2016 Employee of the Year: Dan Dvorett

September 19, 2017

Dan Dvorett, Water Quality Division Wetlands Specialist, was recognized as the 2016 Employee of the Year at the September, 2017 meeting of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. His nomination for Employee of the Quarter, which put him in the running for the annual award reads:

**Dan Dvorett accepts his Employee of the Year certificate from OCC Awards & Recognition Committee Chair, Karla Spinner, Commission Chairman, Deanna LeGrand and Executive Director, Trey Lam**.

Dan has proven himself invaluable over the last nearly 6 years by developing wetland proposals and project strategies, tracking outputs, and completing reports of high quality. He understands wetland systems and monitoring techniques, but he also embraces the overall objective of the wetlands program. Dan is a consummate team player, willing to operate as a member or leader.
He has lead wetland centric meetings and work group efforts which have led to the completion of high quality outputs. He is tactfully direct, efficient, and thorough.

We recently asked Dan to expand his role with OCC. First, Dan began representing OCC in various meetings and groups. Dan effectively relays information, but also actively represents OCC’s interests. In addition, Dan looks beyond OCC for partnerships and cooperative relationships which will continue to prove invaluable.

Second, Dan agreed to employ his analytical skills to assist Jean Lemmon in expanding the analysis of monitoring data for OCC’s implementation projects. The WQ Division had a plan of expanding analysis of the data from these projects beyond historical efforts. After suffering a reduction of technical staff, Jean’s crew had reached saturation of work duties. Dan was quick to give his time to a complex data interpretation in the Illinois River basin that required advanced statistical analysis. He took the time to ask questions and research advanced chemical interactions before starting to work with the result that we now better understand data collected over many years. On the day he was to explain his results to Water Quality staff, he ended up presenting the information on the spur of the moment in a meeting with our Region 6 EPA partners where he excelled. He is currently assisting with the final report.

Positive, willing, contemplative, creative, supportive, scientific integrity, the ultimate team player; these are the characteristics that make Dan Dvorett an excellent candidate for Employee of the Quarter.

Congratulations, Dan!