MISSION ARLINGTON FOOD DRIVE A BIG SUCCESS!
For Lone Star Communications Grand Prairie's (LSGP) philanthropic event, the SEC (Special Event Committee) hosted a Food Drive, initially set to begin in the last week of February in recognition of February being National Canned Food Month.
The charity was chosen based on polled responses we received from several coworkers during another one of our February social events and Valentine giveaway.
There was a suggestion box posted in the break-room inquiring information for charities most near and dear to us that we’d like to support this year. Individuals with the most entries would win a gift basket. Mission Arlington was popular within the entries we received.
Therefore, SEC gathered boxes from the warehouse and set up the donation boxes in the break-room. To promote teamwork, we allocated teams. To incite a bulky collection, SEC decided to throw in free breakfast for the team who donated the most items.
Items were trickling daily. Sales was the first group to donate with a huge drop and that set the tone for the collections. Engineering was next to hit the boxes. The Operation/warehouse team wasn’t shortly behind. Administration came in third place.
We had ourselves a battle. When it looked like Operations was pulling ahead, the Customer service & Experience teams decided to intensify the competition by dropping of numerous items. When they brought things in, all 8 departmental donation boxes then contained goods for donation.
The food drive had an original due date for the last week of March. When the work of COVID-19 reached LSGP, we were sent home to shelter in-place. The food drive was put on hold.
On May 18th, the office slowly invited more employees in the building. By June 1st we were operating at about 70% capacity and getting into the swing of things again, so the Food Pantry drive re-emerged. We began noticing how prevalent food assistance became as we watched the news reports.
We definitely wanted to continue our collection and give as much as possible. LSGP SEC opened the donations to anyone in the office as well. SEC set a new final due date of June 27th. In the final week, we tried to incentive the groups with the offer of doubling each item they donated.
We are in Texas where everything is done BIG. Each team graciously brought in more items. As promised, each item was matched by SEC. And here are the results of the final collection.
This is the breakfast bar SEC prepared for the winning team, Engineering & Sales. Because office capacity was low that morning, very few of the team was in the office. Therefore, SEC had enough breakfast leftovers to share.
After all, LSC Core Values are: ONE Team, ONE Purpose, ONE Family and we stand firmly on them. It definitely was a team effort to pull this off. Great Job LSGP!!! Please keep an eye out for details of next month's event.
-Lasonia Reed, CAD Operator
LSC GP HOSTS RESPONDER ENTERPRISE DEMO &
DISCUSSION FOR TEXAS HEALTH RESOURCES
Grand Prairie (GP) Sales hosted Texas Health Resources’ IT and Clinical IT leaders to lunch at our office June 19th, 2020 to demonstrate Responder Enterprise (RE) and the iBed Interface. THR was very impressed with what was showcased, which prompted great dialogue about what RE and Lone Star Communications have to offer to improve workflow for their clinical staff. Dan Murphy (Sales), Michael Lee (Sales), Donna Montgomery (Chief Informatics Officer) and Hashem Tahajjod (IT) did a great job of presenting the demos and hosting the discussion. Attendees from THR were as follows:
Kari Anderson, MSHA, RHIA, Regional IT Director
Tammy Stone, Manager, MSIS MT (ASCP), Applications
Mary Beth Mitchell, MSN, RN, BC, CPHIMS, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer
Lola Rust, BSN, RN, Nursing Informaticist
Other LSC team members present were Daniel Martinez (Director of IT), Mary Whisenhunt (CAS) and Cindy Burt (Healthcare Account Manager).
BRIAN BANKS HOSTS VARIOUS TRAINING CLASSES
Lone Star Communications' commitment to employee training has always proved to keep our Team knowledgeable and consistently improving their interaction with co-workers and customers. Eric Snyder (Project Manager), Michael Alvarado (Project Manager) and Jason Chatham (Superintendent) from the Grand Prairie Office, attended the Telecenter Campus Concept Class along with The Master Clock and Relay Class Tuesday June 16th to 18th, 2020. Brian Banks, Internal Information Security Officer, taught the class.
ERIKA JONES IS OFFICIALLY A LONE STAR!
Please join me in welcoming Erika Jones to Lone Star Communications in the Grand Prairie office. Erika began her employment a few months ago as a temporary employee, but as of June 22nd she is now officially part of the LSC family under the supervision of Jim Hendrix.
