Tobyhanna Army Depot Recognizes Employee of the Quarter

Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD) employs nearly 3,500 of northeastern Pennsylvania’s best and brightest individuals, so choosing just two employees to be honored as Employee of the Quarter (EOQ) is no easy task. Although there are many great candidates that help our world class business run daily, this quarter Donna Derenick of the C4ISR Directorate and Olivia Corum of the Production Management Directorate have been selected as the junior and senior honorees respectively.

Derenick began her career at TYAD nearly 13 years ago and takes pride in her current role as a Secretary within the C4ISR Sensors Division. She is responsible for keeping time, the management of branch and division tasks, calendar meetings and appointments for employees and consistently provides proper coverage, communications, and successful on-time completion of all division deadlines.

Derenick has never been one to back away from a new challenge or opportunity to support her team. During her tenure at TYAD, she has completed multiple different developmental assignments, most recently having spent 120 days in the Resource Management Directorate’s Financial Analysis Division. In addition to her duties as secretary. Derenick also currently serves as her division’s safety star point. Recently, she ensured periodic safety briefings were communicated and documented for audit compliance and also inspected/updated all division safety requirements, leading to zero-findings on the division’s recent ISO 45001 internal audit.

Chief of the C4ISR Sensors Division Russell Wright said Derenick is always there whenever the team needs a hand.

“She is always willing and able to take on new responsibilities to help others, backfill critical roles as needed and always goes an extra step in supporting the mission,” said Wright. “Whether she’s providing training, volunteering for the Combined Federal Campaign or sitting in wherever help is needed, she is a true team player.”

Although there are many things, she enjoys about her job at TYAD, at the end of the day, she just loves helping others.

“There are many people that come together to make the depot operate. It isn’t up to one person to make the business run so I like to help out wherever I can so that others can do their work to the best of their ability,” said Derenick. “I like to do the best job that I could do so that it helps everybody in the long run. I just really enjoy helping others.”

Derenick said she was pleasantly surprised to learn of her selection as EoQ.

“I know there’s so many deserving people across the depot, so I feel very grateful and honored to have been selected and I hope more people continue to be recognized,” said Derenick. “At the end of the day it’s a nice feeling to be appreciated and recognized just for doing something I enjoy.”

Corum joined Team Tobyhanna five years ago and currently is part of one of TYAD’s newest organizations, the Business Intelligence Team. Among her responsibilities is helping the team develop new visual tools that supervisors can use to see how their shops are performing in easily digestible ways. She also helps to maintain existing business intelligence tools currently used on the depot.

Corum’s work has proven to be of tremendous benefit to depot operations. She recently served as project manager and designer of TYAD’s Command Dashboard, an analytical dashboard that monitors the health and productivity of the organization. Her experience and effort have led to significant cost savings and is projected to result in even more savings over time. She has also served as co-creator and a trainer on multiple different performance dashboards in use across TYAD, all with the goal of providing the right data at the right time in the right format so managers and users can make well-informed, actionable decisions.

Chief of the Business Intelligence Team Matthew Raup said that Corum’s tremendous work ethic and selfless service make her not only a great asset to his team, but to TYAD as a whole.

“Ms. Corum executes the duties of her position description thoroughly and effectively, yet still finds time both on and, voluntarily, off duty to assist, build, and enhance multiple Tobyhanna Data Analytics tools,” said Raup. “She is an entirely approachable and endlessly helpful member of the Tobyhanna Team and always makes herself available to assist and share her expertise with anyone who asks.”

Corum said her favorite part about working with the Business Intelligence Team is the opportunities to creatively come to new solutions when it comes to supporting our Nation’s Warfighters.

“It is very exciting to see how the things we do impact the Warfighter on a regular basis. If you look at project management for example, we can see how the tools that we’ve created are allowing users to manage projects more efficiently, which means we have the opportunity to get workload out the door faster and onto the battlefield where they’re needed most,” said Corum. “Having opportunities to be creative when it comes to finding ways to visually see results and make an impact is very rewarding.”

Like Derenick, Corum said that she was surprised to learn of her selection and feels honored to have been chosen amongst a large workforce.

“It feels great to be recognized for what you’re working on especially when it is something you enjoy doing,” said Corum. “Although I certainly didn’t expect an award, it is very nice to see that people across the depot notice each other’s hard work.”

The Employee of the Quarter awards and other employee recognition programs align with Tobyhanna’s long-range strategic plan, TOBY2035 – specifically the Investing In Our People line of effort. The plan aims to posture the depot for success in the coming years as the Department of Defense’s premier worldwide C5ISR readiness provider.

