Classified Council selects one staff member each month to highlight his or her outstanding contributions to WNC. Anyone from the college can nominate staff for this award. Profiles of the staff members selected are sent to the President's Office and a special celebration is held in the spring to recognize the outstanding achievements of these staff.

Kristie Gangestad (June)

Kristie is a dedicated worker who constantly strives to improve her knowledge and expertise. She continues to take University extension classes in librarianship on her weekends off. She has learned new computer programs to enhance efficiency. If you give Kristie a job, you can count on it being done quickly and well. She is very organized and has a good relationship with other library employees. Her colleagues respect her work ethic immensely. She is also very pleasant to be around. Kristie has been employed at WNCC for approximately 15 years, starting as a student assistant and progressing up to a Library Supervisor. She received an AA from WNCC and has continued taking courses each semester to improve her knowledge base. She plans to continue her education at UNR in the near future. She has lived in Nevada for many years. She is married with three grown children.

Gayle Yesenskiy (May)

Gayle Yesenskiy has worked for Allied Health for nine years plus. She is the assistant to Mickey Wade, Director. Gayle ensures that all new and continuing nursing student applications, files and health records are up to date, assists faculty with ordering supplies, copying, typing exams, etc. She ensures that all department programs, policies procedures and courses offered are within the National League of Nursing guidelines for accreditation purposes. She is responsible for installing all nursing courses each semester within the system. Gayle is very organized and task orientated, which is "must" for all of the Allied Health programs. She assists with the preparations involved with the Pinning Ceremonies for each graduating nursing class. She insures that this ceremony is a memorable event for each and every graduate. She is very involved in coordinating and setting up pinning locations, ordering the invitations and pins, etc. Gayle sets an example for all WNCC employees by her professional manner and dress. She always demonstrates a cheerful, helpful attitude to all faculty and staff. Gayle started with WNCC in September 1991 as a clerical aide in the Academic Affairs Word Processing Center, being assigned to her current position in late 1992. She continues to take courses at WNCC to keep updated on the current computer skills. Gayle was born and raised in Indiana. She met her husband and best friend, Bob, while vacationing with friends in 1987. They married and moved to San Diego. They relocated to Dayton in the summer of 1991. Gayle has grown sons, Sean and Kevin. She has two wonderful and rambunctious grandson's--Dylan (5yrs) and Colin (3yrs)--that both she and Bob love to spend time with and spoil! In her spare time, Gayle loves to work on her stained glass projects in their new studio. She also enjoys indulging in Bob's very creative culinary skills. If there is any spare time, Gayle likes to shop and travel.

Brenda Cormier (April)

Brenda is an asset to WNCC in many ways. Among her many duties she works with the DSS program, which means she assists the many "special needs" students, note takers and Susan Hannah. She is always very pleasant and eager to assist anyone in any way she can. Her computer skills are "par excellent," she can always assist co-workers with most questions regarding many kinds of computer software. Brenda began her career at WNCC as a lab aide for Joy Keating, and was hired permanently in 1998. Brenda has received her Associates Degree in Business Office Administration from WNCC, however she continues to take courses in Criminal Justice. Brenda came to Carson City six years ago from Nova Scotia, Canada. She is a single parent of three children; Lindsay - 18 years old (a student at WNCC), Colin - 14 years old and Joseph - 10 years old. She has recently become the proud owner of a new home and most of all loves spending her spare time "bargain hunting" and looking for her car keys. She is fluent in French.

Monica Vezina (March)

Monica has been a tutor for the Fallon Campus and had proven herself valuable for a couple of years before the Fallon Campus decided to hire her full-time as a Management Assistant. Monica has been a self-starter, eager to accept responsibility and new challenges, cheerful with a good sense of humor, able to work well under stress, and skilled in many areas, especially on the computer. She has very quickly proven herself to be extremely helpful to all of the faculty and administrators and even stops to ask if there is anything she can do for us (rather than waiting until others go to her). Staff members have the fullest confidence in her because she is thorough and asks the right questions when needed. Monica has assisted in imputing the class schedule for the first time, and, after only one morning's training, she became very adept at performing this function. Her computer skills have been a tremendous asset, especially in assembling of reports into Excel spreadsheets and in the production of advertising flyers and display ads. She has assisted in preparing fliers for the art shows, helped hang artwork, taken over the Circumference responsibilities (the arts and literary publication Fallon publishes). She continues her pursuit of an associate's degree by taking WNCC classes and is raising four children.

Heidi Lynskey (February)

Heidi is a Program Assistant I and has worked at WNCC for over five years. She works in Arts, Sciences and Developmental Education and handles the book orders and travel for instructors. She always cheerfully assists instructors even with last minute changes in book requests and travel plans. She even is helpful when people forget make the appropriate request AT ALL until it's almost too late. Heidi is one of those amazing people who works as a team member. Many of us talk about working as part of a team, but Heidi actually went that extra mile and asked, not once, but numerous times, if she could help with the student evaluation process which at one point was seriously behind schedule. Heidi has received a degree in computers. Heidi is a single mother with one daughter, Kayla. She is engaged to be married soon.

Isabel Mezquita (January)

Isabel joined the BE Department on September 11th. Isabel has created no less than 500 files since that day. She has significantly changed the quality of service the ABE program provides. Isabel is very organized and has helped to tie up details in the ABE office. She has also learned the intricacies of the ABE program. For example, Isabel has learned how to administer the appropriate assessment exam to students and assist them accordingly. Isabel provides this program with one special quality. She is fully bilingual. Her presence has changed the environment in the office for a large segment of our student population. Isabel helps these students to be comfortable. She has enabled some students to attend the program's ESL classes by being the liaison between the Child Development Center and the student. Isabel helped these students to understand the paperwork process of enrolling their children in the center. She also made it possible for the WNCC spring schedule to contain correct Spanish print. Isabel is a positive role model for the Hispanic students in our program, as well as all the female learners that seek services in our office. She patiently helps students in our computer lab and celebrates with students when they pass their GED. Isabel serves on the Multicultural committee. She is always professional, has a warm smile and a gentle demeanor. We are very blessed to have her work in this office. Isabel began her service at WNCC as a work-experience student in May of 1998, graduated to a clerical trainee in February of 1999. Isabel was promoted to Administrative Aid in Manufacturing and Technology Services in July of 1999. The ABE Program was delighted when Isabel accepted the position of Administrative Aid with us in September this past year. Isabel is working towards obtaining an Associate Degree here at WNCC. Currently, she has 73 credits towards her goal. Isabel is married with three children: Michael, Victoria and Kevin. Isabel is from Guatemala and came to the United States when she was 13 years old. Isabel moved to the Carson City area in 1993.