KERAMIDA Takes a Break for Apples, Ice Cream, and Spaghetti Towers

HR Manager Vanessa Santiago Brings the Team Together for an Afternoon of Friendly Competition

Congratulations to our winning team (left to right): Genny Willman, PE, AAAE CM, Senior Manager, Compliance Engineering Services; Claudia Cozadd, MS, SCR, Senior Analyst, Sustainability; Chelsea McCammack, LPG, Project Manager, Land Services; Kindal Keen, Manager, GHG & Sustainability Data; and Xuqing Xiong, MS, PE, Vice President, GHG & Sustainability Data, proudly showing off their KERAMIDA-branded produce baskets, and their championship spaghetti tower.

If you walked past the KERAMIDA office on the day of our latest team building event, you'd have found blue nitro gloves, apple peels curling across black tablecloths, and a small forest of spaghetti towers leaning at increasingly alarming angles. This one was organized by Vanessa Santiago, our HR Manager, who is constantly cooking up new ways to get the whole team in one room, laughing at each other, instead of just replying to each other's emails.

Vanessa Santiago, HR Manager, calling out the rules before the games began.

The lineup: an apple peeling contest (turns out this is a real skill, and some people have clearly been holding out on us), an ice cream sundae building challenge, and the classic tallest spaghetti tower, built from nothing but dry spaghetti, tape, string, and one marshmallow perched precariously on top like a tiny flag of victory.

The scores stayed close all the way through. There was strategizing. There was a little bit of trash talk. There was at least one tower that stood tall right up until the photo, and then did not.

In the end, the team of Genny Willman, Claudia Cozadd, Xuqing Xiong, Kindal Keen, and Chelsea McCammack walked away with KERAMIDA-branded produce baskets. But if you ask anyone who was there, the baskets weren't really the point, it was an afternoon where people from totally different parts of the company ended up elbow-deep in ice cream together, which is its own kind of win.

Thanks, Vanessa, for another great one.

And it's still standing. (Left to right: Jay Nickel, Project Manager, Land Services; Roxanne Marsh, Admin; Jenae Mona, Staff Engineer; and Nick McCreary, MS, LEED AP BD+C, Senior Vice President, Sustainability.)

No shortage of laughs between rounds. (Left to Right: Vicky Keramida, Ph.D., CEO & Chief Technical Officer, and Kurt Gilliam, MSES, Senior Project Manager, EHS Compliance Services, laughing about the challenges with Genny Willman, PE, AAAE CM, Senior Manager, Compliance Engineering Services.)

Vanessa Santiago, HR Manager, measuring the height of an ice cream sundae, cherry stem included.

One team's finished tower, standing tall (until the ice cream melts). (Left to right: Genny Willman, PE, AAAE CM, Senior Manager, Compliance Engineering Services; Claudia Cozadd, MS, SCR, Senior Analyst, Sustainability; Chelsea McCammack, LPG, Project Manager, Land Services; and Xuqing Xiong, MS, PE, Vice President, GHG & Sustainability Data, showing off their winning sundae.)

The evidence of some serious apple peeling strategy.

No hands allowed, the sundae tower had to stand on its own.

All hands on deck for tower construction. (Left to right: Roxanne Marsh, Admin; Jenae Mona, Staff Engineer; Nick McCreary, MS, LEED AP BD+C, Senior Vice President, Sustainability; and Jay Nickel, Project Manager, Land Services.)

Serious concentration required for the apple peeling challenge. (Left to right: Genny Willman, PE, AAAE CM, Senior Manager, Compliance Engineering Services; Claudia Cozadd, MS, SCR, Senior Analyst, Sustainability; Xuqing Xiong, MS, PE, Vice President, GHG & Sustainability Data; and Chelsea McCammack, LPG, Project Manager, Land Services.)