The 2022 W. Y. Smith Award recipients are Ben Nemceff, Ivy Raysor and Susan Sizemore. Named in honor of General William Y. Smith, who led IDA from late 1985 through late 1990, the award recognizes extraordinary individual or group contributions to IDA from the wide range of non-research exempt staff members who contribute mightily to our success.

Ben, Ivy and Susan made significant contributions to the successful implementation of accurate, timely and accessible project financial reporting. The updated and enhanced reporting has enabled more trustworthy financial information be placed at the fingertips of our enterprise-wide stakeholders, ranging from project leaders to sponsors.

To meet today’s demands from the government contracts office, IDA needed to be more deliberate about managing project finances. Our legacy systems were challenged in keeping up with the newer requirements. Under Ben’s leadership, the team identified the need to upgrade the reports and over the course of the last year, scoped, defined and executed the project, which enhanced the accuracy of IDA’s project financial reporting.

The team rolled out the new project financial reporting, offering group and individual training. They launched the new reports in August 2022, running them parallel to the legacy reports through January 2023. Throughout this time, Ben held formal and informal feedback sessions with select leaders to ensure the reports met the needs of the divisions. As a result, he further enhanced the reports and invented new capabilities within the reports to make them more interactive, dynamic and user friendly.

It is with great pride that we recognize the tremendous accomplishments of Ben, Ivy and Susan with the 2022 W. Y. Smith Award.