Our congratulations and thanks to the recipients of our fourth Infinite Mile Awards.
Michael Baenen for for Community Building
Darren Clarke for Problem Solving and Leadership
Peggy Peterson for Collaboration and Teamwork
Patti Richards for Public, Customer, or Client Relations
Michael Baenen
Michael A. Baenen receiving his award from President Chuck VestMichael Baenen, Special Assistant to the President, Office of the President, for Community Building
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For many of your colleagues, you are the "go-to" person of choice on a wide variety of issues. Your goodwill and selflessness are inspiring and motivating. Colleagues consider you to be a great sounding board for ideas and benefit greatly from your critical thinking and writing talents. In addition, you provide a wonderful gauge in matters of protocol and etiquette in all sorts of circumstances. As a member of the President's staff who is a resident of the Corporation Office, your collegiality and friendship have made the links and working relations between the two offices even stronger. And throughout our area and far beyond - with senior officers, trustees, faculty colleagues, and fellow staff members - you are a model bridge builder, day to day, week to week, event to event.
Darren Clarke
Darren Clarke receiving his award from Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation Kathryn WillmoreDarren Clarke, Editorial Assistant, News Office, Public Relations Services, for Problem Solving and Leadership
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Your group of nominators cited your critical role in transforming the News Office's web publishing process. With many specific examples, they gave testimony to your indefatigable good nature, technical talents, and creative flair. You designed and built a database system that streamlines web tasks, eliminates redundancy, and facilitates the sharing of MIT news across the Institute and around the world. And you were a critical member of the design team for the News Office's new website - adding generous measures of creativity and expertise, overseeing and motivating a cadre of temporary staff, and saving time and money on the project, while putting in enormous time on nights and weekends to work through the myriad details and make sure the end product was all it could be.
Peggy Peterson
Peggy Peterson receiving her award from Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation Kathryn WillmorePeggy Peterson, Senior Administrative Assistant, Office of the President, for Collaboration and Teamwork
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As Senior Administrative Assistant in the Office of the President, you are a role model and mentor for your colleagues in the office and beyond - bringing extraordinary commitment and professionalism to every aspect of your work. While juggling multiple responsibilities, you always create a positive and welcoming atmosphere for visitors, colleagues, and a constant stream of information seekers. Your professionalism, combined with a gracious and upbeat approach, represent the highest standard for client relations. The sincerity and concern that you show for coworkers create an atmosphere in which teamwork and collaboration thrive. In spite of the many demands and details of your position, you are generous in providing assistance and wise and caring counsel to colleagues. Your colleagues respect, admire, and want to emulate your wonderful working style.
Patti Richards
Patti Richards receiving her award from Vice President John CurryPatti Richards, Senior Communications Officer, News Office, Public Relations Services, for Public Relations
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The adjective "exceptional" describes not just the superb quality of your work but also the way you go about accomplishing it. Your skill in working with faculty, staff, and the media to keep the focus on the substance of what we do, and why, has served the Institute in countless ways. You have been particularly adept at promoting our recent capital projects, especially the Stata Center. You designed just the right media event for Stata: the right people came, the right things were said, and overall, the opening of Stata was portrayed by the world's press in the most positive of lights. And you did it all with little fanfare and few resources but with great vision and tireless energy. You have made an enormous difference in how our campus and the Institute itself are presented by the media.