Tobyhanna Army Depot is a recognized leader in providing world-class logistics support for command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C5ISR) systems across the Department of Defense. Tobyhanna’s Corporate Philosophy, dedicated work force and electronics expertise ensure the depot is the Joint C5ISR provider of choice for all branches of the Armed Forces and industry partners.

Tobyhanna’s unparalleled capabilities include full-spectrum logistics support for sustainment, overhaul and repair, fabrication and manufacturing, engineering design and development, systems integration, post production software support, technology insertion, modification, foreign military sales and global field support to our joint warfighters.

About 3,100 personnel are employed at Tobyhanna, located in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. Tobyhanna Army Depot is part of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command. Headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, the command’s mission is to empower the Soldier with winning C5ISR capabilities.

Marywood University Announces 2023 Summer Camps

Even though winter days are here, Marywood University is looking forward to summertime with its 2023 Summer @ the Wood camps program. Pick your passion from 10+ camps, featuring sports activities, creative pursuits, and scientific interests.

The 2023 schedule presently includes academic camps on architecture, art of comic books/graphic novels, biotechnology, environmental stewardship, and music, as well as athletic camps for boys/girls basketball, esports, girls lacrosse, softball, swimming, and girls volleyball.

For more details, including camp dates, registration information and deadlines, camp descriptions, and associated fees, visit marywood.edu/community/camps/.

Some camps are currently open for registration, while others will open after the first of the year. Several feature early bird registration rates. It is possible that other camps may be added to these initial offerings. If so, information will be listed on the camps website at: marywood.edu/community/camps/.

Geisinger’s “Paws to Reflect” program selected for national funding

Geisinger was selected to receive grant funding for Paws to Reflect, an innovative program aimed at combating burnout and trauma in the nursing field, during the first ever NurseHack4Health Pitch-A-Thon.

Geisinger was one of three health organizations to be awarded the funding provided by #FirstRespondersFirst to implement new, innovative programs for employees.

Geisinger nurses, in collaboration with members from Geisinger’s Center for Professionalism and Well-Being and the Volunteer Services Division, presented the program to the panel. Paws to Reflect will connect nurses with therapy dogs and their handlers, as well as a peer support team, to provide real time relief and comfort in a safe environment. When needed, the program can also direct staff to appropriate additional resources.  

“This program was initiated because we asked caregivers what would help them feel better and get through a difficult day,” said team leader Dawn Snyder, a clinical nurse specialist at Geisinger. “This was their response — we just responded to their needs.” 

The initiative was one of just three pitches selected by judges to receive full funding, out of dozens of entries from organizations across the country.

“The Paws to Reflect program was designed to be a sustainable solution to two very clear needs for our caregivers: more emotional support and more puppies!” said Brittany Drumm, program director of Geisinger’s Center for Professionalism and Well-Being. “By scaling and partnering our RISE peer support program and our employee-facing pet therapy program, we have the chance to deliver comfort, resources, safe spaces and moments of respite to our incredible teams.” 

The University of Scranton Research Shows Shape Matters at Nano Level

Understanding how structures interact at the microscopic and even molecular scales has been studied for decades, with applications developed for numerous products ranging from pharmaceuticals and medical treatments to dry cleaning. In researching nanostructure interactions, certain approximations of structural properties that could not be precisely measured were commonly used.

New research by John Deák, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at The University of Scranton, combined two existing techniques for the first-time to test the approximations used for reverse micelle structural properties, which are often applied in studying microscopic interactions. The research, published in October in the Journal of Molecular Liquids, shows that assumptions of the shape of the structure at a certain scale range were incorrect.

“The research finding means a lot of text books will have to be updated,” joked Dr. Deák of the significance of his research, which will actually lead to more precise calculations of nano-level interactions that can be applied to drug delivery systems and other life-saving, or life-changing, applications.

Dr. Deák explained that approximations used for the reverse micelle structure assumed a spherical shape, which his research confirmed is correct in certain scale ranges. However, his research showed that the structure changes to an ellipsoidal or egg-like shape at another range of the scale. He said the research explains variations found in data collected in numerous other studies conducted over decades.

“There was speculation about the assumed shape of the reverse micelle structures, because data collected in studies didn’t always fall in the expected range of calculations, but we didn’t have the ability to determine the shape,” said Dr. Deák, who worked on this project for five years. He combined two existing research techniques to examine various shape considerations for the first time which revealed a decades-long misunderstanding about the structure.

“This shows that we cannot assume shapes of nanostructures. We must determine the shapes and develop techniques to enable us to do this,” said Dr. Deák.

His study is titled “Volumetric determination of reverse micelle structural properties and the validity of commonplace approximations.”

