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Past Recognition Notes

Last Update: by the Volunteer Coordinator

BCN is alive mostly due to the efforts of many wonderful people who have been working as volunteers. In this section BCN recognizes those volunteers whose efforts have shone as they have given their time, energy and talents to BCN projects.

Paul Tiger first came to the BCN as a information provider for fire departments in 1995. He soon took the position of Center Developer for the Emergency Services Center, and has been building technology relationships with Fire / Rescue & EMS for the BCN ever since. He has been working in Boulder County and nationally to bring fire and rescue services into the 21st century with the use of computer technology.

A former volunteer firefighter, Paul is now an active volunteer rescuer with the Longmont Emergency Unit; the president of the Friends of the Longmont Youth Center; spends time organizing and teaching computer technology to adults and children; and arranging donations of computers to deserving individuals and groups.

In the fall of 2001, Paul took on the role of Volunteer Coordinator for the BCN.

Marc Sobel joined BCN in Fall of 1998. He walked into the offices of BCN with a desire to contribute to Virtual Chautauqua. Virtual Chautauqua connects k-12 rural youth with performing artists via the interet. Marc knew he wanted to make a special contribution to this project and was very patient in explaining to BCN's nontechnical staff what he had in mind. Marc is recognized by BCN as being a 'Virtual Wizard' because of his vision and determination to build an interactive virtual performing artist museum teachers will use to create unique lesson plans from the Virtual Chautauqua material. There are maybe a dozen virtual museums on the web but this will be the first virtual performing arts museum.. We are extremely fortunate to have Marc's talents, skills and patience working on Virtual Chautauqua and teaching BCN Classes. On September 19th, 1999 Volunteer Connection and the Daily Camera recognized Marc as a Person Making a Difference in our community and selected him as the Volunteer of the Week!!. Click here for the story.

Phil Nugent, joined BCN in the Spring of 1999. Phil is a Boulder attorney who has an interest in the environment and technology. Phil volunteers with the Boulder Area Sustainability Information Network BASIN. He helps to organize the web architecture meetings. BASIN will be bringing real time relevant information about the Boulder watershed to the general public. Phil recently received an BCN appreciation award for 'Bat Cave Keeper' for finding the coolest place to hold BCN meetings., a brew pub. Phil also volunteers to help teach BCN classes and TekMatch projects, the most recent dealing with Y2K compliant issues. Thanks Phil for your work and dedication to BCN and the Boulder Community.

May, 1999 Roy Olsen and Don Kava Roy Olsen joined BCN in November of 1997 and works remotely from his home in Lakewood. He took on several significant tasks. First, he took on the daunting task of reorganizing and redesigning the BCN Community Center, making it much easier to find information on the community groups. Next, he made the idea of LINC - the Local Information Connection- a reality.

Over a year ago the Boulder County Department of Human Services and other agencies met to discuss how to have human services information current and available both for case workers and the general public. The Internet seemed an obvious medium, and over the course of the year Roy created the listings, a search mechanism and password protected updating system for over 200 agencies. This process was not without frustration and setbacks, yet Roy persisted putting in 600 hours. Roy, we recognize your commitment to BCN and thank you for all your work on LINC.

Don Kava, retired Rocky Flats engineer and proud grandpa, has been a BCN volunteer almost as long as BCN has been around. He helped set up and the public access computing facilities at the Kalmia Community Center in Boulder and the Louisville Recreation Center. Don is a mainstay in BCN's TekMatch program, working with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and other community organizations, as well as maintaining computers for public access at various sites around the county.

He received the award for "Outstanding Dedication by a BCN Volunteer," presented at gala Fifth Anniversary celebration on March 10th.

When he's not lending his technical skills to BCN, Don provides daycare for his two year-old granddaughter in Broomfield. "Now that I'm a babysitter, nothing fazes me," Don remarked cheerfully during a recent visit to the BCN office.

December, 1998 Dinah Deragisch and John Pope The Volunteer spotlights shine on Dinah Deragisch and John Pope. Both illuminate their talents upon BCN to make a difference in the Boulder community.

