Company: Catapult Technology, Bethesda, MD
Company Description: Catapult Technology, Ltd. is a leading Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SDVO) Information Technology government contracting firm that provides Technology and Management Solutions, Enterprise Systems, and Information Management Services to the federal government. Catapult is focused on quality service delivery.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Manager of the Year

Nomination Title: Mark Ware, Service Desk Manager

Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

As Service Desk Manager, Mark oversees an entire call center operation in
Chambersburg, PA that serves the General Services Administration (GSA), on
Catapult’s largest contract – the $200 million GSA Infrastructure Technology
Global Operations (GITGO).

Mark’s responsibilities include handling ~200,000 contacts (calls and emails)
annually, meeting contract-mandated Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with over
80% First Call Resolution and less than 1% Ticket Reopen rate. His team
consists of technical support specialists that provide a wide range of
troubleshooting, fault isolation and problem resolution to 15,000 GSA users.
Team skills are highly technical to ensure maximum first call resolution for a
wide range of user tech support calls.;

Over the last year, Mark oversaw the successful selection, build-out, and
migration of the Chambersburg call center into a dedicated fault tolerant
(generator, systems redundancy, etc) call center facility designed for maximum
analyst cooperation and interaction. His leadership ensured that the move to
Chambersburg from a previous location resulted in zero impact to the customer
support provided to GSA’s users, enabling the call center to successfully
handle an ever-increasing number of calls.

One of the wider goals of the GITGO initiative was for GSA to consolidate 15
different help desks into one. It was imperative for Catapult, as GSA’s
government contracting firm, to achieve this goal. Mark has contributed to the
consolidation by implementing Information Technology infrastructure Library®
(ITIL®)-based best practices not only at the call center, but also throughout
the enterprise teams. He has led Catapult efforts to document, train, and
implement ITIL processes throughout the contract. Additionally, Mark has
organized the call center by technical specialty, enabling users to directly
reach an analyst with specific expertise with their particular problem.

Mark has years of experience with call center best practices, is highly
analytical, and effectively applies his expert statistical skills to the day-
to-day operations of the call center. His ability to motivate the call center
team to meet record call levels this year and to champion continued process
improvement activities is key to the ongoing success of our GSA support.
;
Mark's leadership has inspired members of his team to step forward and take
more responsibility. A facilities manager rose from the ranks of the call
center team during the move because Mark recognized and groomed his interest
and talents in this area. The management team currently in place is primarily
the result of Mark's recognition of their skills and promoting from within
those individuals with the proper balance of technical skills, ambition, and
management capabilities.

Mark has instilled GSA—one of Catapult’s most valued customers—with a sense of
confidence in Catapult’s call center operations that did not exist previously.
His analytical approach proved to GSA and his fellow management team the
effectiveness of his process improvements and organizational changes. His
calm, confident demeanor keeps his team and the contract-wide support teams
focused during outage restoration and incident response activities.; Keeping
his team and supporting engineers calm and focused during incidents is
instrumental in effective outage management and restoration.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

Mark Ware was pivotol in the successful opening of Catapult's call center
operation in Chambersburg, PA, which serves Catapult's largest client, General
Services Administration (GSA) on the $200 million GSA Infrastructure
Technology Global Operations (GITGO) contract. Here are links to various new
items covering the opening of the call center and its impact on the local
community and on GSA:

NBC 25/4YourState
http://your4state.com/content/fulltext/?cid=75801

Public Opinion
August 13: http://www.publicopiniononline.com/ci_13052379

Public Opinion
August 14: http://www.publicopiniononline.com/search/ci_13064340?IADID=Search-
www.publicopiniononline.com-www.publicopiniononline.com

Herald-Mail
August 13
http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=228658&format=html

Herald-Mail
August 11
http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=228514&format=html

Baltimore Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/prnewswire/press_releases/national/Pennsylvania/2009/08/13/FL60793

Washington Business Journal (Full story online, August 7):
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/08/10/story10.html

Washington Business Journal (Full story online, with corrections – August 13):
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/08/10/daily75.html

Washington Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/prnewswire/press_releases/national/Pennsylvania/2009/08/13/FL60793

4YourState (Video):
http://your4state.com/media_player.php?media_id=379061

4YourState (Online story):
http://your4state.com/content/fulltext/?cid=75801

TMC.net:
http://call-center-software.tmcnet.com/topics/call-center-services/articles/62086-catapult-technology-announces-new-call-center-operation.htm

Triangle Business Journal:
http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/othercities/washington/stories/2009/08/10/daily75.html

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:

As Service Desk Manager at Catapult, Mark has more than 10 years’ experience
managing help desks. He is an expert in IT Service Management with an
extensive background in Management and IT. His last two positions previous to
joining Catapult include: Consultant with the International Monetary Fund in
Washington, DC, spurring a 25% reduction in costs; and subject matter expert
at Ajilon Consulting in Dallas, TX, focusing on the consolidation of global IT
operations for a Fortune 500 client. Mark possesses a MA in Business
Administration from Southern Methodist University and a BS in Computer Science
from the University of Texas. Certifications include HDI - Help Desk Director;
ITIL Foundation; and PMI.