AgriLife Extension team receives Superior Service Award

COLLEGE STATION – The Evaluation Support Team comprised of four veteran Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service personnel have received a Superior Service Award in the team category.

The team members are Marvin Ensor, regional program leader-agriculture and natural resources, West Region, based in San Angelo; Paul Pope, Extension program specialist III, Organizational Development, College Station; Jeff Ripley, AgriLife Extension organizational development specialist, College Station; and Ron Wooley, regional program leader-agriculture and natural resources, East Region, Stephenville.

The award was presented Jan. 8 during AgriLife Extension’s Centennial Conference in College Station.

The award nomination stated that credible evaluation data are critical for determining program effectiveness, guiding subsequent program improvement efforts and demonstrating impacts to various stakeholders who engage with and/or support AgriLife Extension.

“Evaluation is an integral part of AgriLife Extension’s program development process,” wrote Bryan Davis, AgriLife Extension agent in Wilson County in his letter of support for the team nomination. “It’s all about gathering information on programs so that as an agent and as an educator, I can make decisions to make my county programs stronger and more far-reaching. The Evaluation Support Team within Organizational Development is dedicated to helping me optimize my programming efforts in my county and region. They provide support in all aspects of evaluation including planning, data collection, data analysis, interpretation and reporting.”

Shane McLellan, AgriLife Extension agent in McLennan County, echoed many of Davis’ sentiments in his support letter as well, but added economics into the mix.

“An important aspect of agriculture-related evaluation is economic impact,” McLellan wrote. “Through our evaluation process we can place a dollar value on the information that is presented and adopted as a result of our educational programming efforts.

“When someone asks me ‘are AgriLife Extension efforts worthy of my support?’ (thanks to the team’s work) I can very easily produce the evaluation results that illustrate our effectiveness and accountability success.”

           Superior Service Awards recognize AgriLife Extension faculty and staff members who provide outstanding performance in Extension education or other outstanding service to the organization and to Texans.

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