Category: Accolades
Photo by Richard Hurd
Oak Bank: Bob Gorsuch Honored With 2021 WBA Leaders in Banking Excellence
Bob Gorsuch Honored With 2021 WBA Leaders in Banking Excellence
Gorsuch is the longest-serving bank CEO in Fitchburg and Madison.
Fitchburg, WI – A career in banking wasn’t a childhood dream, but Oak Bank’s CEO Bob Gorsuch says he is blessed to have 57 years of experience in banking (and counting).
“I am one of those people who doesn’t feel like I go to work every day – I love what I do,” said Gorsuch. “The moment it starts to feel like work is when I will retire.”
The Wisconsin Bankers Association (WBA) honored Gorsuch, along with four others, with the 2021 Leaders in Banking Excellence award on October 29 during the WBA recognition luncheon.
“Over the last five decades, Bob helped shape what local banking looks like today and has made a significant impact on the lives of employees, clients and the community,” said Ken Thompson, WBA Chair. “Bob has been a tremendous leader and paved the path for others to follow in his footsteps by encouraging professional growth and community involvement.”
Gorsuch, the longest-serving bank CEO in Madison-area, began his career in 1964 at First National Bank & Trust, Co. in Marquette, Michigan, where he served as cashier and eventually vice president. In 1975, at the age of 32, Gorsuch moved to Wisconsin where he became president and CEO at Park Bank. He fulfilled his dream of opening a bank that provided the personal touch every client deserved by starting Oak Bank in Fitchburg in 2000.
“The human element makes the difference,” said Gorsuch. “That’s what community banking is all about. We go above and beyond our clients’ expectations here at Oak Bank by taking the time to listen and understand their needs. This helps us develop creative solutions that other banks may not take the time to do.”
Under Gorsuch’s leadership, Oak Bank has grown from just an idea in 2000 into a $420 million community bank employing 40 individuals. Oak Bank supports the growth of local businesses, helps area residents achieve their homeownership dreams and has been instrumental in the development and prosperity of the City of Fitchburg and its surrounding communities. In fact, Oak Bank joined other financial institutions across Wisconsin over the last year in processing a collective total of 33,000 Paycheck Protection Program loans worth a combined $2.2 billion.
“I have known Bob throughout my entire 30-year career at WBA and he remains as passionate and energized about community banking today as he was 30 years ago,” said Rose Oswald Poels, WBA president and CEO. “His commitment to the communities his bank serves, as well as his dedication to many of his personal passions, notably JDRF, epitomize the essence of community banking. It is an honor to recognize Bob and the four other bankers for being true ‘Leaders in Banking Excellence’ in the state of Wisconsin.”
Gorsuch’s community involvement runs deep. He has been treasurer for several church organizations, president of South Madison Rotary, president of Community Bankers of Wisconsin and a WBA Board member. Gorsuch was inducted into the WBA 50-Year Club in 2015 and was recognized by Community Bankers of Wisconsin as “Banker of the Year” in 1990. He is heavily involved with JDRF, has served on the Fitchburg New Economy Technology Team and contributed to the Wisconsin Academically Challenged and Talented Youth organization. Through Bob’s leadership, Oak Bank and its staff support more than 125 local nonprofits throughout the year through time, talent and donations.
“Bob truly leads by example,” said Terry Taylor, President at Oak Bank. “Bob lives Oak Bank’s ethos and sets the tone for not only how we treat our clients but also how we engage with the communities in which we live and work. He is very deserving of this honor.”
Gorsuch’s plaque is now on display at the WBA headquarters in Madison on the WBA’s Leaders in Banking Excellence Wall to serve as inspiration to others. This is the second year WBA has honored current and former bankers, bestowing the designation to 12 recipients last year. Click here to read more about the recipients of the WBA Leaders in Banking Excellence.
About Oak Bank
Founded in 2000, Oak Bank is celebrating nearly 22 years of deep roots in the Fitchburg community and Madison area. The community bank meets the financial needs of homeowners and businesses by offering top-notch service, quick answers and unique solutions, all while supporting over 125 local nonprofits each year. Visit oakbankonline.com to learn more.