Dr. Deák’s research interests include the molecular dynamics of condensed phases and interfaces, energy transfer mechanisms over self-assembled liquid boundaries, and permeation enhancement of biological tissue. His research has been published in dozens of academic journals, including the prestigious journal Science. He is an inventor on more than two dozen patents.

A faculty member at Scranton since 2002, Dr. Deák earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Buffalo and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Rochester. He completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Illinois, Champaign.

Penn State Scranton Center for Business Development and Community Outreach

Penn State Scranton has an Information Sciences and Technology (IST) Professor that is looking for businesses /organizations in our area that have a needed project that can be incorporated into his Spring semester course. 

The students are seniors who have completed all courses in our IST program including networking, programming, organizational processes, databases, and security. There will be about 4 teams of 3-4 students who will be able to work on a specific industry IT real world project. The project can have a wide range of employer interaction from weekly to much less frequently. The majority of the work will need to be accomplished offsite of the employer’s premises. Projects can be in web design, networking, programming, software analysis, security, business process, or other IT related topics. There is no compensation allowed as this is a class project. We have worked successfully in the past with large and small companies in our area on a wide variety of projects. We hope that we can find some great projects that can help our local businesses as well as our students.

Please let us know if you and your colleagues have any needs in this area and would entertain some collaboration. Email us at ScrantonOutreach@PSU.edu

The professor makes the final decision as to the proper fit of projects for the course.

The Dime Bank Donates to the YMCA Project

The Dime Bank donates $124,250.00 to the YMCA Project through the Department of Community and Economic Development under the Neighborhood Assistance Program Tax Credit Program.

The Wayne County YMCA has outgrown the current historical building and needs a new facility as the current facility is becoming too costly to operate.

The Dime Bank believes in supporting our community by partnering with many non-profits. Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Roche stated, “The Dime Bank aspires to be an integral part of the neighborhoods that we service and where our customers and employees work, raise their families, and live. We are proud to help create a modern, state-of-the-art facility for everyone to enjoy.”

“A community project of this size and scope would not be possible without the support of The Dime Bank. Their donation of $124,250.00 will enable us to complete phase 1 of this project which includes the development and completion of engineering/design work, site development plans, sewage design, and various permits. We thank The Dime Bank for their commitment and participation in this critical community project,” stated YMCA Board President Jennifer DeYoung.

SACF Launches Northeastern Pennsylvania Workforce Leadership Academy

The Scranton Area Community Foundation held a press conference on Thursday, December 8, 2022, at the Hilton Scranton Hotel & Conference Center to announce that it was selected to serve as a host site for the Northeastern Pennsylvania Workforce Leadership Academy, a fellowship program designed by the Aspen Institute designed to support leaders in workforce development committed to the advancement of the regional workforce ecosystem.

The Scranton Area Community Foundation was one of only eight organizations chosen from across the country selected through a competitive process to deliver an Academy in partnership with the Aspen Institute. Other cities selected include Tucson, Detroit, Cleveland, Memphis, San Antonio, Baltimore, and Buffalo.

The Workforce Leadership Academy will bring leaders – recognized as Fellows of the Academy – from across the local workforce ecosystem together for a year-long series of retreats, workshops, and action learning projects. Fellows work with leading practitioners throughout the country as they deepen networks; strengthen systems leadership skills; apply race, equity, and systems change frameworks to their work; and increase understanding of effective strategies and programs.  An advisory board comprised of regional experts will help to shape the Academy.

Eighteen to twenty-four fellows in Northeastern Pennsylvania will be selected through a competitive application process. The Scranton Area Community Foundation and its partners encourage senior-level managers from across the workforce ecosystem of nonprofit organizations, business associations, union-based training efforts, public agencies, and community colleges that have the authority to implement changes to apply.

Applications and Academy details are available online at www.safdn.org/WLA.

The deadline for application submissions is Thursday, January 26, 2023, at 5:00 pm. Interested applicants can learn more about the Academy on an informational webinar to be held on December 20, 2022. Details can be found at safdn.org/wla.

The Northeastern Pennsylvania Workforce Leadership Academy is made possible by the generous support of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in addition to the Scranton Area Community Foundation.

“The Scranton Area Community Foundation has decided to host this important leadership academy because of the need for a cross-sector, collaborative workforce effort aimed at systems change in NEPA,” said Laura Ducceschi, President & CEO of the Scranton Area Community Foundation.  “We established NEPA Thrives, an equity-based workforce initiative, and the NEPA Workforce Leadership Academy is a key part of this focus area. Fellows will identify challenges within the workforce ecosystem and work to develop solutions in key areas.”