Civilian Employee of the Year

2001 — Ruth Rinehart

Is recognized for her outstanding qualities as an employee of the Saint Paul Police Department and for demonstrating exceptional achievement in carrying out her duties. She is being recognized for her professionalism, compassion, integrity and willingness to always go the extra mile to ensure things are done correctly. She is a leader and role model in training, counseling, educating and nurturing those around her. She has been an excellent point of contact on the midnight shift for hundreds of rookie police officers during her career. Most importantly, she has held the position of Court Officer for over twenty years. She is responsible for ensuring that all court reports are complete, accurate and delivered to the Ramsey County Courthouse in a timely manner. This is a vital function, not only for the Saint Paul Police Department but for Ramsey County and the City of Saint Paul as well.

2002 — Angela G. Anderson

Is recognized for her outstanding qualities as an employee of the Saint Paul Police Department and for demonstrating exceptional leadership and achievement in carrying out her duties. As the Payroll Supervisor, she is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the payroll for the 775 members of the department is consistently accurate and done in a timely manner. Her job is one of the few that gets reviewed by all the employees of the department at least once every payroll period. With the depletion of funds and reduction of budgets, submission and tracking of overtime is more important than ever. She professionally designed and expeditiously implemented the new overtime cards which have proven to be an extremely beneficial tool for supervisors to manage overtime expenses. On a daily basis her office is required to process injured on duty forms and claims, implement contracts for nine bargaining units, process retirements and resignations and verify sick and overtime submissions. City Human Resources singled her and her unit out as a model payroll division with the highest degree of accuracy and a highly professional and responsive staff. She has demonstrated sustained exceptional performance and attitude, commendable interpersonal skills and customer service and brought distinct credit to her unit and the Department.

2003 — Louis J. Biagi

Is recognized for his outstanding qualities as an employee of the Saint Paul Police Department and for demonstrating exceptional leadership and achievement in carrying out his duties. As an Accounting Tech II, he is extremely knowledgeable with budgets and accounting practices. He is always approachable, patient and helpful to all Saint Paul Police Department employees both sworn and non-sworn who call upon him for assistance. He is willing to drop everything to answer questions or lend advice to others no matter how busy he is at the time. He has demonstrated exceptional performance, attitude, interpersonal skills and customer service skills that have brought credit to his unit and the department. Throughout his career he has always demonstrated selfless service to others within the department.

2004 — Wanda L. Klossner

The Civilian Employee of the Year Award is presented to Wanda L. Klossner in recognition of her outstanding qualities as an employee of the Saint Paul Police Department and for demonstrating leadership, achievement and excellence in carrying out her duties. As a Police Telecommunicator assigned to the Emergency Communications Center for 24 years, she had become the person that can be counted on to accomplish any task, solve any problem, and go the extra mile. She became the most accomplished and trusted Communications Training Officer in the Center. As a Communication Training Officer, she worked tirelessly as a trainer of new telecommunicators and had imparted her skills and ethics of care on a non-stop basis since 1999. Each day she demonstrates her commitment to the Saint Paul Police Department and to the people of this great city with her outstanding performance and dedication. Over the past year, she was recognized for her outstanding communication skills once for talking a female with a gun out of her house and another time for convincing an assault suspect with a gun to turn himself over to police. While these incidents highlight her skill under extreme circumstances, it is her even treatment and care for which she is most admired. For consistently demonstrating exceptional performance, attitude, and interpersonal skills that has brought credit to the Saint Paul Police Department and the Emergency Communications Center, we today, present Wanda L. Klossner with the 2004 Civilian Employee of the Year Award.

2005 — Timothy Chandler

The 2005 Civilian Employee of the Year Award is presented to Timothy Chandler in recognition of his commitment, dedication, leadership, and exceptional quality of work as an employee of the Saint Paul Police Department. He routinely went above and beyond what is expected of an employee. He designed a key system where the Range staff could carry a master key and others with less of a security clearance would be issued keys with limited access. He also devised a number coding system to track all keys used in all the Department’s other buildings. He routinely went to the Outdoor Range early on snowy days, during winter qualifications to plow the shooting lanes so our officers could continue to qualify. When a golf course was built next to the Outdoor Range, a safety issue rendered one of the ranges unusable. He repaired, installed and expanded the awning on Range Two to handle the increased usage which balanced the need for officer training and taxpayers’ rights. He routinely used these repair opportunities to provide training and mentorship to other employees in the work crew. Repairs, which proved extensive, were needed in Hogan’s Alley at the Range. It took three weeks of work but through his efforts the buildings were repaired for less than $1,000. Many repairs done by him, have been made in-house thus saving the Department countless dollars. Other projects by Tim include installing more efficient water faucets in the gym shower rooms, custom building a sauna in the men’s locker room, constructing and installing cabinets and shelving in the Emergency Operations Center, designing and installing television mounting brackets and exercise bars in the gym, providing furniture layout and installation in the Public Safety Building for the Vice and Narcotic Units, devising a plan to move the old freight elevator from the Public Safety Building to the sub-basement of the Griffin Building. This was a huge project but was handled with ease by him. He drew up the plans, ordered and picked up the material and supervised the crew that cut and installed the steel I-beams. These beams are seventeen feet long and weighed approximately 2000 pounds each. The elevator inspector commented on the quality of his work. Also, single handedly within 48 hours, he acquired all necessary supplies for CIRT when they traveled to New Orleans for the Hurricane Katrina Relief Mission.

