May 14, 2009--For the second year in a row, Jessie Spearman of Vision Technologies (Glen Burnie, MD) was named winner of BICSI's Installer Of the Year competition held at the association's spring conference in Baltimore.
"I couldn't believe that I won again," says Spearman. "But win or lose, being here is a great experience. Before the competition, I thought BICSI was just a training organization, but through these conferences I've learned BICSI is more about career development and helping people grow. Since the last competition, I was promoted from foreman to supervisor, and now I oversee Vision Technology's Virginia office operations."
After completing several events—including structured cabling; copper cable terminations; fiber termination; cable assembly; cable troubleshooting, technical support; professionalism; and a written competency exam—winners of each level were named during Wednesday morning's award ceremony.
ITS Installer 1: 1st — Vincent Stantucci, Vision Technologies; 2nd — James Sundy, Staley, Inc.; 3rd — Steven Hartley, Staley, Inc.
ITS Installer 2: 1st — Andrew Davis, Vision Technologies; 2nd — John Barczak, RKB Electric and Supply LLC; 3rd — Jeffrey Johnson, Staley, Inc.
ITS Technician: 1st — Jessie Spearman, Vision Technologies; 2nd — Timothy Roberts, Access Communication Services; 3rd — Stephen Stamp, James River Communications.
As overall winner with the highest score of the competition, Spearman walked away with the $5,000 honor. Other awards included a UniCam Toolkit and a Deluxe Fiber Toolkit donated by Corning, a Testifier Pro and Optical Probe from JDSU, a Rhino 6000 Hard Case Kit from DYMO, a two-year BICSI membership and various other gift cards, tools and packages from Unique Firestop, Siemon, STI, Sumitomo, Mohawk, Abesco , Kitco, Klein and RANDL.
In total, the grand prize was worth over $15,000. First place winners in the other categories won prizes totaling over $2,000.
On the Web: www.bicsi.org