Integrating clients’ needs with a targeted solution while developing a mutually beneficial partnership can be a challenge. Meet Trowbridge & Trowbridge, LLC (T&T), a Stevie® Award-winning, women-owned and -managed small business headquartered in the Washington D.C. area. Its innovative IT solutions include cloud computing, cybersecurity and unified communications services to the federal civilian, defense and health markets. The company has empowered cloud computing, information assurance and unified communications. That’s why it won the Gold and Silver Stevie Award for Best Support Staffer and Bronze for Best Support Team in the 2017 American Business Awards.

Center-stage talent

Not just another federal integrator, T&T provides agile, leading-edge technology solutions and support for the DoD and Civilian agencies. Tyrone Bachus is the Senior Director of Communications & Quality of T&T, and he’s excited about the spotlight on them and what it means to them.

“The impact was huge to raise the visibility of our quality initiative, which won two awards, and the extraordinary efforts of our Quality Manager who won the gold and silver, and was certainly part of our bronze award.”

T&T has been a longtime winner in the Stevie Awards—they were one of the first teams to win gold for Support Team with RS Information Systems.

It’s never ‘not interesting’

In the realm of government contracting, it's never a dull moment. With the changes in economy, the president and the focus on new agendas, service quality is more important than ever to keep the company on the right course. Bachus comments on what’s important to focus on.

“Quality is baked into the culture of our company, but with rapid growth comes an increasing influx of new staff, so it's imperative that they become part of our culture of quality as quickly as possible.”

They also make sure to encourage team building with quarterly cooking competitions and happy hours.

“If you see coworkers as people and not employees, you'll treat them with more respect and have a little more fun,” Bachus continues. “We also foster a culture of community enrichment and participate in at least one volunteering event as a group each year.”

Vibrant, dynamic and women-owned

T&T is a great example of a women-owned business providing amazing value in their community. Coming from an EDWOSB and growing through strategic hiring of intellectual capital, Bachus tells of the internal thought process that plays a big role in how they decide what needs to be nurtured and what needs to go.

“An exponential growth trajectory has forced us to focus on our staff and their growth and development. Multiple industry awards for culture, growth and Inc. 5000 placements have kept us in the public eye.”

As they continue to try and increase their expectations, communication is key among their staff. This comes in the form of an employee newsletter, monthly CEO and Values posts on their employee portal and quarterly all-hands meetings.

The Stevie Awards would like to recognize The 2016 American Business Awards Customer Service and Support Awards judging committee. These category groups are small but mighty. Learn a bit more about the professionals in these categories who will determine the Stevie Award winners.

There is still time to submit your nominations in the customer service and support awards categories. The final  entry deadline has been extended to Tuesday, April 19.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Judging Chair:

Steve Fulmer, Senior Vice President of Government Guaranteed Lending
First GREEN Bank, Orlando, Florida, USA

Steve Fulmer is the Senior Vice President of Government Guaranteed Lending at First GREEN Bank, a “local bank with a global mission” that endeavors to do the right thing for the environment, and the company’s people, community, and shareholders. Steve oversees all Small Business Administration and US Department of Agriculture Business Lending in Florida for the bank.

Steve has over 8 years experience in banking in Central Florida. He currently serves on the executive board of the Oviedo/Winter Springs Chamber and the steering chairman for Future Leaders of CREW Orlando. 

Steve has a Master’s Degree of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and is a US Army veteran.

Judging Committee:

Ricardo Barreras, Senior Manager of Efficiency and Effectiveness
Locus Telecommunications, LLC, Fort Lee, New Jersey, USA
Proud veteran of our U.S. Armed Forces and 25+ year veteran of the support industry, to include both front-line [retail sales] and back-office [administrative, operational and bi-lingual customer relations].

Emilia DAnzica, Senior Director, Customer Success
WalkMe, San Francisco, California, USA
Emilia DAnzica is the VP of Customer Engagement at WalkMe, the worlds first enterprise guidance and enablement platform. Her primary goal is to ensure customer success and to share customer stories.

Ana Degani Goes, Regional Director of Customer Service, Americas Region
DHL Express, Plantation, Florida, USA

Sandra Finn, President
Cross Country Home Services, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
Sandra Finn has been awarded numerous Stevie and other awards during her 15 year tenure as President of Cross Country Home Services, a national home services company. The companys success reflects her expertise in Marketing, Customer Experience, and development and execution of significant new products, clients, and technologies.

Vernessa W. Gates, Chief Compliance Officer
V & W Compliance Group, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Lisa Gregovich, Manager, Vendor Operations
Prime Therapeutics, Irving, Texas, USA
Lisa Gregovich is an experienced call center/customer service leader who has held leadership positions at a diverse selection of contact centers over the last 10 years, including Prime Therapeutics, Paychex (ePlan Services) and Time Warner Cable. Lisa has over 15 years of contact center and customer service experience. In addition, she has a MBA, serviced on the Board of Directors for CSAE and has been a judge for the Stevie awards since 2010.

Seth Hall, Vice President, Customer Service
Philadelphia Insurance Companies, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania USA
Experienced Service Operations leader with deep expertise in navigating change, leading larger service operations while realizing significant and sustainable results.

