His efforts to better the communications department of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) have earned Brent Foster the recognition of State Employee of the Month for October.
Co-workers nominated him for the honor, saying he has worked to research how to more effectively reach out and educate the public on Missouri learning standards and other major department initiatives as well as DESE's mission and goals.
"Brent is a primary "go-to' person for many dese.mo.gov site management questions for the web maintainers team," said co-worker Lainie Strange. "He continues to take a lot of initiative when it comes to discussing site enhancements and ongoing training, including creating two Microsoft/Word PDF accessibility webinars he shared with staff. I know day-to-day website questions will be handled quickly and effectively by Brent and he escalates questions/problems to the web team when needed."
Strange said Foster was involved in DESE's site redesign in 2013 and launch in April 2014.
"Brent displayed a quick ability to learn new content management and dug right in to work on any tasks to keep the project moving on time," Strange said.
"Despite not working with the main group, he wanted to learn the basics and did so on his own initiative so he could fix minor code problems. He was an instrumental part of the team that worked to upgrade one of the largest websites in state government. At about the same time of the site launch, we had a large amount of DESE staff to train on the new content management system. After I compiled a basic how-to course to train the staff, Brent ran with the course material and trained DESE staff and continues to do one-on-one trainings when needed."
Missouri's State Employee of the Month is selected by the State Employee of the Month Selection Committee from among nominations submitted by the 16 state departments and some elected offices. The six committee members also are members of the State Training Advisory Council.