At AJW, our people drive our success.

Our President and CEO Chris Hansen often compares long-term success to the act of climbing a mountain. As you make your ascent, each step needs to be planned and every foothold carefully considered. Weather can be a factor. Equipment may malfunction. Sickness or injury can strike. And as a result, some may never make it to the top.

Sometimes, in the face of those challenges, you're able to use your resources to overcome the odds and reach the summit. What better resource to have in that situation than a helicopter, which can get you to the top in the fastest and most efficient way possible.

Within our organization, we are fortunate enough to have fantastic people who go above and beyond every day. They are our helicopters, helping us rise to the top in our industry and achieve the goals we've set as an organization. And so we've created the Helicopter Award to recognize these high performers.

Recipients of this reward work in many different capacities across our organization, but they all have something very important in common. To a person, they live and breathe our culture of service and are integral members of our team.

The recipients of this award for the Second Quarter of 2016 are:

Leslie Cordero, Estimator, Miami

Kaitlynn Perez, Relationship Manager, New Windsor

Samantha Mattioli, Estimator, New Windsor

Aaron Nahs, Drafter, New Windsor

Marco Palacios, Assembly Supervisor, New Windsor

Dennis Roman, Mirror/Partitions Supervisor, New Windsor

Francisco Magana, Press Brake Operator, New Windsor

Timian Osgood, Edge Bander Operator, Auburn

Naiya Vieira, Operations Assistant, Miami

Luis Gonzales, Final Inspector, Miami

Heather Chambers, Order Processing, Sanger

Pablo Olivo, Electrician, WinRe

Thank you and congratulations to each of this quarter's recipients!