Batul Hasan, CEO
BSH Consultants, Karachi, Pakistan
Started my career as a Clinical Psychologist, taught at University of Karachi. With training in Business Management, moved to Unilever Pakistan and continued for 17 years. In 2004 started own Consultancy firm for Marketing Research which is growth to success.

Kevin Hegebarth, Vice President, Marketing
HireIQ Solutions, Inc., Alpharetta, Georgia, USA
Kevin is experienced in marketing technology solutions to improve the recruiting, hiring, performance, and quality of customer service professionals. He has held executive marketing, product management and business development roles with leading companies serving the customer contact market. He is a frequent contributor to industry publications and is a sought-after speaker at industry events.

Parag Jaripatke, Senior Systems Administrator
AOL, Inc., Ashburn, Virginia, USA
Result oriented professional equipped with 19 years of core Ecommerce, B2B and B2C domains. Background includes managing extensive critical top notch high end applications and systems spread across global infrastructures.

Deb Matthews, Vice President, Customer Experience
nexVortex, Herndon, Virginia, USA
Deb has extensive experience in both the telecommunications industry and customer care and helpdesks. Prior to joining nexVortex, she oversaw BAEs service desk, which was responsible for serving the needs of 53,000 employees all day, every day. She has worked at multiple telecom organizations including Neustar, Startec Global, and Teligent.

Thomas Moor, Global Director, Strategy and Planning
Sartomer, Exton, Pennsylvania, USA
With over 20 years of experience, developing strategy and leading global business teams in specialty chemicals, Tom brings a unique perspective to the judging process. Tom holds an MBA from Villanova University and has spent post-graduate time in executive education at Harvard Business School.

Lou Reinemann, Director, Customer Care and Documentation
SmartBear Software, Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
Lou has run service organizations with technology companies in the Boston area for over 25 years. With companies ranging in size from startups to Fortune 500 companies, he has built and lead pre- and post-sales technical service teams focused on outstanding customer service.

Kim Seney, Marketing Operations Excecutive
CSAA Insurance Group, San Francisco, California, USA
Kim Seney leads the Marketing Operations team at CSAA, a AAA company. Prior to AAA, she was Director of Operations at APS, responsible for the customer service needs of one million electric customers throughout Arizona, where her team received the 2005 Stevie Award for excellence in Customer Service and Communications.

Sunil Wadhwa, Vice President, Customer Success
Druva, Sunnyvale, California, USA

Teresa Waller, Broker / Owner
Blue Sky Telecom Brokers, Bakersfield, California, USA
Teresa is the Broker-Owner of Blue Sky Telecom Brokers, a company that takes a consultative approach to helping businesses choose the right Telecom or Cloud provider for their business. With over 30 years in the industry Teresa prides herself on making things a little easier for her clients.

The customer service awards categories to be judged are:

J01. Customer Service Department of the Year

J02. Customer Service Team of the Year

J03. Customer Service Executive of the Year

The support awards categories to be judged are:

R01. Support Department of the Year

R02. Support Team of the Year

R03. Support Staffer of the Year: recognizing non-executive support personnel, including office managers, administrative assistants, secretaries, maintenance professionals, etc.  There is no entry fee for this category

See the listing of all 2016 American Business Awards judging committees here.

Everyone likes free things. What is a trip to the dentist without the free toothbrush and floss? Costco samples? There are never enough. Free pizza in the office conference room? Everyone is there. This year The (14th Annual) American Business Awards is offering a slew of categories that do not have an entry fee. Yes, you read that right. Free entries for your chance to win a Stevie Award!

The only catch? The entry deadline is tomorrow, February 18. These are savings of up to $470. If your organization is in the U.S.A. and you're considering submitting nominations to the ABAs, now is the perfect time

.Late entries will be accepted through March 16 with the payment of a late fee. For the categories listed below with waived entry fees, the $55 late entry fee will still apply.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

The awards categories with waived entry fees are as follows:

Startup of the Year (for companies that began operations since January 1 2014). 
a. Business Product Industries
b. Business Service Industries
c. Consumer Product Industries
d. Consumer Service Industries

Tech Startup of the Year (for companies that began operations since January 1 2014). 

Energy Industry Innovation of the Year: This category recognizes singular innovations in energy-related technology, production, conservation, storage or delivery, by an organization or an individual in the U.S.A., since January 1 2015. 

For the 2016 competition we have introduced a variety of free categories to recognize individuals in various fields:

Communications Professional of the Year: for non-executive communications, PR, and IR professionals. 

Technical Professional of the Year: for non-executive technical professionals including software developers, web developers, technical writers, etc. 

Marketer of the Year: recognizing non-executive marketing professionals. 

Product Developer of the Year: recognizing all non-executive product development or management professionals. 

Support Staffer of the Year: recognizing non-executive support personnel, including office managers, administrative assistants, secretaries, maintenance professionals, etc. 

Entries in all of the awards categories listed above require:

1. An essay of up to 650 words describing the nominated organization's achievements since January 1 2015
   
   b. In bullet-list form (up to 150 words), a brief summary of up to ten (10) of the nominated organization's chief achievements since January 1 2015
   
   c. Optional (but highly recommended), a collection of supporting files and web addresses that you may upload to our server to support your entry and provide more background information to the judges

Remember, the first step to submitting a nomination is to review the entry kit. You can do so here.