Photos attached:
- Bob Gorsuch Receives Award – Pictured: Rose Oswald Poels, WBA president and CEO; Bob Gorsuch; Ken Thompson, WBA Chair
- WBA Leaders in Banking Excellence Wall
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Photo by Richard Hurd
WPS Health Solutions nationally recognized for culture excellence
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
DeAnne Boegli
Vice President of Communications
608-512-5754
deanne.boegli@wpsic.com
WPS Health Solutions nationally recognized for culture excellence
MADISON, Wis.—Oct. 27, 2021—WPS Health Solutions was named one of the recipients of 2021 Top Workplaces for Remote Work and 2021 Top Workplaces for Work-Life Flexibility as a part of the October 2021 Top Workplaces National Awards. Both culture excellence awards were given in addition to WPS earning a Top Workplaces honor by the Wisconsin State Journal earlier in March 2021.
The honorary list is based solely on employee feedback through a survey by Energage, an employee engagement technology company. The anonymous survey measured 15 culture drivers critical to the success of any organization, including alignment, execution, and connection. More than 2,300 WPS employees participated in the survey at the end of 2020. Employers that scored high enough were recognized as Top Workplaces.
For the national awards, employers were categorized by size and then, based on data from 70,000 organizations and 23 million surveys, Energage evaluated organizations against industry’s most robust benchmarks.
The Top Workplace for Remote Work celebrates the Top Workplaces whose workforce consists of at least 50% of survey respondents being “mostly remote” or “fully remote.” Only 3% of companies were given this award.
The Top Workplace for Work-Life Flexibility is given to companies whose employee surveys indicated and confirmed they were provided the flexibility they needed to maintain a healthy balance between work and their personal lives.
“We are honored to receive two 2021 Top Workplace Culture Excellence awards for Remote Work and Work-Life Flexibility. At WPS, our performance-based culture is one where our people’s great work and innovations are seen, fueled, and rewarded,” said Moira Klos, Human Resources Senior Vice President. “One way we accomplish this is by providing employees with the flexibility, support, and autonomy they need to be productive, engaged, and healthy. Cultivating an adaptive work environment results in a healthier, more resilient workforce.”
For more information about the October 2021 Top Workplaces National Awards, please visit topworkplaces.com/october-2021-awards-reveal.
About WPS Health Solutions
Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS Health Solutions), founded in 1946, is a nationally regarded benefits administrator for a variety of U.S. government programs and a leading not-for-profit health insurer in Wisconsin. WPS Health Solutions serves active-duty and retired military personnel, seniors, individuals, and families in Wisconsin, across the U.S., and around the world. WPS Health Solutions, headquartered in Madison, Wis., has more than 2,800 employees. Within the enterprise, there are three divisions: WPS Government Health Administrators, WPS Military and Veterans Health, and WPS Health Insurance/WPS Health Plan/EPIC Specialty Benefits. For more information, please visit wpshealthsolutions.com.
About Energage
Energage is a Certified B Corporation that helps organizations measure, shape, and showcase their culture to build a sustainable competitive advantage. Through its fully unified SaaS platform, plus support and professional services, Energage customers are successfully recruiting and retaining the right talent for their organization by building, maintaining and branding their unique culture. Having launched the industry’s first employee engagement survey in 2006, Energage draws on the employees’ feedback collected through the leading employer recognition program—Top Workplaces—to maintain the industry’s most robust workplace culture benchmarks.
Photo by Richard Hurd
WPS Health Solutions recognized as one of the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® Awards ‘Elite 8’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
DeAnne Boegli
Vice President of Communications
608-512-5754
deanne.boegli@wpsic.com
WPS Health Solutions recognized as one of the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® Awards ‘Elite 8’
MADISON, Wis.—Oct. 22, 2021—WPS Health Solutions today announced its recognition as one of the “Elite 8” companies within the 2021 Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® Awards, which celebrate the top 50 employers that make engagement, alignment, and recognition central to the employee experience.
The coveted Elite 8 recognition is given to the companies that most exemplify one of Achievers’ Eight Elements of Employee Engagement™ used to evaluate the most engaged workplaces: Accountability & Performance, Belonging, Equity & Inclusion, Culture Alignment, Manager Empowerment, Professional & Personal Growth, Purpose & Leadership, Recognition & Rewards, and Wellbeing.
“With employee resignations and labor shortages plaguing the workforce, it has never been more important for companies to commit to improving the employee experience,” said Jeff Cates, CEO and president at Achievers. “The number of submissions we received for the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® Awards proved not only that employers understand this need, but also shows their willingness to put people first during a crisis. The Elite 8 have exemplified what it looks like to be an employee-first company, and I want to congratulate them on both the well-deserved award and their dedication to their employees.”