Boulder Community Network's home page has over 30 information centers. Dinah Deragisch updates one of our more active centers on Current Community Events. The center has information from festivals, library events, City of Boulder weekly government calendar, Longmont events, University of Colorado events calendar, 40 fun things to do in Boulder listing, Parks & Recreation events, Boulder Russian Roundtable, conferences, meetings, BCN public orientation (Internet/HTML) sessions, calendars and schedules from BCN member organizations, and movie listings. Truly the site is a one stop shopping center for what is happening in Boulder. It exists because Dinah actively seeks out what is happening from the web, newspaper clippings and e-mails. She uses her skills in HTML web design and UNIX programming to keep the Boulder community up to date on the events of the day. Send events you want to publicize to Dinah Deragisch .

Dinah volunteered at BCN when she was looking for a way to contribute to the community even though she is home-bound with multiple sclerosis). Dinah works from home as a technical writer and technical support. Dinah says "Working at home has its advantages nonetheless, and I have the time to volunteer when I didn't have the time before with two good, working legs. I am proud to volunteer for an organization that provides such a comprehensive service to our community." Dinah is also a webmaster for Burbank Middle School where her son goes to school.

John Pope has spent hours upon hours working with the Family Learning Center to provide ongoing support for their computers. He helped to instal their computer, teach people how to use them and how to choose an Internet Service Provider. He serves on BCN's Technical Advisory Committee that help to answer the most complex of BCN's clients questions. He rides his bike, loves chocolate and enjoys the community BCN offers.

We are glad to have both on board and always excited to have new volunteers. BCN also acknowledges all our volunteers who contribute to BCN's success. Our classes, center sites, tech support and web development, which are important to brining technology to the community, could not happen without VOLUNTEERS! Thanks for making a difference!!

Fall, 1998

Pierre Malraison and Deborah Flack. Both are fairly new to BCN, but are super contributors. Pierre brings his expertise as a software engineer to oversee the Communications Center and Deborah contributes with web design. She built the Easter page and team designed the Passover page with Art Rifkin.

Pierre moved to Boulder from California and discovered BCN while searching for information about Colorado, before he decided to move here. He is a Senior Software Engineer with Spatial Technology and a member of the HTML Writers Guild. Pierre grew up in Mt. Vernon, NY, is married 27 years, and now enjoys on his second half-century! He likes T'ai Chi, square dancing, M&M peanuts and Chinese Philosophy. If you want to learn more about Pierre or just want to look at an awesome picture of the Lagoon Nebula, check his home page.

Deborah doesn't have her own webpage...yet...but is on her way to becoming "Java Queen." She lives in Wheatridge, is a mom, attends Red Rocks Community College and puts her schoolwork to good use with BCN. Before running her husband's Internet computer business, Silicon Moon. Deborah worked in Psychology and Substance Abuse Counseling. She is an avid history buff and spent time in college working for the Forest Service on a 10,000 year old Bison kill site in Nebraska.

Many thanks to Deborah and Pierre!

February, 1998

Thanks to the efforts of Matt Arnold, BCN has a new logo! Of course the logo is used on our homepage, but is also used in our new brochure, done by Candice Bartholomew, and all BCN letterhead and marketing materials.

BCN held a logo design contest in December, and Matt's design was chosen out of 8 entries. Matt has his own design/communications business and can be reached at marnold@mt-muse.com.

Both Matt and Candice patiently accepted several revisions to their work from BCN staff and met critical deadlines despite working full time. Their efforts will help us in marketing BCN to potential donors and to attract new volunteers.

Many thanks to Matt and Candice!

January, 1998
Over the past couple of years, Steve Olshansky has served the BCN office in the capacity of technical guru, system administrator, and overall guardian of the BCN server. BCN wouldn't be able to help other nonprofits with their technical problems without the assistance of dedicated people like Steve.

In addition to his many guru responsibilities, Steve has also overseen the development of the BCN Government and Political Centers. During the last two local elections, he developed BCN's popular Election Central, which featured candidate and issue information on-line for all of Boulder County. Election Central was publicly recognized in the media as a powerful tool for making election information readily available to the voting public.

Many thanks to Steve!

