St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court Malise Prieto announced the employees for the first quarter of 2008 to be Chris Cushing, Shawn Morgan and Juanita White.

Employees are nominated for the employee of the month program by customers, coworkers and managers and then selected for displaying attributes such as providing excellent customer service, being a team player, sharing the clerk’s vision, having leadership skills, sharing knowledge and displaying a number of other positive qualities.

The clerk’s goal is to provide exemplary customer service to all who call upon her office, and these employees personify traits leading to that goal.

Shown, from left, are Juanita White, Chris Cushing, Malise Prieto and Shawn Morgan.

Cushing, office courier, was selected as January’s Employee of the Month. Cushing joined the clerk’s office in March 2007 with many years of experience as a courier with a private medical business. Cushing’s responsibilities include gathering and delivering interoffice mail for 158 coworkers in the Justice Center office space.

He is accountable for processing the daily outgoing mail as well as monthly jury mail consisting of 4,000 pieces. In all weather conditions, Cushing begins his day at the post office retrieving the incoming mail, which fills up to five postal buckets. Once he reaches the clerk’s office, he and a team trained to identify the many different types of correspondence received sort the mail by departments.

During the work day, Cushing quietly moves through the office on schedule to collect both interoffice mail for delivery to all the different departments as well as collecting the outgoing mail, which he sorts and meters before the afternoon mail deadline.

He is also responsible for daily stops at a local bank vault to drop off computer disks for safekeeping, which is part of the clerk’s disaster program.

Morgan, recording filing fees clerk, was selected as February’s Employee of the Month. Morgan began her career at the clerk’s office on May 24, 2007, training as a filing fees clerk in the land documents recording department. She receives deeds, mortgages, donations and other real estate documents and assigns an instrument number and enters it into the clerk’s computer program. Morgan learned the filing fee position very quickly and was then selected to be cross-trained in personal documents services and archives. She assists the public with the issuance of marriage licenses, passports, birth certificates and genealogy research.

The personal document team, consisting of four full-time customer service representatives, sees an average of 75-100 customers per day; and, depending on the service needed, each transaction may take up to 20 minutes.

To further her training, Morgan has been selected to attend the U.S. State Department Passport Training session in May in New Orleans.

Morgan is one of five staff members that will receive extensive training as a U. S. Passport agent. When she has completed her training, she will back up personnel for the Slidell Annex office which should be open again mid-year 2009.

White, criminal customer service representative, was selected as the March Employee of the Month. White, who has been a part of the clerk’s staff since October 2002, assists the public on the telephone and at the criminal customer service counter with information pertaining to criminal litigation.

In June 2005, White was a recipient of the “Excellence in Government Award,” which is presented by the Bureau of Governmental Research.

She also assists the clerk’s management team by training new employees for the Criminal Department.

For her dedication to her position and positive work ethic, she was chosen to represent the clerk’s office at the recent Clerk’s Convention in Lafayette.