Keith Parrish receives the Chancellor's Distinguished Staff Award

6/19/2012 By Linda H. Conway

Keith Parrish Robert “Keith” Parrish, research laboratory shop supervisor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, was one of eight staff employees on the UIUC campus to be honored for exceptional performance with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award at a banquet held April 13.

Written by By Linda H. Conway

Keith Parrish
Keith Parrish
Keith Parrish

Robert “Keith” Parrish, research laboratory shop supervisor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, was one of eight staff employees on the UIUC campus to be honored for exceptional performance with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award at a banquet held April 13.

Parrish, who joined the department in 2005, supervises three machinists and oversees the instructional machining and manufacturing laboratories. After becoming shop supervisor, he quickly became respected and sought out by faculty, students and staff alike for his outstanding design consultations. His duties include meeting with clients, preparing project charges and ensuring that all tools and equipment are properly maintained. Parrish, who is known to work evenings and weekends in order to help his clients meet project deadlines, has also forged cooperative relationships with other shops on campus to help clients obtain access to processes not available in the department's shop.

In his nomination of Parrish, Robert Coverdill, director of MechSE engineering and technical services, wrote that Parrish is a “very competent machinist with more than 35 years of experience. He routinely works with computerized drawings and computer numerically controlled milling machines and electrical discharge machining systems.”

“It is a testament to his skills that he has been able to manage the workload of the shop with a down-sized staff, while maintaining his unfailing good humor, attitude and spirit of cooperation. In my nearly 23 years of managing technical services in this department, morale within the shop has never been higher, which is hard to imagine given the extremely stressful financial conditions that the university is currently facing.”


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This story was published June 19, 2012.