Twelve of Naval Medical Center Portsmouth staff were recognized for customer excellence April 29, an award for those who have demonstration excellence in three areas of the customer service: customer experience, exceeding expectations and professional excellence.

During the ceremony, Capt. Darin K. Via, commanding officer, presenting certificates and command coins to the winners, whose photos will be placed on the Wall of Excellence in the medical center's main corridor.

The winners were nominated and selected by their peers for their exceptional and continuous demonstration of the three tenets of customer excellence.

"As you know, NMCP is on a journey to become a high-reliability organization," said Cmdr. Matthew McLean, director of Healthcare Business, during the ceremony. "As part of our strategic vision to support the journey and our organization's strategic imperatives of readiness, value and jointness, we have an entire line of operation dedicated to customer experience."

McLean described the dedication the award winners share.

"When something didn't go right, they didn't give up," McLean said. "They demonstrated resiliency, and they developed new solutions to the problem. In doing so, they helped their customers."

The award winners also share the same commitment to superior performance, and going above and beyond their duty. They were recognized and chosen for their exceptional initiative, proactive engagement, continuous process improvement, and for exemplifying the standards of customer service excellence with patients and staff alike.

After presenting the awards, Via addressed the audience.

"We switched from customer service to customer excellence, because that's really what we're striving for," Via said. "I can't thank you enough for what each and every one of you do every day. I thank everyone for picking out the personnel who they thought really leaned forward and really met the mark for being the 'first and finest' and showing that customer excellence."

Receiving the awards were Barbara Pauly (Allergy Clinic), HN Charles Nallie (Pediatric Clinic), Ana Laramore (Emergency Medicine Department), Charlotte Curtis (Social Work Department), HM2 Nathaniel Perrine (BHC Dam Neck - Overseas Screening), Mary Beth Shortt (BHC Dam Neck - Dental), Katherine Pokorny (Case Management Department), HM3 Logan Eastburn (Patient and Guest Relations), Terri Bowes (Neurosurgery Clinic), Denise Devonshire (Labor and Delivery), Danielle Santa-Maria (Physical Therapy Department) and Angela Turner (Information Management Department).

For more news from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, visit www.navy.mil/local/NMCP/.