On November 6, 2008, PMIWDC awarded its first ever Project Manager of the Year (PMOTY) awards during the International Project Management Day event. The award recognizes outstanding project management practice among the PMIWDC membership, and is expected to become an annual event. 

This year, out of several nominees, 3 finalists were selected: Jeannette Harkin of Washington Consulting, Daniel McCart of the Fort Detrick Central Utility Plant, and Gregory Summer of Creative Information Technology, Inc. 

Of the three, two received this year’s award: Daniel McCart and Gregory Summer. PMIWDC would like to extend hearty congratulations to both this year’s finalist and winners. Their bios are shown below. 

About the PM of the Year Award

The 2008 Project Manager of the Year selection process was a rigorous one. 

Nominees were required to:

• Be a member of PMIWDC and PMI in good standing. Good standing means that current year dues at the national and chapter level are paid.

• Have made a significant positive difference to the outcome of a project (or a section of a major project) in the year preceding the award application cut off date (August 31, 2007 – August 31, 2008). The success of the project was not a primary criterion; instead the award recognized the PM’s capability and contribution to that project.

• Submit recommendations from his/her manager, 2 project team members, and 2 customers/end users, supporting the PM’s outstanding contributions to the project.

• And, have a demonstrated knowledge and understanding of Project Management theory, preferably evidenced by a PMI certification (e.g., PMP, CAPM, PgMP)

2008 PM of the Year Award Winners

Daniel McCart, PMP

Daniel McCart, a 2008 PMOTY winner, is a PMP with over 25 years of experience managing commercial, institutional and industrial construction projects. His experience includes administration and direction of project management teams across multiple projects as well as on-site direction of large project teams with up to 20 construction managers, project coordinators, project engineers and administrative staff.   

His most recent project included installation of generators, boilers, and chillers for redundant, back up, and clean power as well as construction of utility tunnels to new and existing sites.  This facility provides the highest efficiency (99.999%) steam, chilled water and triple redundant "clean" electric to the campus to support biological research laboratories and administrative spaces in each building.  Dan is skilled in project management from coordination of the initiation phase (pre-construction activities) through project closeout.  

He has been successful as a Sr. Project Manager, with over $1 Billion dollars in construction experience to date. Now, as a Project Executive, he is responsible for an $850 MM development of the last remaining parcel at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, MD, of 9-10 buildings, including one Mission Critical structure.

Greg S. Summer, PMP

Gregory Summer, a 2008 PMOTY Award Winner, is a Project Manager at Creative Information Technology Incorporated (CITI) focusing on the federal government sector.  Greg is an innovative leader with a unique blend of technical and interpersonal skills.  His diverse leadership techniques and management experience has been utilized in a wide array of projects.  Currently, Greg is leading an effort to design, develop, and deploy an Enterprise Data Warehouse for the U.S. Department of State.  

Greg has managed full lifecycle projects, leveraging structured software development and project management methodologies.  These projects included a large, complex data integration project for the Department of Defense and a biometric project whose scope included data consolidation and reporting for the Department of Homeland Security.  Greg encourages team collaboration to address project challenges and identifies creative ways to resolve conflict and mitigate risks.  

Greg is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and holds a Master of Information Technology degree from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor of Science from James Madison University.  He also has obtained graduate certificates in Software Development, Business Information Systems, and Decision Support Systems.

PM of the Year Award Finalist

Jeannette Harkin, PMP

Jeannette Harkin, 2008 PMOTY Finalist, serves as a senior consultant at Washington Consulting, a unit of Alion Science and Technology. Prior to joining to Washington Consulting, she was in the financial services at BearingPoint.  Jeanette has worked with Washington Consulting for 3 years on various project management engagements. Currently, she is a program manager for a large-scale, government project involving over 650 compliance audits for a multi-billion dollar public fund.  

Objectives include managing schedule, cost, and quality performance of outsourced audit firms toward on-time, within-budget completion of annual audits.  In addition, she is responsible for design, implementation, and enhancement to PMO tools infrastructure, specifically MS SharePoint, MS Project Server, and Earned Value Management software.  Jeannette holds a B.A. in economics from Emory University and obtained her Project Management certification in February 2008.