Reporting effort, all System-level assignments.
Under Carney's leadership, the Bank received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Existing Buildings Gold-level certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for the Atlanta office.
Frazier, an administrative director in the operations and administrative services (OAS) division, began her career with the Federal Reserve 16 years ago as a check supervisor in the Birmingham Branch and assumed roles of increasing responsibility during her career. Frazier coordinates the division's strategic plan and creates agendas for OAS quarterly officers' conferences and monthly officer calls. She oversees the division's variable pay pool and award process, managing the strategy and budget, highlighting issues and coordinating reviews to ensure consistency of award amounts.
For the past three years, Frazier has served as an adviser and liaison on selected OAS division-wide volunteer events and as a leader on other division initiatives including staff training and development. She was nominated because of her exemplary leadership and contributions to the organization across a variety of areas over many years.
Gorrell is a web development application architect, who, in his 13 years with the Atlanta Fed, has often been called on to solve his department's most challenging issues. He also plays a key role in numerous System-level workgroups. Earlier this year, national IT's enterprise web services (EWS) team requested Gorrell's support as a technical lead in developing code for Sitecore, the System's new content management and delivery system. He played a key role in reconfiguring the Atlanta Fed's public website working closely with application delivery service and public affairs to make the Sixth District the first Reserve Bank to adopt the new technology.
In 2013 Gorrell recognized a potential threat relevant to the Federal Reserve. He immediately made appropriate notifications and worked collaboratively with other teams to remediate the problem. Without his strategic thinking and proactive engagement, the vulnerability could have resulted in greater damage to the Federal Reserve System.
Voss, a payments project manager in the retail payments office (RPO), began his career with the New Orleans Branch as the FedLine and Customer Support coordinator. Voss has been the key RPO resource for complicated nonstandard or highly visible customer implementations. During his 25-year Fed career, he has supported the RPO in delivering innovative product offerings for financial institutions of all sizes and successfully managed customer-facing aspects of several local and national technology migrations, including the Check 21 initiative and multiple FedLine web upgrades involving modifications to customer-facing information or new product offerings.
Voss' proactive leadership, style of open communication, and commitment to quality on a variety of System-level assignments have been key components in successful technology implementations.
Waguespack is a senior business analyst with building operations at the New Orleans Branch. Most of her 29-year Fed career with has been spent in human resources (HR) in New Orleans, where she worked in a variety of areas including benefits, compensation, recruiting, employee relations, training, salary administration, personnel policy, budget, and branch management. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she quickly reported to Atlanta and was a key player helping to contact and assist employees affected by the storm.
In her latest role at the bank, Waguespack has earned a reputation as a leader who focuses on all of the facility's mechanics and is dedicated to excellence.
The Atlanta Fed is a part of the nation's central banking system, which Congress created in 1913. The Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy by influencing money and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of full employment and stable prices, supervises and regulates banking institutions and helps ensure that the nation's payments systems operate smoothly. The Atlanta Fed serves the Sixth Federal Reserve District, which encompasses Alabama, Florida, Georgia and sections of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. The Atlanta Fed participates in setting national monetary policy, supervises numerous commercial banks and provides a variety of financial services to depository institutions and the U.S. government.