In May 2019, leadership within the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility accepted nominations from ARM staff to recognize colleagues for their exceptional service and key contributions.
A month later, the first ARM Service Awards were given out during the 2019 Joint ARM User Facility/Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Principal Investigators Meeting in Rockville, Maryland.
Based on the nominations from their peers, winners were selected by the ARM Infrastructure Management Board. At the June 11 award presentation, winners received certificates from Sally McFarlane, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program manager for ARM, and Gary Geernaert, director of DOE’s Climate and Environmental Sciences Division. ARM Technical Director Jim Mather emceed the presentation.
The winners were:
- Deborah Busch, budget/contracts specialist from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, for her professionalism and timeliness in resolving difficult problems with limited time and creative solutions
- Joseph Hardin, associate radar mentor from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state, for his willingness to go above and beyond, and his exemplary work supporting the radar effort for the recently concluded Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (CACTI) field campaign in Argentina
- Ken Kehoe, data quality processes lead from the ARM Data Quality Office, for his outstanding development and management of the ARM data standards
- James Martin, operations team member at ARM’s Southern Great Plains atmospheric observatory, for his ingenuity, versatility, and wide-ranging contributions to ARM operations in the field
- Ranjeet Devarakonda, Kyle Dumas, and Kavya Guntupally, a team of ARM Data Center software developers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee
- Devarakonda, data and metadata tools lead, and Guntupally for their responsiveness to critical issues and tool updates as well as their overall dedication and outstanding service to ARM
- Dumas for the ingenuity and expertise he exhibits in supporting the ARM and ASR communities by consistently producing high-quality applications/tools with an excellent user experience.
“The awards, celebrating significant achievements by staff, were a highlight of the ARM/ASR joint meeting for me,” says Mather, “and I look forward to continuing this in the years to come.”
ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.