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Recognizing and celebrating team members across Barry-Wehmiller for their contributions to our vision of people and performance in harmony is not only the right thing to do, it is a fundamental value of our culture.

Through the Every Voice Matters cultural assessment many of you shared the desire to see more recognition, and in response to that we encourage everyone, everywhere, to join us here in highlighting all of the great things happening across Barry-Wehmiller.

This newsletter celebrates a variety of achievements across the globe and showcases areas of our BW Recognition & Celebration culture from the Bob Chapman GPL Award program, the Shine the Light Award program, and more!

Robin Norwood 

St. Louis, MO USA

We’re proud to announce that Robin Norwood, Director of Global Recruiting, is a recipient of the 2025 St. Louis Bob Chapman GPL Award! 

The Bob Chapman GPL Award recognizes and celebrates individuals whose thoughts, words and actions embody the tenets of our people-centric culture and who act as stewards of the Guiding Principles of Leadership every day by living up to all the Team Member Expectations and Commitments. During the celebration, the winner is joined by fellow team members and family and awarded keys to a unique vehicle (originally a yellow Chevy SSR) to drive for a week. While the distinctive car is a wonderful reward for the Bob Chapman GPL winner, it also serves to draw attention throughout the community to the winners’ contributions as inspirational leaders and team members who are helping to drive our vibrant culture forward to care for people and perform with excellence.

Barry-Wehmiller Nominators Paul Lapreziosa (R) and Brian Wellinghoff (L) shared:

“Year over year, Robin stands out as a champion for the development of those in her span of care, growth of her team and champion for the culture. This year was no different. In each of these three ways, she both brings out and celebrates the best in individuals while creating an environment of outstanding performance. She prioritized the individual development of team members, pushing several with stretch assignments to support growth, challenging current levels of performance to be more and better, and advancing those within her team and out of her team to take next steps in their career. Running concurrently, was her focus on team and working across the team, hosting listening sessions with all team members (in-person and remote), participating in a debrief (with reinforcing and constructive feedback) and prioritizing actions for improvement. Finally, she participated in the People Team TTI for Inclusion, advocating for the culture of BW, to creating a deeper sense of belonging by driving hiring leader training — both currently available and new developments. All the while doing so to recognize the fact that the first experience with the BW culture starts when you submit your application (NOT the moment you join). For these reasons, and many more, she embodies our culture of Truly Human Leadership.”

—Paul Lapreziosa, Senior Director – People Development

“Robin sees the person. In everything that she does. She sees each person as someone's precious child and her words and actions match that in every single moment. Her door is always open to be a listening ear, a thought partner or a collaborator on a detailed project. She takes special care to make sure that people feel included—on our floor, on our team, and through her role in recruiting, to our organization. Robin invests in people. She personally invested time in seeing that I was struggling with some internal projects, and she went out of her way to make me feel valued. She also does a great job aligning fun and impact. Robin gets things done—while building a sense of fun and energy for everyone around her. I also see Robin's commitment to helping people on her team develop—within their current roles and into future and other roles as well. If I could think of anyone that I could introduce to someone outside Barry-Wehmiller to help them know what it is truly like to be a part of our culture, I would introduce them to Robin.”

—Brian Wellinghoff, Senior Director – Leadership & Outreach

On behalf of the entire organization, we'd like to express our gratitude for Robin's exceptional contributions, which support us on our journey to achieve people and performance in harmony!

Three years ago, a group of recognition leaders gathered in Phillips, WI (USA), united by a shared vision: to reimagine how we celebrate and recognize excellence across BW. We knew that extraordinary things were happening every day throughout our platforms, divisions and sites - moments and achievements that deserved to be seen and celebrated. From that summit, the Shine the Light Award program was born - a global recognition framework designed to spotlight the everyday contributions that reflect the very best of who we are. Rooted in the core commitments that shape our culture, Shine the Light empowers team members to acknowledge one another in a way that is timely, meaningful and most importantly, peer-driven. 

