At EDC we know that our employees are the company’s biggest potential. That’s why each year we meet to recognize those, who have contributed the most to our development. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic we met slightly later than usually and in a different form. On Tuesday, July 28th, we have celebrated the Engineering Recognition Day (ERD) online.
The whole event was carried out at the EDC campus and transmitted to all EDC Aviation employees, who that day worked both from the office and from home. The new online celebrations let us be a bit more creative. That is why our presenters were broadcasting from the creative space in one of the EDC buildings, connecting with the management located throughout the site.
We kicked off our official gala with 2 movies straight from the US – the Buzz video warmed up the audience and the GE Aviation Accomplishments movie highlighted the whole business’s achievements in 2019. Marian Lubieniecki, EDC Site Leader completed the picture by talking about the best projects realized by our engineers in the last year. He thanked all employees for their effort and contribution to the development of GE Aviation. He emphasized that in addition to our EDC awards three of our teams were also globally recognized, receiving the prestigious Engineering Leadership Meeting Award.
Artur Rudnik, EDC WIA Director, connected with the audience from the Whirligig Test Laboratory. “I chose this space on purpose. I think that our laboratory infrastructure is one of the undeniable strengths of EDC. We have the potential to create unprecedented solutions and we have repeatedly proven, how much we can achieve together” – said Artur Rudnik, underlining that the strong cooperation between Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute of Aviation and GE is now more important than ever.
Our ERD special guest – Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute of Aviation Director, Paweł Stężycki also emphasized the importance of our cooperation. Especially in the face of the pandemic. Paweł Stężycki, once an EDC employee himself, recalled past turmoils and the fact that EDC has overcame them all growing stronger each time. Talking about today’s situation, Paweł underlined that people are the real strength of the organization. “EDC is you! Together we can come out this whole situation stronger than before” – he added.
During our ERD gala employees also got congratulations straight from Gary Mercer – Vice President and General Manager of Engineering at GE Aviation. Soon after we commenced to the award ceremony, starting with recognition of our best engineers in 6 technical categories. Each reward has its own history, and each was inspired by different GE engineers. What they have in common, is that they all recognize outstanding job of our engineers.
Four of the Technical awards are recognizing achievements that are moving GE business forward in such fields like Materials & Manufacturing, Science & Technology, Tools & Process or Customer Value Creation. The Technical Mentoring and Young Engineer awards were given to exceptional individuals, who were coaching or inspiring others to a higher level of achievement.
It was really impressive to hear how much our colleagues did for others and for the company! And that was only the beginning of the ceremony. Despite not hearing each other, we could have felt the admiration for the winners of the next recognitions. EDC Management Award went to an engineer who spent almost 20 years in GE service! EDC Delivery Champion Award and EDC Lean Champion Award were given to the engineers, who did their best in 2019 to maintain deadlines for delivering engines to customers and who have actively implemented the LEAN methodology in the company.
After the end of the technical awards, we recognized also the fantastic projects created by our supporting staff and members of EDC initiatives.
“All these awards show how strong team we are. Looking at all the amazing projects it was not easy to choose the winners. But the scope of your achievements makes me quite calm for the future of EDC. I know that we all work with passion and that we have great competences. Whatever the future will bring, we will use it as an advantage to develop and learn from it”, said Marian Lubieniecki at the end of the ERD. “Creativity, patience and consequence – those are the basis for the success of both the last 20 and, I hope, the next 20 years. We will be bold in creating the new reality”, he added, finishing the Gala.
This year’s ERD celebration was truly special. It’s not easy to create a sense of community, when everyone stays in different places. But despite not being together, we really felt the good spirit of our team during the Ceremony. Our online Engineering Recognition Day (ERD) confirmed what our Management said: We are a strong team, no matter the circumstances.
