Say hello to Jeff B

Congratulations, Jeff Bowerman! IPMG nominated Jeff, who is served by IPMG Case Manager Michelle Ringstrom, for the IN-APSE Personal Achievement Award. Jeff was selected by IN-APSE to receive the award at the IN-APSE Awards Luncheon on November 21.

Jeff has been employed with perfect attendance at Pay-Less Supermarket in West Lafayette for 20 years -- quite an accomplishment! His job duties include bagging groceries, gathering shopping carts from the parking lot, assisting customers with taking their groceries to their cars, general cleaning, and customer service.

When Jeff first met his job coach, he was strongly against going out into the community and trying new things, and he would only talk to people he knew or liked. His mother would have to trick him just to get him to go out to eat with her. Jeff has made tremendous social gains by working in the community.

Jeff is well liked by all of the employees at Pay-Less and is well known by many of the regular customers that come to that grocery store. Customers know him by name and he knows them too, if not by name, then by the items they buy and the way they prefer them bagged. He loves talking with his customers about sports, weather and current events.

After receiving assistance and guidance from his Waiver support team, Jeff goes all over the community on weekly outings, and is even willing to ride the local public transportation system. Jeff has come out of his shell, and it shows in how well he does his job at Pay-Less. Jeff is now a social butterfly, meaning that he loves to talk to and with the customers and his co-workers to get to know more about them, and he goes above and beyond what is expected of him in order to please the customers and his employer.

Jeff’s coworkers are almost always supportive as well and some take Jeff under their wing and support him over and above what is expected. This has given Jeff the security to know that he can ask his coworkers for help and they will be happy to assist him. For more complicated issues, Jeff knows when it is appropriate to ask his supervisors for assistance. He has the confidence, after working for so many years, to be able to approach management directly with any concerns.

In the past 20 years, Jeff has only been late to work one time, and that was by 1 minute. Jeff has never missed a day of work. During a snow storm when all but 4 people called off work, Jeff still made it to work on time! Please join us in congratulating Jeff on receiving this much deserved award!