Our goal was to design a program that would span across our organization, and we succeeded. In a short time, over 1,031 recipients have been recognized for exceptional contributions to People and Performance in Harmony, and the Shine the Light Awards have spotlighted some truly powerful moments and achievements:

• We've received nominations in all 12 languages across 20 unique countries
• 86% of nominators took BWU's "Listen Like a Leader" course which highlights many topics including how to give meaningful recognition using the FBI message
• 84% of nominations were peer-to-peer driven
• 32% of nominations came from team members in manufacturing roles
• 25% of nominees were located outside of the United States
• 9% of recipients are remote team members
• Celebrations took place across a variety of settings - on-site at our facilities, in offices, at client and customer locations, and virtually leveraging Teams

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to recognize a fellow team member for their outstanding contributions! We encourage you to continue visiting bw.care/shine to nominate those who exemplify our Team Member Commitments and go above and beyond in driving projects, initiatives, and our culture forward.

Park Robinson

Spokane, Washington USA

Alliance Nominator Trent Ibbetson shared:

"I want to express my immense gratitude to Park Robinson for continually stepping up and achieving project completion results. Park has dedicated his time to ensuring the projects are completed and meet the customer expectations time and time again this year. He has stayed after hours and come in on days off to meet the shipping deadlines due to incorrect parts or engineering change releases affecting the build cycle. Thanks to three projects in particular, we could maintain 100% on-time shipments for six months of the calendar year and improve our customer trust."

Ali Egertson

Bellingham, WA USA

Design Group Nominator Tim Genovese shared:

"I and the GMI/Blue Buffalo project team was very grateful to have Ali Egertson as part of our team. After 28 years with Design Group and having purchased hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and services over the years, I can truly say that Ali has made what is typically a challenging part of our projects look easy. The value she has provided the project is hard to measure (that is except for her direct support in securing over $500k of saving to the client through supplier discounts and improved shipping costs). Put simply, the equipment/component procurement process has been something that we as a leadership team have not had to be concerned with. From working with our team to establish the process, to adapting to a very challenging client and navigating tough supplier negotiations, Ali has been professional, consistent and timely in all she has taken on. Her work has freed up our engineers to do what they do best, design, not following up on payment terms, contract discussions, purchase order routing, etc... Ali has integrated extremely well with our team despite the time zone differences, she leads procurement meetings with the client and accepts their wrath for challenges typically beyond her control. Ali also understood and supported the addition of resources to support her when supplier negotiations and follow ups began to bog things down. Her buttoned-up processes and consistent documentation made it easy to bring additional resources up to speed to clear the log jam and get the project flowing smoothly again. I am a HUGE supporter of integrating "project controls" into how we execute projects. The value that cost accounting, scheduling and procurement support, done right, can provide our teams is in my opinion a step change opportunity for how we deliver projects. I would count Ali's support of BB/GMI as a major win in demonstrating that value to the broader organization. Ali - THANK YOU...for all you do!"

Gisela McGrail

Nottingham, UK

BW Flexible Systems Nominator Craig Davies shared:

“Gisela, it made me feel incredibly grateful and reassured knowing the team could count on you and your recent efforts have truly exemplified what it means to be a dependable and proactive team member. The work ethic that you consistently demonstrate and the way you stepped up to support our customers, especially during a time of heightened pressure, speaks volumes about your character and commitment. Your willingness to take on additional responsibilities without hesitation ensured that our operations remained seamless, and that no customer felt the strain of the challenges we were facing behind the scenes. This has had a lasting impact on our customers to whom you always offer the highest level of service despite the internal challenges that you faced. Your work ethic is marked by a rare combination of initiative, reliability, and empathy. You didn’t just fill in gaps, you anticipated needs, maintained high standards, and did so with a calm, solutions-focused mindset. That kind of dedication doesn’t go unnoticed. It builds trust within the team and confidence among our customers. What’s especially commendable is your flexibility and team-first attitude. Managing your own workload whilst facing unique challenges is no small feat, yet you handled it with grace and consistency. Your contributions have made a lasting impact, and we’re incredibly fortunate to have you on the team.”

Vince Houston

St. Louis, MO - USA

Design Group Nominator Patti Wright shared:

"Vince is always there to support the BW Design Group Team. He supports our team with all events and meetings that we host in the Better World Conference Room. He helps with moving furniture before and after blood drives and team meetings with remote and in person members. I can Teams him with a question about a meeting in another conference room and he takes time to stop and provide the answer. Always a great personality and always willing to assist. His customer focus for the BW Design Group team is great and very much appreciated."

Spotlight: This nomination was submitted by a Design Group team member to a Barry-Wehmiller Corporate team member who works within a different functional area!

Do you have an idea for a team recognition story we could highlight in our next newsletter? 

Send it to recognition@barry-wehmiller.com.