This month, we are excited to introduce you to Service Coordinator, Jennifer Myers. Jenny has been a Service Coordinator for a total of 13 years. 3 years at AUCP and 10 with South Central Service Coordination before we merged with their agency. In 2007 she moved to Shippensburg, PA from a small town in Maryland. She currently serves the South Central, PA area.

Jenny and her husband, Sam, have been married for 11 years. She has 3 step-children that are now all grown and are living in various states from California, Idaho, to Pennsylvania. Together Jenny and Sam have 2 dogs (pictured below) that are like children and keep them on their toes.

Jenny enjoys being outside doing things like camping, hiking, kayaking, gardening, and then resting by picking up a book and reading. Her biggest goal in life is to be happy with whatever road she takes in life and keep her family near.

If she wasn’t a Service Coordinator, Jenny would like to be a Marine Biologist working with whales, dolphins, seals, and the like. Her favorite part about working at AUCP is meeting the participants and building friendships with them. The most challenging part is when one of her participants passes away. She says it has been a great pleasure working at AUCP. Everyone shows great teamwork and stands by each other and supports each other.

Jenny has been a phenomenal addition to our company. She is able to connect with her participants in a very unique way. She always makes it a point to go above and beyond for the coworkers and team. We are so glad to have her as part of our work family.

June’s Staff Highlight is Tom Lawson, a Programs Manager here at AUCP for the OLTL and Adult Autism Waiver programs. Originally from Western New York, Tom moved to New Jersey when he was 21, and last June he relocated to Ligonier, PA. For college, he attended State University of New York (York) majoring in Sociology with a concentration in Law, Justice, and Society.

Tom and his “saint” of a wife, Wendy, celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary last month. They have a 19 year-old son, Jared, who just completed his Freshman year at the University of Alabama. They also have a 4 year-old husky named Truman who keeps them active.

Tom would describe himself as a sports “junkie,” specifically of the Buffalo Sabres, Cleveland Indians and the Buffalo Bills. If he’s not watching sports on T.V. or live with his friends, he might be watching the Weather Channel or ALF. He is also a fan of music, both listening to and attending concerts. He saw Metallica twice last year in a three day span!

His biggest goal in life is to be the best father to Jared and husband to Wendy that he can be. He likes to make people smile and bring humor to as many aspects of life that he can. Tom also finds fulfillment in serving his community, whether it is serving meals on Thanksgiving, coaching youth hockey, or being active with a Bulldog Rescue.

His dream job would be  to work as the General Manager of a sports team and put together a group of players with a common goal of winning a championship. His favorite part of working at AUCP is being able to meet so many awesome people and to see great work done on a daily basis by our dedicated employees. Since relocating here from New Jersey, the biggest challenge has been getting to know all the nuances of the programs. Yet, he says he has great people to rely on for guidance!

Tom is a fun and energetic leader here at AUCP. He is always making us laugh and is willing to go out of his way to support staff and our participants. We are glad that he is part of our team and for his role in enhancing the quality and culture of our agency.

Our May Staff Highlight is Georgiana (Anna) Smith. Anna will be at AUCP for one year this month and has quickly worked herself into a Lead Staff position for our PA Health and Wellness team. Anna earned a degree in Psychology from Carlow University. She serves participants in Beaver County and parts of Pittsburgh.

Anna has been with her husband, Zach, for ten years and they will be celebrating their 5 year wedding anniversary this month! (Happy Anniversary!) Together they have 2 children, Sienna (4 years old on May 21st) and Roman (a little over a year old). Anna is usually found playing with her children or hanging poolside over the summer. When she has the time, she enjoys reading, gardening, decorating, and shopping.

Her biggest goal in life is to know that she has been able to help someone who needed it. She also hopes to raise her children to be kind, compassionate, generous and loving people who are accepting of individual differences no matter what.

If she did not work at AUCP, she’d like to try her hand at being an interior decorator or an adoption counselor. The way that we work as a team across the agency is what she likes the most about working at AUCP. She says that recently, the most challenging part of her position is being able to assist her team members that are still in training as all training needs to take place via video chat.

Her supervisor and coworkers describe her as hardworking and willing to go above and beyond to help her participants. Always quick to assist and help where she can, Anna has definitely become a reliable and trusted coworker on her team and across the agency. We can all agree that our agency has been positively impacted by having her on board and we look forward to what the future holds!

Service Coordinator Tara Herwig is our Staff Highlight for April. Tara has been with our agency since August of 2019 when we took over  UCP Connections to Independence where she had been working for about 9 months. She attended Mount Aloysius College and received a B.A. in English.

Currently, Tara lives in Lewistown, PA with her husband Jeremy and their four children; Emma, Evelyn, Benjamin, and Lillian. They also have a dog named Mollie and a cat named Whiskers. Tara enjoys spending time with her family, cooking and trying new recipes, growing her own food, and traveling to new places .  Her family especially loves going to the beach!  She also loves to read and try new things, or find a good movie or Netflix series to watch.

She says that if she didn’t work at AUCP, she would like to write a blog or start her own business. Her biggest goals in life are to question everything in life and make her dreams come true.

Tara likes that she gets to work with like-minded individuals who are passionate about helping others here at AUCP. Also, the flexibility this job offers allows her to work and be at home with her kids. The most challenging part of the job for her was transitioning from an office to working remotely and then trying to outline boundaries at home.

In the short time Tara has been with the agency, we have learned that she is always willing to step up and assist her coworkers. And in everything she does, she does it well. We are so pleased that she is now part of our work family and we want to thank her for all the hard work she does!