Taylor, of nursing services,
named '97 Gonda Employee
Connie Taylor, coordinator of nursing services policies and procedures, stepped to the podium in front of a crowd of some 650 Stanford Health Services employees, physicians and guests on May 20 to become the 1997 Thomas A. Gonda Employee of the Year.
Now in its 37th year, the annual awards ceremony filled what is probably the largest banquet hall on the Peninsula - at the Hyatt Rickeys in Palo Alto - with music, food and celebration. The ceremony honors not only individual employees but also, for the past several years, an outstanding department that exemplifies SHS' standards of excellence. This year's Malinda S. Mitchell Award for Service Quality went to Pharmacy Services, an innovator in developing patient-friendly services and information systems that improve care while also helping to control costs.
Individual awards for employees who have contributed 35 years of service were presented to seven persons. Longevity awards were also presented for other five-year benchmarks. The largest of these groups included the 349 employees cited for five years of service.
Those who nominated Taylor for the Gonda Award praised her ability to develop complex administrative procedures while understanding how to adapt them to deal with their impact on people. "She has the uncanny ability of being able to think of every system and every person that will be impacted by a proposed change, and gets all the pieces to fit together seamlessly," wrote one nominator, whose comments were quoted by Laurel Gunderson, director of nursing, in a speech preceding the announcement of this year's winner.
Following Gonda tradition, Gunderson's speech began by describing ever-more-specific details about Taylor, without naming her until the end of the presentation.
Taylor started at Stanford Hospital as a staff nurse in D-2, intermediate intensive care, in 1980. She served as an assistant nurse manager and staff nurse before being promoted in 1992 to her current post in nursing administration. Taylor reviews and helps develop policies and procedures, as well as the forms and other documentation detailing the responsibilities and activities that occur on nursing units and other departments throughout the hospital.
A native of Nebraska, Taylor attended college with the hope of becoming a math teacher, "then decided that being a math teacher and taking all that algebra and calculus was not quite as exciting and fulfilling as she expected it to be," Gunderson said in her speech.
"She chose nursing because she thought it would come in handy in her future role as a mother and wife. I'm sure it has been handy for her, her husband and two sons," Gunderson said.
In addition to the Gonda Award - named for a former hospital
director and psychiatry department chair - five special awards were
presented to employees for excellence. The recipients were Karen
Boudin, in-service instructor, respiratory therapy; Anna Dapelo,
clinic operations specialist, clinic administration; Jeffrey
Inokuchi, clinical pharmacist, inpatient pharmacy; Linda Rodriguez,
manager of client accounts, Information Management Technology
client services; and Frank Tanaka, assistant manager, general
accounting. SR