(Above, from left) OYA employees Patrick Lindell, Tonya Hoover, and Rod Martin received the 2018 Director’s Outstanding Service Award at a Feb. 14 event in Salem.

Oregon Youth Authority Director Joe O’Leary honored three agency employees this month with the 2018 Director’s Outstanding Service Award.

The winners are Tonya Hoover, Office Specialist 2 in Lane County; Patrick Lindell, construction project manager with Physical Plant Operations; and Rod Martin, OYA athletics and recreation coordinator.

O’Leary received 26 separate nominations for individuals and teams whose outstanding  performance demonstrates the mission, vision, and core values of OYA; brought honor or distinction to the agency through a special work project or operation; significantly enhanced staff or youth safety; or resulted in substantial agency cost savings.

Congratulations to the three winners, who were honored Feb. 14 at the Joint Management Team meeting in Salem.

Tonya Hoover

Tonya Hoover has been working for OYA for four years as an Office Specialist 2 in the Lane County OYA office.

Hoover earned two separate nominations for the award. One came from Kelly Okili, OYA’s Lane County foster care certifier. “[Tonya] goes above and beyond to ensure that youth and families are taken care of, whether it’s by efficiently taking care of hotels, gas cards, and bus passes so that parents can visit their children, greeting them in the lobby and making them feel welcome, and even using verbal de-escalation and empathy to calm youth and families when they are stressed or frustrated,” Okili wrote.

Okili and Hoover’s other nominator, juvenile parole and probation officer Jason Sinniger, both noted Hoover’s willingness to help other offices at OYA. “Tonya frequently volunteers to support other field offices when their OS2s are out of the office,”
Sinniger wrote. “Despite the increased workload, she does so with enthusiasm and a great attitude.”

Okili and Sinniger also appreciated the way Hoover makes everyone who works in the office feel special and cared for. She decorates the office for holidays, provides staff members with treats on their birthdays, makes gifts for staff members’ children, and knows all of their family members by name.

“Tonya embodies Positive Human Development,” Okili wrote,” and the agency is extremely lucky to have such a kind, intelligent, and hard-working employee.”

Patrick Lindell

Patrick Lindell, construction project manager with Physical Plant Operations (PPO), received two separate nominations from his PPO colleagues. Lindell has been in his position since he started working at OYA in 2015.

Nominator Tracey Kreiger particularly noted the work Lindell coordinated during the 2017 consolidation of the Hillcrest and MacLaren youth correctional facilities.

“He was the local face in the trenches during this project,” Kreiger wrote, noting that Lindell coordinated $31.1 million of construction project work around the time of consolidation.

In addition to the construction work, Kreiger also named numerous other accomplishments completed by Lindell, including: ensuring staff had training on new systems; ensuring all construction work areas were safe and secure; resolving issues with the buildings and customers up to nine months after occupancy; ensuring that staff were satisfied with the functionality of the new spaces; and handling complaints in a professional manner with positive results.

“You would constantly find him running around campus, putting out fires, and getting what was needed to accommodate the users,” Kreiger wrote.

Lindell’s other nomination came from Dannielle Burton with PPO.

“Pat is always available to everyone for help,” she wrote. “He has the best interests of OYA at heart and truly cares about the safety of our staff and youth. Pat is the go-to person for anything construction and brings a wealth of knowledge to OYA. We are so very lucky to have Pat on our team.”

Roderick Martin

Roderick Martin, OYA’s athletics and recreation coordinator, has been with OYA nearly 21 years. He started out as a group life coordinator (GLC) at Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility in 1998. The next year he moved to a recreation position at Hillcrest, where he stayed until becoming statewide coordinator in 2012.

“He comes to work with a purpose to build on our agency’s mission, vision, and core values by instilling and developing strong and positive lifetime skill sets using sports as a vehicle to reach our youth and staff alike,” wrote nominator Rolando Contreras, a skills development coordinator (SDC) at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility.

Martin runs sports and recreation programs at OYA facilities statewide, including the mammoth task of organizing inter-facility athletics tournaments. He created the Plaza Fitness Center at MacLaren to provide additional recreation and learning opportunities for youth, and initiated a new high school basketball team at MacLaren that allows youth to play against teams from surrounding communities — the first time such games have
happened since 1984.

Martin also was instrumental in securing and organizing an unprecedented gift to MacLaren from Salem Evangelical Church to purchase a new gym floor that is enjoyed by youth from all facilities.

“Roderick is a huge part of building the bridge for our youth and agency, connecting the outside community in coordinating athletic events in our facilities,” Contreras wrote. “This kind of collaboration and engagement is vital in promoting … a healthy lifestyle, pro-social and life-long skill development for our youth, and in helping reduce recidivism in our communities.”

Congratulations to all the 2018 Director’s Outstanding Service Award Nominees

• Alpha Unit at Rogue Valley YCF
• Debra Anderson
• John Beairsto
• Dan Berger
• Ann Butte
• Robert Caldwell
• Michael Conn
• Rolando Contreras
• Kathleen Fullerton
• Rod Green
• Donna McClung
• Orca Unit at Tillamook YCF
• Sean Page
• Rockaway Unit at MacLaren YCF
• Lynn Tuttle
• Ruth Votaw
• Angela Weitman
• Chris Wells
• Leng Xiong
• Brent York