2006 — Marsha A. Panos

The 2006 Civilian Employee of the Year Award is presented to Marsha A. Panos in recognition of her commitment, dedication, leadership, and exceptional quality of work as an employee of the Saint Paul Police Department. She routinely went above and beyond what is expected of an employee. She is committed to increasing her knowledge in the field of physical fitness and providing the Department with the most up-to-date information, equipment and classes. She routinely tests all sworn officers, parking enforcement officers and community liaison officers to ensure they are physically fit to perform the stressful duties of law enforcement and have stress tests done on officers as a preventive measure against heart disease. If anyone is not up to the expected fitness level, she is willing to work out a training program and provide advice and support. She also worked closely with the recruit academies to improve their fitness which in turn improves their law enforcement performance when they get assigned to patrol. She encouraged employees to become more aware of their health with her health and fitness tips and to make small changes in their lives. She has provided a wide variety of health promotions such as the yearly COPS (Change Our Physical Shape) Challenge, Baddest Bench on the Beat, 10,000 Steps, aerobic step and spin classes over the lunch hour, introduce a wide variety of other fitness programs such as yoga, thai chi, kettle bells, organize the blood drives. She has also taught classes in PDI’s of Health and Fitness for Law Enforcement and Fitness and Health for the Female Police Officer.

2007 — Kimberly Adamek

The 2007 Civilian Employee of the Year Award is presented to you in recognition of your outstanding leadership during the preparation and execution of the Ramsey County Emergency Communications Center merger. You volunteered to be a temporary Emergency Communications Center Manager, for Saint Paul, in 2006 to oversee personnel, training, scheduling and budgetary issues during the planning stages of the merger with Ramsey County. You attended numerous contract negotiation meetings to establish the roles and structure for the Saint Paul employees affected by the merger. During this time, morale was low, yet you were able to keep the employees focused with your positive mindset. While performing your duties to assist with a smooth transition, you were not even sure what your own role would be in the new Ramsey County setting. You did not allow that to distract you, but rather used your drive and determination to provide outstanding supervision and leadership during a very chaotic time. Although your managerial role ended with the move to the new Ramsey County Communications Center in October, 2007, you continue to be a leader seeking solutions for concerns of our department and the Saint Paul Emergency Communications Center employees. You are an honored member of our organization and a source of pride for our department.

2008 — Catherine Carbone

The 2008 Civilian Employee of the Year Award is presented to you in recognition of your outstanding ability to bring people together by refocusing attention and energy from their own problems to others that are less fortunate. The merger of the Saint Paul ECC with Ramsey County in late 2007 was a difficult venture for employees. New policies, new equipment, and two different unions were all demands that made it challenging to be unified in the ECC. However, in 2008, with your promotion of the revival of Operation Santa, the ECC became cohesive while helping those that were disadvantaged. With the help of your daughter, you devoted much of your own time to advertise for families in need for the holidays, to take pictures of the thirteen families that were chosen, and to make posters of them so that the ECC staff could see who they were helping. It was a humbling experience for all to know that most of these families were simply asking for necessities like clothing, diapers and dishes. You organized the wrapping and delivery of the gifts that not only brought joy to these families, but also harmony to the ECC. Your enthusiasm, positive attitude and passion to assist these families provided the motivation for ECC employees to put their difficulties from the merger aside and come together as a unified group eager to help others in the community that they serve. You are an honored member of our organization and a source of pride for our department.

2009 — Jeffrey Neuberger

The 2009 Civilian Employee of the Year Award is presented to you in recognition of your dedication to preserving the history of the Saint Paul Police Department. For many years, the hallways at headquarters were bare. They are now filled with over 250 photos from the very beginning years of our department, through the gangster era, to the most present times. Employees, retirees and guests now walk the halls in awe at the wonderful portrayal of duty, sacrifice and tradition of our department. You have selflessly devoted countless hours to this project and have funded most of it with your own money. A few times a year, your other hidden talent of cooking has helped you fund this project. Many employees have enjoyed the delicious and unique food you have cooked for them. Instead of reimbursing yourself with the monetary donations they gave you, you used that money to purchase the frames or enlarge the photos that now decorate our facility. As a member of the Saint Paul Police Historical Society, you have taken an active role in assisting citizens who have questions regarding their ancestor’s history with our department. Your research, which sometimes involves combing through birth and death records, census information and numerous old newspapers, not only enlightens them about their family history but often provides them with lasting anecdotes to pass on to future generations. The passion and enthusiasm you display for the history of the Saint Paul Police Department is quite admirable. You are an honored member of our organization and a source of great pride for our department. Your devotion and commitment have made you a valuable and honored member of our organization and a source of pride for the Saint Paul Police Department.

2010 — Janis Peterson

The 2010 Civilian Employee of the Year Award is presented to you for the work you have done in the FORCE Unit. You are the first point of contact for citizens who have complaints about problem properties. Answering approximately 2000 calls annually, most from upset citizens is not an easy task. However, you have a special ability and calm demeanor to deescalate the conversation effectively and quickly. After taking the information from the caller, you not only open a file for the investigator, but also research the address and suspect history for them. You volunteer to attend community meetings during the day, when the investigators are off, to advise citizens of the role of the FORCE Unit and answer questions that they have about properties in their area. When FORCE was decentralized in 2010, you displayed great initiative in searching through old case files from the 1990’s, and then determining what could be purged and what files needed to be kept. You then sorted those by district so FORCE investigators would have the files that pertain to their area. Another project that you were heavily involved in was updating the twenty-year-old software that had been used by FORCE. Your work with Technology and the investigators to create better reports that could be easily shared not only benefited FORCE, but the entire department. Your dedication to the department, concern for citizens, and willingness to partake in projects that are outside the scope of your position, are commendable.