Each quarter, we recognise AOR people who have gone ‘above and beyond’ in the course of their work.
In late October, members of our Senior Leadership Team presented awards to our most recent winners at AOR’s Quarterly Leadership forum.
AOR Values Awards
For excellence in line with AOR’s values: Safety, Integrity, Respect and One Team. Winners were:
- Rosters Team Leader Johnno Stowers, for the huge amount of work he’s done leading the Rosters team and helping deliver several new projects this year.
- LE Minder Stuart Brear for his support and mentorship of new trainees and demonstrating outstanding values in his daily work.
Customer Champion Award
For outstanding customer service or engagement with customers, or behaviours that encourage colleagues to follow their example. Winners were:
- Stations Facility Coordinator Natasha Onesi, for demonstrating exceptional courage and compassion by intervening in a critical situation in which she talked down an individual attempting to self-harm.
- Train Manager James Mangi, for intervening after seeing a couple having an altercation, ensuring that the distressed woman was safe.
Operational Excellence Award
For outstanding contributions to AOR’s operations, including day-to-day operations, service planning, rosters, scheduling, fleet control, operational readiness, engineering and assets, facilities and station control, driver managers, train service managers and CRL. The winner was:
- Service Planning Manager Yudai Noguchi, for his exceptional contribution to timetable planning for CRL and Business as Usual services – which is also some of the most complicated timetabling work Auckland has ever seen.
Maintenance Excellence Award
This new Award Category recognises excellence in the care and maintenance of assets including rolling stock, and station and facility equipment. It includes the development and sharing of technical expertise, innovations in processes and delivery, or other efforts that support reliable performance of AOR’s assets. Winners were:
- Head of Operational Readiness Dane Fraser, for his outstanding and consistent contributions, always been available, and even stepping in to drive when all else fails!
- Asset Systems Lead Ankita Kedlaya, for her leadership and attention to detail, and consistently high performance, contributing to the overall reliability and safety of the fleet.
Safety Star Award
This monthly award recognises excellence in contributing to a safe and effective workplace or rail network. It can include incident prevention or improvements to a system or process. Winners were:
- Arana Hindmarsh, for managing an emergency power outage onboard a train with calm leadership, keeping passengers informed, identifying a safe evacuation path, and disembarking everyone safely.
- Kahn Netzler, for helping prevent a fatality by warning another driver.
- Marlese Anau, who assisted a passenger who was injured after being hit by a rock. She stayed calm, provided first aid, and de-escalated the situation, helping the passenger and others remain calm.
Other Safety Star winners recognised during the past quarter were:
- Jonathan Williams, for his exceptional professionalism during an emergency, leading a safe, efficient evacuation with care and composure, and going above and beyond to uphold passenger safety and service excellence.
- Isobel Langton, Govind Dwivedi and Moira Allen, who responded swiftly to a medical emergency, providing first aid until an ambulance crew arrived.
