Since 2007, EHS has been honoring staff members with the EHS Employee of the Year Award, now the EHS Brenda Armstrong Employee of the Year Award, as well as the EHS Excellence Award, now the Dariusz Czarnota Award of Excellence. These awards were created to recognize employees for their exceptional work ethic and dedication to EHS. The 2024 award recipients were recognized at an EHS staff meeting on February 10th. See a list of past EHS award winners.
EHS Brenda Armstrong Employee of the Year
This award is named in honor of Brenda Armstrong, who gave 28 years of service to Yale University and EHS. Her commitment to excellence led her to being named the department’s first Employee of the Year in 2007 and her impact continues to be felt within the department to this day.
John Campbell
John is a true professional who consistently demonstrates a strong work ethic and a positive attitude. He is always willing to lend a hand and is known for his reliability and dedication. His commitment to campus safety is evident, as he consistently shows up each day to ensure the well-being of the Yale community. John’s approachable demeanor and helpful nature have made him a well-respected and recognized presence on campus. He is always willing to help despite his heavy workload, which has included managing drones, implementing shop safety policy improvements, developing Toolbox Talks, and mentoring new employees. John was also the recipient of the Dariusz Czarnota Award of Excellence in 2014 and was part of the Respiratory Protection Team, which won the Employee of the Year Award in 2021.
Dariusz Czarnota Award of Excellence
This award is named in honor of Dariusz Czarnota, who was a Safety Advisor at Environmental Health and Safety from 2001 until his untimely death in 2012. His dedication and work ethic exemplified the highest standards of performance and service.
Michal Narowski
Michal is an industrious, intelligent, creative, and innovative staff member for EHS. His modification work on a rear exhaust draft hood improved containment for handling lungs from patients infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The view screen he created increased the protection against droplets, splashes, and splatters and also increased the flow rates at the hood opening, greatly enhancing worker protection and safety. Michal organized an emergency repair after a containment wall in one of the containment chambers had fallen two days before a scheduled DPH inspection. He developed more permanent curtains with magnetic closures, sewing them himself on his mother’s old sewing machine. His template for the new magnetic containment curtains were subsequently used by Yale Project Management during Insectary upgrades. He is also helping the Environmental Affairs Section with critical work to comply with new national refrigeration standards and learning to serve as a back-up for air quality program and permitting requirements.
Lucy Tomaso
Whether it’s keeping track of and filing waste compliance files or constantly following up on the many Facilities work requests we submit, Lucy always manages to help ensure that the heavily regulated world of EAS stays audit ready at all times. She is responsible for managing our waste phone line and dealing with all of our customers who contact us with various issues and questions. Lucy is often able to answer these questions on her own while displaying tremendous professionalism and friendliness. She is also the point person for our universal waste program, coordinating with our vendor to schedule pickups across campus and contacting customers to clarify what waste is appropriate. Additionally, she manages the maintenance and compliance paperwork for the EAS fleet of vehicles and tracks down Yale project managers for charge back information. Lucy is the heartbeat of the EAS office in the sense that everything flows through her.
Todd Treichel
Todd is always the first to volunteer to get the job done regardless of the task and is often on his way to starting before you even finish asking. With all of this unexpected work, he has shown excellent prioritization skills in order to keep up with his day-to-day responsibilities, understands the tasks assigned to him, and ensures completion at a high level. He is working with a group on retrofitting and upgrading an animal transfer station to serve as an emergency portable high-risk necropsy work area for non-human primates that may be infected with B-virus (a Risk Group 4 pathogen) and also jumped at the chance to learn more about the radiation safety section so he can help when needed. Todd served as the primary mentor for a New Haven Promise intern over the summer and continues to provide guidance as that intern has returned to EHS. It is evident that Todd deeply cares about his job at EHS and is respected as a valuable member of our team.