Intersystems' Ray Vrtiska Selected Corbett Award Winner for 2012

Ray Vrtiska, Intersystems, is the recipient of the 2012 Corbett Award, which is the highest award bestowed by GEAPS Associates board of directors. He was presented the award by Deborah Good, GEAPS Associates board president, on March 6 during the annual meeting of the Grain Elevator and Processing Society at Exchange 2012 in Minneapolis.

Named in honor of John Corbett, former Associates president who passed away in 2006, the award recognizes Associate members who have demonstrated extraordinary volunteer leadership on behalf of the Associates. It is presented by Associate members to Associate members.

In presenting the award, Good said, "Ray has been actively involved in volunteer leadership service to GEAPS from the day he joined 33 years ago. In his first year as a member in 1979, he received the Chapter Member of Distinction award. He has been contributing at the Chapter and International levels ever since."

Ray was described as someone who walks the talk when it comes to volunteer service for GEAPS. He has been a fixture at the Chapter level, having served as a board director and as Chapter secretary for many years. He also served on the host advisory committee for Exchange 2008 in Omaha.

At the international level, he was a very active member of the Associates board for six years and served on the distance education committee and as a "traveling ambassador" for GEAPS international industry outreach initiatives.

This year's Corbett Award honoree also has a reputation as someone who talks-the-talk when carrying GEAPS' message. His pride in the organization shines through whenever he promotes the value of GEAPS to all, both members and prospective members.

He strongly believes that the importance of GEAPS starts at the local level with quality programs and meetings. If you were to ask around this room, you would find very few GEAPS members who don't know him, respect him and couldn't give you an example of his leadership. To this day, he still gets approached by members asking questions about leadership service opportunities for Associates members even though he is no longer on the board.

Those are just some of the reasons Ray Vrtiska was chosen as this year's winner of the Corbett Award.