The annual NU ITS Rick Fredericks Awards for Collaboration were presented earlier this month. First introduced in 2017, the awards recognize outstanding, effective collaborative projects as well as individual leadership efforts that are successful due to their highly collaborative nature. One of the top recognitions within the ITS division, these awards recognize one project and one individual per year.
The awards are named for Rick Fredericks, a leadership coach who mentored IT professionals at the University of Nebraska and across the country through the MOR & Associates organization. Rick’s inspirational coaching regularly emphasized the organizational and strategic advantages of adopting a collaborative approach.
The following are this year’s award winners.
Rick Fredericks Award for Outstanding Leadership in a Collaborative Effort
- Neil Brown - As one of his nominators noted, “Neil is a natural leader, and the key person in making sure everyone’s needs were met in the unified network project. Through countless meetings with end-users and infrastructure as well as countless weekends devoted to helping his team, Neil ensured that needs were met, concerns were documented, and a strategy was in place to account for them. Neil was very collaborative in making sure the right people were in the room to help develop a strategy and vision together. The University is blessed to have such a devoted staff member who cares as deeply as Neil.”
Rick Fredericks Award for Outstanding Collaborative Project
- Unified Network Project – As one of its nominations noted, “this was an ambitious project requiring outstanding buy-in and a tenacious can-do attitude to do what would normally take years to accomplish. This project would not have been possible without the constant communication between various ITs and non-ITS entities and was accomplished while COVID restrictions were in place as well. The outstanding leadership and communication - along with very long hours worked and efforts behind the scenes – truly defines collaboration as it touched almost every single networked device across the campuses NU ITS serves. Working with non-IT staff was required at every step of this highly impactful project.”