Olivia Allery, news editor

Augsburg staff do great work and make impacts all around the university, and the staff senate has recently acknowledged two exceptional staff for their contributions to campus by awarding them the Auggie Pride Award. The winners of the Auggie Pride Award for the month of September are HR Data and Reporting Analyst Tyler LeClear Vachta and Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Analyst, Olee Amata.

LeClear Vachta has been working for Augsburg for around three years. Initially starting off in the IT Department, LeClear Vachta moved over to work for Human Resources about 16 months ago to help with data processes and making sure everything is running smoothly and effectively for the HR department. He was nominated specifically for his contributions to the Center for Global Education and Experience (CGEE). 

“I had been working with them on processes that were specifically unique to them,” said LeClear Vachta. “Because CGEE has partners outside of the U.S. who are not technically employees but still need some of the same supports as employees, such as logging into and working their Moodle pages and gaining access to trainings, and processes for them were not very clear and some information and supports could fall through the cracks.” LeClear continued, “I was able to pull some of my previous knowledge of CGEE’s faculty processes from IT and now from the HR department to update the staff training course and come up with a solution we were all happy with.”

Olee Amata has been working at Augsburg for over 20 years, previously working in the TRIO, URGO and McNair Scholars programs managing their budgets, being the Finance & Operations Manager for CGEE and now as the Finance Planning & Analysis Analyst for the Finance & Administration department. Amata was nominated for her exceptional finance report managing for the Division of Professional Studies and was nominated by Dean of Professional Studies, Monica Devers. “I help all the budget managers by gathering and organizing information for them, and I was able to create customized financial reports for budget managers that give them all the information they need to see how their budget is being spent over all of the departments,” said Amata. “It feels really good to be acknowledged for my hard work in the department, especially since I’ve only been in the position for a year.”

Monica Devers commented on the reasons she nominated Amata: “I have been so impressed with the responsiveness and detailed work Olee has done with us in the Division Professional Studies Department, she was so responsive in answering all my questions all throughout the summer, and I was so grateful to have her helping me out.”

Both LeClear and Amata are very grateful for the awards given and happy that Augsburg acknowledges staff for the great work they do through things like the Auggie Pride Award. Nominations are done on a rolling basis and the staff senate is taking nominations for the October Auggie Pride Award winner right now, and any staff, faculty or supervisor is allowed to nominate.