Sara Siekierski, Talent Development Manager, said, “This award is affirmation of the effort and attention we’ve placed on our culture over the last several years. Our performance-based culture fosters an empowering employee experience where employees contribute to their highest ability and results in a meaningful impact on our business.”
The Elite 8 and Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® Award winners were officially recognized during the annual awards gala held virtually on Oct. 21, 2021.
The full list of 2021 Elite 8 winners are:
- Insight Enterprises for Accountability & Performance
- Cadillac Fairview Corporation for Belonging, Equity & Inclusion
- WPS Health Solutions for Culture Alignment
- Herbalife Nutrition for Manager Empowerment
- Discover for Professional & Personal Growth
- Air Canada for Purpose & Leadership
- Meijer for Recognition & Rewards
- Lloyds Banking Group for Wellbeing
For more information about Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® Awards, please visit achievers.com/engaged. Follow the conversations on Twitter at @Achievers or use the hashtags #Achievers50.
About WPS Health Solutions
Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS Health Solutions), founded in 1946, is a nationally regarded benefits administrator for a variety of U.S. government programs and a leading not-for-profit health insurer in Wisconsin. WPS Health Solutions serves active-duty and retired military personnel, seniors, individuals, and families in Wisconsin, across the U.S., and around the world. WPS Health Solutions, headquartered in Madison, Wis., has more than 2,800 employees. Within the enterprise, there are three divisions: WPS Government Health Administrators, WPS Military and Veterans Health, and WPS Health Insurance/WPS Health Plan/EPIC Specialty Benefits. For more information, please visit wpshealthsolutions.com.
About Achievers
Achievers’ employee voice and recognition solutions bring your organization’s values and strategy to life by activating employee participation and accelerating a culture of performance. Achievers leverages the science behind behavior change, so your people and your organization can experience sustainable, data-driven business results. Visit us at www.achievers.com.
©2021 Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Photo by Richard Hurd
Mitchell International Honored with 2021 Innovation Award by Naviant
Media contact:
Jenifer Hein | +1 888.686.4624 | JHein@Naviant.com
Mitchell International Honored with 2021 Innovation Award by Naviant
SAN DIEGO, CA; SYRACUSE, N.Y.; VERONA, WI.; MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, OH; OREM, UT — September 15, 2021 — Mitchell International, Inc., a leading smart technology company that simplifies and optimizes P&C claims handling, headquartered in San Diego CA, was honored by Naviant Inc Wednesday morning at the 2021 Naviant Summit for its outstanding achievements in Digital Transformation. Mitchell International was awarded the 2021 Innovation Award and recognized for its creative and highly successful innovative uses of OnBase document management and ABBYY capture solutions.
The criteria for the prestigious Innovation Award are based on how the solution has changed the way the organization does business, the return on investment, and the extent to which the organization is using the solution to meet broader organizational goals. Additionally, the award’s criteria consider the level of innovation and creativity present in the organization’s development, use, and vision for the solution.
Mitchell International, a leading expert in the P&C industry that enhances and accelerates claims processes for more than 300 insurance companies through its comprehensive software and service solution portfolio, was awarded for its creative, expansive use of its OnBase and ABBYY intelligent process automation solutions. Before implementing these solutions, the company relied on a manual, time-consuming process to meet its clients’ needs regarding outsourced bill review, which inhibited productivity and delayed response times.
Today, Mitchell International uses Document Management to OCR capture and classify documents like bills and set up and manage user roles. Mitchell International has also used it as a user-friendly online portal for client communications.
On the difference the solutions have made, Norman Tyrrell, Vice President of Product Management at Mitchell International, said, “We’re very pleased with what we’ve been able to accomplish using OnBase and ABBYY. Automating our bill review workflow has simplified the entire process while leading to marked productivity gains. Our clients have responded positively to this change as well, as the client-facing Exception Manager enables intuitive client input, and we’re able to respond to customers more quickly.”
“We are very excited to be awarding the 2021 Innovation Award to Mitchell International in recognition of their continued proven ability to find new ways to utilize and optimize their solutions,” said Michael Carr, President & CEO of Naviant. “Naviant takes great pride in supporting Mitchell International’s initiatives and sees them as a shining example of digital transformation excellence for all organizations striving for innovative change.”
