Every fall National Industries for the Blind hosts an annual training conference in a city where one of the member agencies is located. Along with excellent training opportunities for agency staff in attendance, board and committee meetings, the conference also is a celebration of the great work done by blind employees around the United States. This year, Wiscraft was lucky enough to have nominated individuals in both the category of Employee of the Year as well as Career Achievement Award. Each of our nominees were able to attend the conference, where they toured the French Quarter, met with counterparts at other agencies, and had a formal banquette dinner to honor them.
Gene Hubbard – Career Achievement Award Nominee
Gene demonstrates his commitment to the mission of Wiscraft and strives for the highest standards on a daily basis. For example, Gene has positively impacted many throughout the company with his ability to communicate and train individuals. Though he became totally blind later in life (in his 30s), Gene did not allow this to stop him from being a productive contributor by learning vocational adaptive skills such as cane mobility and the use of computer accessibility communication software.
Gene has demonstrated his leadership attributes by taking on increasing responsibility. About 3 years ago Gene’s responsibilities and span of impact were broadened to include project coordination of AbilityOne programs. He has embraced the opportunity to learn this convoluted process and to have greater direct influence to increase the Wiscraft blind jobs and revenues from AbilityOne products.
Most recently Gene has accepted the challenge of test piloting the new LEAN Development Process. This involves tracking a complete cradle-to-grave project Gant chart schedule. Moreover, it entails engaging personnel across all classic organizational and functional boundaries toward the goals of achieving projects faster, on schedule, and within cost and budget metrics.
Gene’s interest in self-improvement certainly merits note. During his tenure Gene has been promoted to progressively more responsible positions with greater impact to the company’s mission. Starting as a Production Worker on the shop floor he has since been appointed to the positions of ISO Documenter, Training Coordinator, and Government Products Project Coordinator. Further demonstrating his interest in being his personal best, he has a BA in Latin, History, Secondary Education, a MA in Blind Rehabilitation Teaching, and at the age of 61, he became one of the most senior graduates of the NIB- Business Management Training program.
Sophia Kipp – Employee of the Year Nominee
Sophia has been with Wiscraft for only 3 years, but in her time here, her hard work and dedication to quality has given her the opportunity to become the Product Line Champion in 3 different work centers. These 3 work centers have a combined efficiency rating of 127% and a 0% reject rate, across almost 66,000 items produced, over the past year. In addition, these 3 work centers represented 52% of the annual sales for the Assembly & Packaging Division at Wiscraft. Sophia has also been trained as a backup in 13 of the 17 other production lines here at Wiscraft.
An example of Sophia’s commitment was when she volunteered to work on 2nd shift for a period of time to allow a less experienced employee work in the Privacy Shield department, expanding Wiscraft’s ability to increase the daily output by 75% when we desperately needed it! We were able to meet demand and keep delivery times from extending.
In addition, one of Sophia’s departments has won the Wiscraft’s monthly 5S award for the cleanest and best organized department!