Financial Assurance named DEQ Team of the Year

Pictured from left: Jody Weikart, Gina Thompson, Tim Reed and Craig Hults. Not pictured: Frances Tormey, Drew Martin, Patrick Troxel, Richard Lemm, Craig McOmie and Mike Jennings.

CHEYENNE – The Financial Assurance Team was named the 2021 Team of the Year on May 16 for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.

The Financial Assurance Team includes the following employees:

Administration Division: Frances Tormey

Land Quality Division: Craig Hults

Water Quality Division: Gina Thompson

Solid and Hazardous Waste Division: Tim Reed, Drew Martin, Patrick Troxel, Richard Lemm, Jody Weikart, Craig McOmie and Mike Jennings

“This year’s Team Award winners have worked diligently to make our financial assurance (bonding) program and process highly effective and efficient,” said DEQ Director Todd Parfitt. “The team’s accomplishments are a reflection of the great staff within the agency. We are all grateful for the tremendous efforts and accomplishments of the Financial Assurance Team. “

Each year, Parfitt and his seven division administrators host an employee recognition reception to recognize the exemplary efforts of each division’s Public Servant of the Year nominees and to thank long-term employees for their years of service to the State of Wyoming.

The Financial Assurance Team is honored as the 2021 Team of the Year because the nominated teams are recognized for the high level of work they maintained throughout the previous calendar year.

Parfitt also addresses staff at the reception to update them on important work taking place within the agency and any events that may affect employees’ work.

The Financial Assurance Team earned the recognition through their work on a multi-year project focused on creating a consistent regulatory policy for financial assurance specific to each DEQ program.

The work involved several meetings with project managers who head up rule promulgations, assistant attorneys general and division staff members to answer comments and questions from the advisory committee and the Environmental Quality Council (EQC). It also required staff members to coordinate the financial assurance forms to show approval by the EQC and the Governor’s Office.

The work could not have been completed without extensive efforts to share information across DEQ divisions, as well as staff members’ institutional knowledge regarding the rule promulgation process, the financial assurance process and programs across the agency.

Alan Edwards, DEQ’s deputy director, said, “The recent rulemaking on financial assurance and bonding has been a multiple-year work in progress having started in 2015. This was a joint effort with positive participation by just about every division in DEQ.”

Edwards said that, as a result of the work, Wyoming now has a focused program to handle financial assurance that is standardized across all programs that have financial assurance requirements. 

“Wyoming DEQ has been recognized for this work at the national level as demonstrated by the fact that DEQ employees are often asked to teach financial assurance and bonding at national workshops,” Edwards said.

“This was an example of teams working proactively and effectively to improve agency operations.”

Agency administrators also recognized Steve Girt as DEQ’s 2021 Public Servant of the Year.

Other DEQ teams who were nominated for Team of the Year are:

Air Quality Division: Emission Inventory Team

Air Quality Division: State or Local Air Monitoring Systems (SLAMS) Team

Air Quality Division: Title V Team

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