51st Annual Employee Appreciation Luncheon

Yesterday, March 3rd, was Epsteins 51st Annual Employee Appreciation Luncheon an event in which we honor those members of our organization that have achieved significant years of service milestones. This year our luncheon took place at Trattoria Isabella, a Sicilian-inspired restaurant, located across the street from our Chicago headquarters.

Employees honored this year included Eric Buck, Don Reilly and Tom Suarez who celebrated 5 years with Epstein. Achieving 10 years of service were Bradley Dennis, Greg Osborne and Joe Romano. Doug Fullick was honored for his 15 years with Epstein. Senior project manager Darrin McCormies celebrated 20 years with Epstein. And lastly we had 4 individuals honored for 25 years of service at Epstein. Those Quarter Century honorees included senior project accountant Karen Perri, CAD specialist Alena Piburn, our director of engineering and senior vice president, Tom Smiles, and, vice president of business development, Andrea Velasquez.

We were also treated to some classic two-drink minimum, tip your waitress stand-up material from Stu White, our director of MEP engineering, who got to roast Darrin as well as a video tribute to Tom Smiles put together by Jim Jirsa, our CFO, which included Jim belting out Lets Go Fly a Kite from Marry Poppins. In addition, Darrin got the opportunity to gently rib Andrea Velasquez remarking that she achieved her childhood dream of getting into Business Development and Tom Smiles gave very heartfelt remarks about Alena, who everyone at Epstein would universally say is about the kindest and sweetest person on the planet. Lastly, Esther Panzica, our senior administrative assistant for our design studio, gave us all the various ways Karen embodies the word Dedication.

All in all everyone thoroughly enjoyed the event as we took some much deserved time to honor our fellow employees for their years of dedicated service to Epstein.

Here are some photos from this great Epstein event - one that has been held continuously since 1964!