The Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach held a fall appreciation event Oct. 31 and presented awards to Laurel Clark, Emily Schattler and Brian Wrenn.
The Public Service and Outreach Staff Award for Excellence acknowledges individuals for their exceptional job performance, workplace creativity and innovation and commitment to service. The honoree receives a certificate, a cash award and an engraved crystal memento.
Laurel Clark is the communications manager for the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. In this role, she writes stories and produces print and digital materials to promote exhibits, events, education and research at the garden and works with the development team on stories that encourage private support.
Clark joined the State Botanical Garden staff in 2021, just before the launch of UGA’s first Winter WonderLights event, a holiday event that draws tens of thousands of families each year from across Georgia and the Southeast, as well as from other states and countries.
Clark managed a budget and marketing plan to introduce and generate ticket sales for the new event. Early on, she recognized the need for excellence in customer service and put in hundreds of hours to answer every call for information about the lights show. She assisted with ticketing and customer inquiries, and proactively aided in every situation to provide information needed to assure visitors questions were answered.
Without her significant effort, Winter WonderLights and the garden would not have been voted best local event for the past three years, and best family event in 2024, by the Athens area community and seen tickets sales consistently rise each year.
As the State Botanical Garden’s first full-time communications staff member, Clark has developed a robust social media strategy, redesigned the garden’s website, created a monthly digital newsletter, produced monthly feature stories, and redesigned and repurposed a printed newsletter as a quarterly magazine.
During her first few years, Clark’s tailored communication efforts contributed as outreach to a significant number of new visitors to the garden, people who were unfamiliar with the space and services it provides.
Clark last year led the garden staff in a crisis communications training with UGA Marketing and Communications, which resulted in the entire garden team becoming more prepared for a potential crisis situation.
“To say Laurel is a vital element of the botanical garden’s mission is an understatement,” wrote State Botanical Garden Director Jenny Cruse-Sanders in nominating Clark for the PSO Staff Award.
“Laurel is incredibly adaptable, creative, dedicated, and motivated to elevate the botanical garden’s standing in the state, nation and even worldwide through her stories, social media, support and amplification of the work being done both at the garden and beyond in research and outreach.”
Emily Schattler is a program coordinator in infrastructure and community resilience at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. In that position, she helps the institute acquire and manage federal grants, and leads strategic planning and budgeting for its Defense Communities Resilience Program, a partnership between UGA and Georgia’s military installations that strengthens their military and community resilience.
One of Schattler’s key projects has been helping to facilitate a $1.1 million agreement with Fort Moore to create an Intergovernmental Support Agreement with UGA to promote research and technical assistance at the Columbus, Georgia, Army installation and surrounding communities. That agreement, which allows for additional projects to be developed and funded for up to $50 million over 10 years, was instrumental in the development of a regional IGSA with the U.S. Army to serve eight additional military installations in the Southeast.
Emily has worked at UGA for 22 years. Prior to joining the infrastructure and community resilience team, Schattler was a business manager in the Institute of Government’s Finance and Administration Division and worked for the Georgia 4-H Foundation. She has extensive knowledge of federal grants, UGA budget processes and project development and reporting—knowledge she shares with institute colleagues.
The two IGSAs with the U.S. Army are significant partnerships developed by the division of infrastructure and community resilience and are a credit to Schattler’s diligent work with contacts at UGA, Fort Moore and the Department of Defense to make sure budgets were developed properly and that the hiring of new Institute of Government faculty and staff was handled smoothly and on time.
Schattler’s colleagues at the institute say she exemplifies the service ideal and is unflappable, handling stressful situations with intelligence, creativity and patience.
“I’m very grateful to Emily for all the work she has done to further this partnership because it is going to make a difference to our installation,” Brent Widener, chief of the Fort Moore Environmental Management Division-Department of Public Works. “You can tell she believes in the work. You have two very large organizations with a lot of rules and approvals, and everything must be done just right. Emily was always prepared and utterly diligent.”
Brian Wrenn is an instructional design program manager at the UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel who develops and designs online courses and events. Online programs are instrumental in allowing the Georgia Center to deliver on its education and outreach mission and support the organization’s financial well-being.
By collaborating with university faculty, subject matter experts, program coordinators and others at UGA, Wrenn develops high-quality online courses that unlock the university’s expertise, allowing for first-rate continuing education programming. His portfolio of courses includes market research, project management, grant writing, American Sign Language and Lean Six Sigma Green and Black Belt Certification, all serving hundreds of learners annually.
During the pandemic, Wrenn made additional substantial contributions to support the Georgia Center by helping shape the direction of digital learning efforts and an expansion into new business models through virtual conferencing services. Collaborating with a Georgia Center colleague, Wrenn developed a remote model to allow The Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) Conference to continue holding its annual meeting at the Georgia Center.
The conference, hosted by the UGA College of Pharmacy and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is widely recognized as the top international GMP conference in the world and provides the opportunity each year for 225 professionals, including regulatory agents, researchers and pharmaceutical companies to have open dialogues on important issues around drug compliance and quality.
Brian worked with the GMP to plan, develop and execute a remote conferencing opportunity, which was a resounding success. The online offering is now a staple component of the program and three years later it is a critical part of the Georgia Center’s annual service contract with GMP.
Brian “envisions the end goal and works with various people across the center to meet and often exceed our client’s expectations,” said Laura Raiford, lead for virtual initiatives for the continuing education department. “His passion and determination coupled with his willingness to help are evident in the projects he completes.”
At the appreciation event, 35 employees were recognized for their years of service including three faculty members celebrating 30 years at UGA – Paul Matthews (Office of Service-Learning), Shirley Reyes (J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development) and Jennifer Young (Center for Continuing Education & Hotel). Thirteen honorees received the Vice President Award of Excellence:
Scott Pippin & Shana Jones (Institute of Government) – Grants and Sponsored Programs
Johnathon Barrett & Jason Young (State Botanical Garden of Georgia) – Development
KT Cooke (Center for Education & Hotel) – Student Engagement
Sara Karlsson (Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant) – Overall Service
Beth Melnik (Small Business Development Center) – Evaluation and Assessment
Dan Lasseter (Institute of Government) – Scholarship
Experience UGA (Office of Service-Learning) – Overall Team
We Know Georgia (PSO Communicators) – Overall Team
Winter WonderLights (State Botanical Garden of Georgia) – Outstanding Event
Embark Georgia (J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development) – Outstanding Collaboration
Fishers of Men (Archway Partnership) – Outstanding Collaboration
