UMA holds in-house awards for employees

As a unique program for involving and energizing employees, UMA of Vancouver holds its own in-house awards for innovation and for community service.
The seventh annual UMA Innovation Awards were presented at the firm’s annual meeting and gala awards dinner on April 30 by Jeremy Kon, UMA President and CEO. The awards include cash prizes and trophies.
Three awards for innovation were given out this year. The Taciuk Innovation Award worth $6,000 was presented to Larry Robinson of the Surrey office for his Oriented Strand Board (OSB) Conveyor Dryer improvements. Contrary to a traditional design, Robinson used air down instead of air-up drying to help prevent air leakage and material loss.
A UMA Innovator Award worth $2,000 went to Garry Rempel for his design analysis and process simulations for new and existing OSB plants. Another UMA Innovator Award went to a team consisting of Bryan Weber, James Friesen, Darren Yarechewski, Zsolt Zrinyi, Brad Croft, Marvin McDonald, Andy Nagy, Mitch Madill, Alana Crishka, Chris Macey and Eric Blais for the first web-based Flood Activity/Emergency Response Manual.
The firm has an external panel of UMA clients serve as judges. This year’s panel included Gregg Singer, B.C. Ministry of Transportation, Vincent Lalonde of Surrey, Robert Gonzales of Richmond and Wendy John of the Musqueam First Nation.
UMA also gives an annual award for outreach. This year the Denis Cote Award for Community Service went jointly to Iris Boettcher and the “Bean Team.” Ms. Boettcher is a volunteer track coach with Special Olympics Edmonton. UMA’s Bean Team participates in the Vancouver CANstruction competition where engineers and others build structures from canned goods that are donated to food banks.