The Office of Financial Affairs created a financial innovators award known as the Financial Affairs Service and Innovation Award to recognize those throughout the university who make significant and lasting contributions to the university through bold, innovative and creative approaches to common, everyday university problems.

The award is open to any university faculty, non-faculty, academic, administrative or skilled crafts/service/maintenance employees who bring forward fresh ideas that lead to process efficiencies, cost savings and/or increased productivity. Each quarter, one employee will be selected to receive the award, and then at the end of the calendar year an annual award winner will be selected from the four quarterly winners.

We are pleased to announce the Q1 2022 award winner as:

Becky Shoemaker Lingelbach

In December 2020, after a 35-year career with the U of A, Becky Shoemaker Lingelbach retired as the university's payroll director. As payroll director, Becky was responsible for ensuring the university's 7,500-plus employees were paid correctly and on time while also keeping the university in compliance with state and federal laws and university policies. After 35 years, Lingelbach had well-deserved retirement plans, which included plenty of quiet time at her cabin in the woods, expanding her succulent and African violet collections, and enjoying quality time with her family. But...

At the time of her retirement, the university was in the middle of a transition to Workday, the U of A System's new human capital and financial management system, and the payroll workload and challenges were considerable. Those who knew and had worked with Lingelbach were not at all surprised when, days after retiring, she unselfishly returned to work part-time for the university to help ensure that all quarterly and annual payroll tax reporting deadlines were met.

Next, she dedicated herself to helping with the decommissioning of the university's historical BASIS payroll data and filling in during a key payroll employee's maternity leave. Today, 15 months after her official retirement, Lingelbach continues to be a key member of the university's Payroll Department as she helps the university prepare for its upcoming transition from a monthly to a semi-monthly payroll. At some point in the future when she finally moves into her richly deserved retirement, everyone who has received a paycheck from the university will have been touched by her unselfish dedication over the past 36-plus years. Lingelbach's institutional knowledge, problem-solving abilities and pure dedication have been priceless, and it is for that reason that she is very deserving of the Q1 2022 Financial Affairs Service and Innovation Award. Please join us in congratulating Lingelbach!

If you know of an employee deserving of recognition for our next FASI award, we would love to hear about them. Please email your FASI nominations to either Sandy Sturgeon at sandras@uark.edu or Susan Slinkard at sslinkard@uark.edu.