Recognizing Excellence in Technology and Service at Minnesota IT Services
3/1/2022 10:00:19 AM
In January 2022, Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) employees joined together to celebrate their work delivering outstanding IT service to Minnesota and its executive government with the Annual Awards ceremony. The agency’s Employee Recognition Committee (ERC) recognized honorees and finalists for the Annual Awards – employees, partners, and teams nominated by their peers.
Recipients receive the highest recognition for their service excellence and for their exemplary performance in fulfilling MNIT’s mission, vision, values, and priorities. Learn more about this year’s finalists and honorees.
This award recognizes the individual contributions of an employee who embodies MNIT's mission, visions, and values through their daily work. Finalists and honoree for Employee of the Year included:
This year’s honoree was Peny Nguyen. Nguyen was celebrated for her significant contributions to help Minnesotans better understand the evolution and changing impact of CIVD-19. As a data scientist, she created innovative dashboards and data analytics, including the COVID-19 vaccine dashboard. Nguyen’s pioneering work also enabled MNIT and state agency executives to use data visualization tools to manage for over $600M in annual IT resources.
The manager of the year award recognizes a manager who contributes to the mission of MNIT and lift other team members up as an example of leadership. Finalists and honoree for Manager of the Year included:
Neal Dawson, who manages MNIT’s Threat Vulnerability and Management Unit, is this year’s honoree. Dawson’s leads with kindness, conviction, integrity, and a passion to do what’s right. His team ensures the security of state systems, scanning thousands of endpoints and applications for vulnerabilities – on average over 33,210 systems per day. The team is data-driven, allowing them to provide actionable information to state agencies that has led to significant decline in the number of vulnerabilities on state systems and applications.
This award recognizes a successful project that contributed the success of an agency partner in the executive branch. Finalists and honoree for Project of the Year included:
The COVID-19 Relief Advanced Premium Tax Credit Changes project was honored as this year’s Project of the Year because the project team shared and focused on a common vision, goal, and objectives throughout the project lifecycle to meet the needs of Minnesotans. The project team included MNIT, MNsure, DHS, and vendors.
The project increased APTC benefits to provide immediate financial help to households with income greater than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and those at or below 400% FPL who were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The project team also provided immediate relief for those households who reach a “subsidy cliff” and have incomes over 400% FPL but are unable to find affordable comprehensive health care.
This award recognizes an operational team across the agency that provides excellent customer service for both our executive branch partners and Minnesotans using the technology. Finalists and honoree for the Team of the Year included:
MNIT’s Workstation Deployment team, this year’s honoree, is responsible for end-of-life computer replacement services for 63 agencies, boards, and commissions – about 22,189 computers. They use teamwork to create an outstanding customer-focused service. Each team member knows their role, and each member is empowered to provide options for their customers when the standard process does not meet those needs. The team replaced around 6,000 computers in 2021 and demonstrated agility and creativity when supporting end users despite the COVID-19 pandemic and closures at the Capitol Complex.
The Minnesota Department of Health was awarded Partner of the Year to recognize the strong hand-in-hand partnership between the agency and MNIT. Minnesota’s COVID-19 response was dependent on IT services, from collecting, processing, analyzing, and reporting disease surveillance and immunization-related data, to the rapid deployment of network and computing resources to support of testing and vaccination efforts. The response deepened the relationship between MNIT and MDH, continuously working together to improve processes, innovate with new technology, and push to meet increasing demand for services.
Nominations for the awards opened September 15, 2021 and closed on October 29, 2021. A team of MNIT’s ERC members reviewed and scored each nomination according to a previously defined rubric. Those with the top average scores became finalists. From the group of finalists, the Executive Team chose a winner that closely matched the organizations mission, values, and priorities.