Erika was born and raised in Texas, then moved to Oklahoma where she lived for 12 years, and she just moved back this time last year. She was in the Air Force for 2 years while in Oklahoma. She has one teenage daughter (15 years old) and has been in Accounting for 10 + years. She has an Associate’s degree in Business/General Studies with Management and is currently working on her last year to achieve her Bachelor’s in Accounting and CPA as well.
Welcome to the Lone Star Team Erika!! She can be reached at 972-336-0000. Her email address is Erika.jones@lonestarcom.com.
-Ramona Rook, Human Resources Specialist
VICTOR THE EXPLORER: CHECK-OUT HIS
UPDATES THROUGHOUT CENTRAL TEXAS
Victor Gonzalez, Chief Operating Officer of Central Texas offices, recently grabbed a few photo updates on his travels this past week through San Antonio (SA), Georgetown (GT) and Corpus Christi (CC). Take a look at the photos below.
"I shot a photo of our first truck, in San Antonio, branded with Lone Star Communications. It needs its camper but looks good!"
"Buck, who handles our vehicles' maintenance among other things and is based in San Antonio, is doing a good job of wearing his mask while hanging out in the office, as we all have been doing in our various offices."
"I also got a picture of the signage we have up at the front door, just to show us being cautious there in San Antonio."
"I got a couple of pictures while in Georgetown. Richard Morrow is our Project Manager. I stuck my head in his office while visiting."
"Here's a picture of our San Antonio guys in Georgetown, Jesse Beltran, Austin Garcia and Jose Mendez. They were at the check-point checking their temperatures."
"This is a picture of David Gonzalez, Project Manager for San Antonio, assisting with making some terminations for a nurse call console."
"Also included is a picture of Jose Mendez and Jakob Garcia taking an online training class from Valerie in San Antonio. They are both Technicians and work for David."
"Please see attached photo from our Corpus Christi office. We also got our trucks branded with Lone Star Communications over the weekend. Shirts have been passed out to the Corpus Christi employees as well. We are starting the re-branding to Lone Star Communications!"
"Jose Trevino from Corpus Christi helping out, in Georgetown at Seton Main, working on a Responder 5."
RAMONA ROOK RECEIVES PHR CERTIFICATION
All,
Congratulations to Ramona Rook for studying and passing, the first time, the PHR certification. The PHR is the PHd of Human Resources and Ramona has studied for hundreds of hours over the last few months to prepare for the test. Join me in congratulating her on this very big achievement.
What is the PHR?
Advance your HR career by earning the Professional in Human Resources® (PHR®) from HRCI®. The PHR demonstrates your mastery of the technical and operational aspects of HR management, including U.S. laws and regulations. The PHR is for the HR professional who has experience with program implementation, has a tactical/logistical orientation, is accountable to another HR professional within the organization, and has responsibilities that focus on the HR department rather than the whole organization.
Ramona will be taking the rest of the week to recover from effort but will be back bright and early Monday to pick up where she left off.
-Ray Bailey, President
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK!
A big shout out to TEAMWORK at Lone Star Communications Arkansas! I’m so proud of this group of ladies. They have worked as a team and have been willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, some of which isn’t in their job description. These are just a few things that they accomplished:
Donna Smith - Rescheduled over 200 inspections this month due to COVID-19.
Donna Smith, Melissa Terrell and Melinda Gibbs - Generated and emailed over 400 customer invoices during the month of June.
Jennifer Mahan and Carolyn Hardiman - Rolled out Per Diem Cards company wide
Jennifer Mahan - Finalized a sales tax audit for Louisiana
Melissa Terrell - Scanned 10 large boxes of paper files onto the network
Jill Perry - Emailed numerous insurance renewal certificates and submitted Tips/Tap bids
This groups serves Little Rock, Springdale and Shreveport Offices:
THE AMAZING:
Carolyn Hardiman - Accounts Payable
THE AMAZING:
Donna Smith - Service Coordinator
THE AMAZING:
Jill Perry - Administrative Assistant
THE AMAZING:
Melissa Terrell - Collections
THE AMAZING:
Melinda Gibbs - Office Manager
THE AMAZING:
Jennifer Mahan - Director, Financial Planning & Analysis