Employee of the Month – August

Fridays are already everyone’s favorite day of the week, but August’s Employee of the Month found a way to make a fun day even better. Cory Axtman is known as a focused and driven member of Team PUD, but that doesn’t mean the Program Manager can’t help his team let loose and have a little fun.

A few years ago, Cory started Flamingo Shirt Fridays, where he would always wear a flamingo dress shirt. He has several options for Fridays and enjoys using them to bring fun to his work group. But along with flamingos, Cory brings his knowledge, teamwork and an open mind to all of his work at the PUD.

“Cory is a team player,” said his manager, Shauna Boser, Senior Manager of Customer Experience. “When Cory started at the PUD, he was part of our Quality Assurance Team. We previously didn’t have a quality program for our CSRs, and he helped the team build it from the ground up. He’s willing to support in anything that’s needed. Even if it’s something he might not have a ton of background knowledge in, he’ll do a deep dive to learn about it so he can help the group.”

Cory recently became his group’s subject matter expert on the new phone systems. He learned all about the configuration and researched potential issues that might come up.

“Cory is a phenomenal member of our team,” said John Hoffman, AGM Customer & Energy Services. “He is currently leading our support of Five9 and has been gathering feedback for continuous improvement of the product. He also was a key member of the team that brought card payments to the Front Line and Community Offices, which has made a significant improvement in the customer experience. Cory has such a far-reaching impact across the utility because he’s always so willing to step in and help out wherever needed.”

Cory is a stellar collaborator, working with several teams on high-impact projects. His main focus is supporting the Five9 product, which handles all of the incoming Call Center phone traffic. Jeff Beyer, Applications Configuration Engineer, who works closely with Cory is thankful for his attention to detail and his feedback.

“Cory was instrumental with implementation of the Five9 contact center project. From designing, testing, troubleshooting, writing instructions for all the CSRs, Cory did an amazing job putting it all together,” Jeff said. “He is so easy to work with and is very results-oriented. When I look back at all of the chat interactions in Teams, I’m constantly responding ‘Good Catch.’ He has a great understanding of how things work.”

“What’s great about Cory is he’s open to feedback and other perspectives,” Shauna added. “Even if he’s knowledgeable in something, he’s open to hearing other viewpoints and really looks at the big picture to make sure we’re collaborating well with different groups.”

Cory enjoys traveling with his family and recently took trips to Niagara Falls for the recent eclipse, a road trip through Banff and Glacier National Park and to San Francisco. He also loves to cook. Cory loves making comfort food, as well as new, adventurous tastes to help him decompress after a long week of work.

“I’m not sure if he celebrates Flamingo Shirt Fridays while working from home, but I sure hope so,” Shauna said.

Cory wanted to express his gratitude to his team, and to everyone he gets to collaborate with across the PUD.

“Thank you to all the people who have helped support me over the years,” Cory said. “So many co-workers from Customer and Energy Services, ITS, Data and Analytics, and others have helped me learn and understand PUD systems and processes, which has allowed me to find successes. It may sound cliche, but it really does take teamwork to make the dream work!”