This peer-nominated award is presented to employees who go above and beyond in their roles, all while upholding WIKA’s commitment to integrity, customer satisfaction, partnership, safety, continuous improvement, social responsibility, and/or excellence.
Established when WIKA was founded in 1946, core values are the standards by which WIKA measures itself and its employees. Thanks to employees’ commitment to these corporate values, WIKA has become a worldwide leader in industrial measurement technology. The company would not be where it is today without this dedication from within.
Employees who do more than expected are vital to WIKA’s overall mission of helping customers succeed through superior instrumentation solutions. This is why WIKA USA began the Core Value Award program two decades ago: to acknowledge employees for their hard work and dedication.
Corporate Core Values are Keys to Company Success
A peer-nominated program, Core Value Awards give employees a special way to thank their colleagues for doing extraordinary work. Recipients are recognized for making a positive impact on WIKA’s continued success. Each nominee is chosen for exemplifying one of seven core values:
- Integrity: Promoting ethical business practices
- Customer Satisfaction: Creating positive customer experiences
- Partnership: Encouraging collaboration in the workplace
- Safety: Maintaining a safe work environment
- Continuous Improvement: Improving WIKA policies and processes
- Social Responsibility: Improving the community and the world at large
- Excellence: Exceeding expectations in work that directly impacts company success
A committee composed of senior managers chooses the winners, who receive a plaque, monetary award, and – for those in the main WIKA USA campus in Lawrenceville – a designated parking spot.
Corporate Core Values Award Winners: June 2022
WIKA USA recognizes the following eight employees in four locations for exemplifying one or more of the company’s core values in June.
Photo above: WIKA Mobile Control recognizes three outstanding employees – Nicole Christy, Jake Shearer, and Sarah Nell – in Q2 2022.
Nicole Christy, Quality | Chambersburg, PA | Recognized for Customer Satisfaction
WIKA employees work fast, but Nicole recently performed a near miracle. Jim Kunkle writes, “At 3 p.m., Sales came to Nicole while she was performing backup CSR (customer service representative) duties and requested that an order be forced out to a client in order to replace a reel that they damaged the day before the crane had to ship. Nicole did what was required to get the reel shipped before 3:30 p.m., when shipping closes.” That’s awesome, Nicole! Thank you for doing whatever it takes to delight customers.
Jake Shearer, Warehouse | Chambersburg, PA | Recognized for Customer Satisfaction
Jake recently saved the day. Kevin Heefner writes, “During a time when our server wasn’t processing batch jobs (which our warehouse uses for pick sheets to print), there were a lot of orders that were in the queue to print that were going to cause poor OTD performance for our customers. Jake was asked to force print the orders that we knew we could ship. This exercise took an enormous amount of investigative work and an excessive amount of data entry to accomplish. It was good that Jake did this because we would never have been able to complete all the shipments that were in the queue to print had we waited until the batches were corrected. Thanks to Jake, all available shipments were completed on time.” Thank you for going above and beyond, Jake!
Sarah Nell, Marketing | Chambersburg, PA | Recognized for Excellence
Certain employees make everything run smoother. At WIKA Mobile Control, one of those people is Sarah. Gary Peck writes in his nomination: “Sarah recently worked with sales and finance to compile and distribute our new 2022 pricing to our customers. This task was outside of her typical role [as marketing manager], and Sarah went above and beyond to get this completed by the deadline.” Thanks so much, Sarah, for all that you do for marketing, sales, and finance!
Joseph Wrazen, Quality | Lawrenceville | Recognized for Integrity
Michael Zakas praises Joe for embodying several of the company’s core values. “While management has been away, Joe has stepped up and has been a very integral part of our department, showing not only integrity but also leadership. Joe works constantly to demonstrate and promote ethical business practices while also helping to keep our processes running smoothly. When a supervisor is absent, it can be difficult to uphold the same integrity you would have if they were in your presence. For Joe, this is not the case, and I believe he has exceeded the expectations of his role and demonstrated the true core values of WIKA.” We agree and are thankful you are part of the team, Joe!
Meredith Smith, UHP | Lawrenceville | Recognized for Customer Satisfaction
Meredith is a thinker and problem solver, an asset on any team. Steve Vinson writes in his nomination: “A socket in UHP (ultra-high purity) was changing dimensions, but the part number was to remain the same. We were to use up the old part, but these parts could not be mixed in an order. Meredith came up with the idea of closing the order short to end the cycle to the socket. So going forward, all other orders will be for the new socket.” Great work, Meredith!
Meredith Smith and colleagues
Leokham Chanthaboun, Manufacturing | Lawrenceville | Recognized for Partnership
A leader as well as a helper, Leo is one of the reasons that WIKA is a successful company. Stacy Rakestraw writes, “Leo is a welder for second shift cell 1860, the go-to person when there are any welding concerns. He is always willing to help his fellow team members and members from other cells. Leo never complains, even when most of the rework goes to him to be repaired. Leo has a good attitude and a good work ethic. He cares about what he does and he cares about the company. Leo uses his knowledge and experience to make sure that we send out a quality product.” Thank you for being a great colleague and your dedication to customer satisfaction, Leo!
Leokham Chanthaboun and colleagues
Christian Olivo, Inventory Management | Houston | Recognized for Partnership
Tomas Flores wants to acknowledge what an asset Christian has been. “Christian has been a hard worker since the day he started. He is reliable, fast-moving, and has a ton of initiative. It has been a pleasure having him onboard the inventory team.” Bravo, Christian! Thank you for all your leadership and collaboration.
Vasyl Tretyak, Manufacturing | Worthington, OH | Recognized for Partnership
Every facility would be lucky to have a problem solver like Vasyl on the team. Jim Siebold writes in his nomination: “Faced with an overloaded schedule caused by supply chain issues, Vasyl’s coordination with Planning and Process Engineering allowed maximum delivery of that backlog. This gave the team an opportunity to make headway on backlog OTD (on-time delivery).” Thank you, Vasyl, for being part of WIKA Sensor Technology!