“Looking to the future, Mitchell International plans to roll out Document Management to more clients and applications in phases to further extend its solutions’ impact. “
About Naviant
Business processes and solutions that empower better and faster decisions are what we do best. As a nationally recognized intelligent automation solutions integrator and business process consulting organization with over 30 years of experience headquartered in Verona WI, our clients do more with less by streamlining processes and gaining visibility into the information they need to make better decisions. As a long-standing key partner of Hyland, Naviant helps organizations operate more efficiently using Hyland’s OnBase enterprise information platform, Brainware intelligent capture platform, the Hyland Cloud, and Hyland RPA, as well as the ABBYY intelligent capture and Kryon RPA platforms. Naviant’s “process-first” approach brings focus to the importance of process improvement prior to implementing best-in-class enterprise content management (ECM) solutions and technology. Naviant is a top-tier partner for Hyland’s OnBase, an enterprise information platform for managing content, processes, and cases, that combines ECM, case management, business process management (BPM), records management, compliance, and capture functionality on a single platform. In addition, Naviant also partners with Kryon Systems for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology to enable organizations to drive business agility and efficiency by offloading repetitive high-volume work to a digital workforce (aka software robots). To learn more about Naviant, visit Naviant.com. Process focus. Excellence.
Photo by Richard Hurd
Army veteran Douglas Wirth saluted by WPS Health Solutions and the Packers for Operation Fan Mail
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
DeAnne Boegli
Vice President of Communications
608-512-5754
deanne.boegli@wpsic.com
Army veteran Douglas Wirth saluted by WPS Health Solutions and the Packers for Operation Fan Mail
MADISON, Wis.—Aug. 24, 2021—The Green Bay Packers and WPS Health Solutions paid special tribute this week to U.S. Army veteran Douglas Wirth and his family in conjunction with Saturday’s preseason game against the New York Jets. Operation Fan Mail, sponsored by WPS, is the program that recognizes military families and veterans at each Packers home game. The program marks its 15th season in 2021.
Wirth, a native of Ridgeland, Wis., served in the Army from 1967–69. He was deployed to Vietnam in 1968 as part of the 9th Infantry Division in the 43rd Scout Dog Platoon. He served as a dog handler, and his job was to take a squad of eight to 10 soldiers to ambush sites safely, securing their perimeter with his dog, a German Shephard named Alex. They kept the group from tripping booby traps and ensured the bases and bridges were secure.
Wirth earned the rank of Sergeant, and during his time in the military, he was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge in October 1968 and a Purple Heart in April 1969.
Wirth, who has been a Packers fan since he was 12 years old, comes from a military family; his father served during World War II and his nephew served recently in the U.S. Air Force. He is looking forward to being honored on the Freedom Honor Flight in October. He was nominated for Operation Fan Mail by his sister, Julie Sanders, and was accompanied at Saturday’s game by his fiancée, Lana.
As the honoree for Operation Fan Mail this week, the Wirth family also received four tickets to the game and a $150 Packers Pro Shop gift card, courtesy of WPS.
The program, which debuted in 2007, is designed to honor families with a member who is on active duty, or a member who is a veteran. The Packers and WPS Health Solutions will host a family at each 2021 home game and recognize the members on the video boards during pregame activities. A total of 138 individuals, families, or groups have been recognized through the program.
If you know someone whose bravery, sacrifice, and dedication deserves to be honored, WPS Health Solutions and the Packers invite you to submit an application. To apply, share an essay of 500 words or less describing why a particular family should be saluted at operationfanmail.com.
Essays can also be sent to Operation Fan Mail, P.O. Box 10628, Green Bay, WI, 54307-0628.
About WPS Health Solutions
Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS Health Solutions), founded in 1946, is a nationally regarded benefits administrator for a variety of U.S. government programs and a leading not-for-profit health insurer in Wisconsin. WPS Health Solutions serves active-duty and retired military personnel, seniors, individuals, and families in Wisconsin, across the U.S., and around the world. WPS Health Solutions, headquartered in Madison, Wis., has more than 3,100 employees. Within the enterprise, there are three divisions: WPS Government Health Administrators, WPS Military and Veterans Health, and WPS Health Insurance/WPS Health Plan/EPIC Specialty Benefits. For more information, please visit wpshealthsolutions.com.
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