During the 2nd Quarter, Ms. Heilman completed over 1025 transactions while maintaining exceptional quality of 99.4%. This significantly contributed to the success of the Non-Rating Team and in achieving its targets on the

Director's Dashboard for the 2nd Quarter. Approximately 12 % of the 8549 transactions completed by the Non-Rating Team were completed by Ms. Heilman. Ms. Heilman is an Authorizer and has accomplished this all while performing additional duties such as the Non-Rating Team Attorney Fee Coordinator in which she received accolades from Support Services. She is the team Subject Matter Expect (SME) for these Attorney Fee related issues. She is also a Station Trainer on Dependency issues in which she has conducted numerous Pre/Post Challenge classes. She trains/mentors many of the Junior VSRs on the team.

Kristen Heilman has become an invaluable asset to the Non-Rating Team and the Veteran Service Center. She is a consummate team player. She eagerly and willingly seeks out new opportunities, maintains an outstanding work ethic and successfully complete all assigned tasks, regardless of difficulty. Her knowledge, professionalism, compassion and desire to help Veterans and co-workers are inspirational. It is a true honor to be her Supervisor and I strongly recommend for Employee of the Quarter.

Robin contributed greatly to the legacy appeals mission for the month of March 2020 and was able to reduce and maintain the authorization timeliness of those cases to 1 day. This exceeded the incentive plan goal of 3 days.

In service as one of the RVSR MST coordinators, Ms. Stepnick has provided high quality and compassionate service to one of our most vulnerable and historically underserved Veteran populations. Few folks are willing to step up to take on ancillary duties, particularly those as personally and professionally taxing as ongoing exposure to trauma claims, yet Lisa has heeded this call. The MST coordinators at this office are a shining example of what it truly means to serve those have served.

During Q2 Quarterly Briefing covering Training, the significant difference between locally mandated training hours completed for VSRs vs RVSRs was obvious.  It was noted that Lori, had taken a proactive approach to implement training early and often for the RVSRs.  Her focus on maintaining rating quality at the highest level is a key driver to our success.  She created a training plan by analyzing the teams quality and then, she also took action!  She scheduled the classes and served as the instructor.  Her actions help her employees feel supported and increase trust between management and employees.  Lori is a true servant leader!  Her actions are in line with USB priorities of providing Veterans with the benefits they have earned in a manner that honors their service.  They also help drive results by making correct decisions the first time, eliminating rework. 

for his evaluation of the translations file processing system. Mr. Goughnour identified that the documents could be processed much quicker at multiple stages of the translations process by making a small adjustment. He recommended sending encrypted USB drives to our contractors. This process only requires the drive to be encrypted and not each document. This saves a significant amount of processing time as each document was individually encrypted at 4 different occasions. It is estimated that this will save over 500 hours during the year and increase the timeliness of getting these documents back to the decision makers.   He is a great credit to himself, the Support Services Division and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As a member of the QRT, Kierstin has been assigned as a mentor for our most recent group of 5 RVSR Trainees. Part of this mentorship program includes shared Return from Challenge Virtual Training with 3 other Regional Offices for a total of 25 RVSR Trainees. Kierstin recently provided a training to the group on Non-VA Disability Benefits Questionnaires. When the Roanoke Training Manager reached out to me and Kierstin for a recording of the training, she also passed along the following information regarding the training. “I was on the call when you taught the DBQ course and it was exceptional. You were very thorough, and all of our employees expressed their appreciation for the depth of your instruction and the examples given to test their understanding of the content.” I recommend Kierstin Edwards for an On-the-Spot for always going above and beyond with the time and effort she puts into the delivery of all training sessions for VA employees. Kierstin has exhibited her commitment to new employee development by consistently providing quality training.

Ms. Normanton produced and provided valuable instruction to her MST coordinator colleagues on Pre-D Team on marker identification and formulating proper opinion as part of the role. I believe that with the guidance she provided, these individuals now how the tools and confidence to grow in their roles and provide even better service.

John is one of my go-to people for assistance when something isn’t quite right with development of a case. He goes above and beyond to assist with whatever the problem is, so that I can get it resolved and rate the case instead of deferring it. Not only does he assist but does so on the spot with a positive attitude, clearly putting aside whatever he was in the middle of to help. He is the definition of teamwork. His assistance has resulted in numerous cases being moved forward instead of sitting stagnant as a deferral. I’m grateful to be able to depend on him for help, as I know he is always receptive and stops at nothing to get me the answers I need.

Cari Ann Black – Cari Ann received the good catch for identifying errors with referral numbers on contractor monthly reports.  If these errors were not identified, this would have resulted in re-work on the part of the VRCs, Program Specialists, and Contractors with re-doing Quality Assurance reports and invoicing.

Tina Snyder – Tina received the good catch for identifying a potential issue with privacy.  A Veteran’s spouse on her workload requested an update on her husband’s claim.  The spouse is a VHA employee who did not identify herself as the spouse.  Tina questioned this and refused to provide any information without proper release by the Veteran.

Kathleen Casamento -  I-CARE for commitment to assisting the EC with mock-interview panel of a Veteran in preparation of two interviews.  She provided objective feedback to this Veteran to better prepare him to speak about his prior work experience

Sneha Viratia – I-CARE for commitment for ensuring that our Division has continuous updates in CWINRS of local templates for letters and forms to support the work.