2022 Dude Solutions Excellence Award Winner

At Brightly, we love to celebrate people, especially the unsung heroes we get to work with every day. The Dude Solutions Excellence Award annually recognizes one Brightly client for their demonstration of utilizing our solutions to transform or significantly advance operations and organizational outcomes. 

This year, we will recognize a client who has demonstrated ingenuity during the past 12 months. This person or organization shows exceptional creativity in their respective field or role relative to their utilization of Brightly product(s). This is a very special award for Brightly, because we truly have the best clients who deserve recognition for their tireless effort to improve the places they work and live.   

As we closed out our virtual 2022 Dude University conference, Brightly Chief Operating Officer Catherine Harrell announced the 2022 Excellence Award Winner at the Client Appreciation Closing Session. This year, we received over 175 nominees from all different countries and industries, three-times as many as the previous year! Our selection committee utilized three main selection criteria: Creativity – How does this nominee demonstrate exceptional creativity in their field or role relative to using our products? Innovation – How does the nominee push the boundaries of our products and drive innovation? Transformation – How does this nominee transform or advance their organization using our products?  

“I am incredibly thrilled and excited to announce this year’s winner of the Dude Solutions Excellence Award. And the award goes to, Teddy Baker.” Catherine Harrell proudly announced during the Virtual Dude Solutions Closing Session. 

Teddy Baker is the Western Division Trade Supervisor at the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission where he has more than 20 years of tenure. He currently supervises a team of 10 employees and was instrumental in the implementation of Asset Essentials™. Teddy’s leadership allowed his team to play a critical role in leading the transformation of not only their maintenance and operations, but the culture of the team to embrace automation.  

The Ohio Turnpike is a 241-mile stretch of toll road that connects the east coast of the US to the Midwest with commercial freight and passenger travel. Across those 241 miles there are 55 different facilities, ranging from toll plazas, maintenance plazas and administrative buildings. Prior to Teddy’s leadership of implementation Asset Essentials™, all records were kept in either paper format or employee memory and consisted of a lot of manual processes. 

Not only did Teddy put forth an incredible effort to allow the team to embrace the automation, but he also showed creativity. Helping the staff learn how to attach photos, add detailed records on the mobile apps via tablets and initiated preventative maintenance for all their assets and equipment all within Asset Essentials™.  

The Ohio Turnpike is experiencing more efficiency, reliability, and reduced downtime. Teddy and his team have processed 8,232 work orders since launching in August of 2019. Right now, they are averaging about 3,000 work orders and about 500 preventative maintenance actions on an annual basis. 98.4% of all maintenance and preventative maintenance orders were completed on time with Asset Essentials™. Here at Brightly, we are so honored and excited to be a part of the transformation of the Ohio Turnpike. Congratulations, Teddy!