December, 1997

Since joining us as a volunteer just last month, Roy Olsen has made a couple of significant contributions to BCN, all while working remotely from his home in Lakewood! First, he took on the daunting task of reorganizing and redesigning the BCN Community Center, making it much easier to find information on the community groups. Next, he created a search mechanism to make it easier for agencies and their clients to find information through the Boulder LINC directory of human services.

We would also like to recognize Todd Edmands, longer-time BCN volunteer and McIntosh guru. In addition to working on the Boulder County Prevention Connection website and tending the BCN office Macs, Todd willingly made time, the evening before Thanksgiving, to go to the Family Learning Center to evaluate their systems for an emergency upgrade.

November, 1997
Since she began volunteering a few short months ago, Marnie Lowrey has made the time to volunteer as an assistant in one of our free public Internet orientation classes, help with volunteer screening and produce the new Project Self-Sufficiency website, all while working full-time in a busy IS department. Her enthusiasm and commitment to any project she takes on are evident in all her contributions to BCN. Many thanks to Marnie!

October, 1997
Audrey Block and Lisa Grant were key in helping the League of Women Voters of Boulder Valley get their website up and running in time to inform voters for the November elections. Thanks to their dedication, Boulder voters now have web access to a Directory of Elected Officials, Voter Registration information and the Text and Analysis of Local Ballot Issues. Many thanks to Audrey and Lisa!

March/April, 1997
Diane Fellshas been a BCN volunteer from the early days. She started out with many of the seniors learning the basics of HTML during evening sessions in the CNS computer lab and afternoon visits to the BCN office. Since those times, Diane has become a regular on HTML projects. As she turns one project in she often announces, "I'm ready for another one."

Diane has also pitched in on many office projects. She has done everything from stuffing envelopes to putting together with great care the BCN scrap book which became part of the 1994-96 NTIA grant report. She continues to assist at public orientations. And most recently she accepted the responsibilities of coordinating the public orientations for us while Linda Barr is away on family leave. Diane has shown the same attention to detail in her coordinator position as she has to all the projects we send her way. What would we do without you, Diane?

Chris Vinall, May 1997
Chris Vinall was critical to making sure BCN had a spot at the Boulder Creek Festival. He "bartered" with Creek festival staff to secure us a great location and tent set up. Among other projects, Chris developed the Boulder Creek Festival web site. He is is working on developing the script behind an on-line survey. Thanks Chris!

January/February, 1997
Kari Nelson was critical in getting the ideas about the One-Stop Career Network into a catchy web page format that received five long distance e-mail "wows" within hours of making its public debut. Kari met with members of the One-Stop consortium and helped bring their ideas into electronic "reality". In addition, Kari worked on the League of Women Voters project and with the YMCA. She has been a BCN volunteer for more than a year -- and we hope she continues to share her talent and creativity with BCN.

Wayne Zellner is one of those volunteers who we can always count on. He has been a tremendous asset as a volunteer technical assistant making many on-site visits. His patience with novice users keeps them requesting Wayne when they need more help. At a recent meeting of human service folks, the Director of Senior Services, Michelle Waite, said: "If you need help, call Wayne!" (Peggy Rueda, OSCN Coordinator, pulled back the reins on that one so Wayne would not be overwhelmed.)

Fall, 1996
Mike Lewinski is one of BCN's newer volunteers who has jumped in with both feet running. Mike is the BCN liaison for September School and Acoustic Cafe. He helped get September School connected on a frame relay network. Since then he has spent countless hours troubleshooting as the lab has gotten up to full speed. He did such a great job that he is now a paid consultant for September School. In addition Mike has done some troubleshooting for the Family Learning Center and has become BCN's resident McIntosh guru.

Bob Rosenberg has been a senior BCN volunteer since its early days. Bob has been a wonderful community trainer. He instructs our community orientations and has more recently taken on other Internet education forums. Bob has spearheaded our new public access site liaison program. He is the "guardian angel" for three sites: Louisville Senior and Recreation Center, Louisville Chamber, and Superior Municipal building. He keeps an eye on these sites and makes sure that they are "technically healthy" -- and he lets us know when they are not! In addition, Bob has worked with site staff to coordinate one-to-one on site training for community members. What initiative!