HONORED —

Still volunteers for Flatlands corps he helped found
Member honored for 25 years of service as EMT

By MEL HYMAN
For PEF member Bob Stonehill, deciding to put on the uniform every Thursday night from 6 to 12 p.m. in his capacity as a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT), is not really difficult.

He knows how important this work is.
In 1978, he was volunteering when a report came in of a woman having a heart attack. During transport on the Belt Parkway to Coney Island Hospital, she stopped breathing.
“We checked her and she had no pulse, so we started CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) in the ambulance,” Stonehill said.
They saved her, and the experience left an indelible memory.

“That was my first pre-hospital save,” he said. “That’s what keeps me going. It keeps me focused on what I’m doing.”
And Stonehill still remembers the “absolutely indescribable feeling” he experienced a few months later, when he met with the woman he had helped save.
It was only the beginning. Recently, Stonehill was honored for 25 years of continuous service to the Flatlands Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
US Representative Ed Towns presented Stonehill with a Congressional citation. He also received a similar recognition from Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden and a bronze sculpture from the ambulance corps for his efforts.

Stonehill, 52, is a 21-year veteran of the state Education Department in New York City where he works as an investigator for the Office of Professional Discipline and is a PEF Division 349 steward. He has served many years as a PEF convention delegate and co-chairs the statewide Health and Safety Committee.
When Stonehill first started as an EMT back in 1976, it was basically out of necessity.

A native of the Bronx, Stonehill grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He later moved to Brooklyn, where he bought a house.
“A group of us started talking about how bad the city ambulance service was and that something had to be done,” he said.
“We put out this flier about starting a volunteer ambulance corps, called a meeting and on March 4, 1975 about 30 people showed up. I was one of them.”
After 25 years of “not knowing enough to go home,” Stonehill said he is the only founding member still active with the squad.
His wife and daughter don’t object, however, since they also belong to the ambulance corps.

Many changes have occurred over the years, from the equipment to the people who volunteer, Stonehill said.
The equipment is more sophisticated — with devices such as semi-automatic defibrillators carried on each vehicle.
However, many volunteers today, he said, start with good intentions, but quickly discover it is not for them.

“You’ve got kids who plan to go to medical school and volunteer as an EMT because they think it will look good on their application,” he said. “But when they get a taste of the real world of emergency medicine, they end up going to law school.”

Easing tax headaches in any language
Legislators honor PEF member’s service to Hispanic community

By SHERRY HALBROOK
PEF member Mercedes Cintron is determined to take the mystery out of paying taxes for all New Yorkers, even those who came here from other cultures and for whom English is a second language.

With 22 years of service to the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, Cintron is now statewide manager of community relations and outreach. It’s a responsibility she takes very seriously, spending countless hours giving media interviews and making presentations to business and community groups, especially downstate.
In March, her efforts were recognized at the 13th Anniversary Conference of NYS Hispanic and Puerto Rican legislators in Albany when she received their Community Service Award.

“For the past three years, Mercedes has been responsible for the development and management of a taxpayer-assistance program involving pro-active community outreach. Mercedes was instrumental in setting up the Hispanic outreach program and is a spokesperson for the department in the Hispanic community meetings,” Assembly Member Paul Harenburg wrote in his letter of nomination to Conference Chair Assembly Member Roberto Ramirez.

In fact, Cintron brought her tax outreach efforts to the conference in 1999, organizing and hosting a panel on taxes.
The Tax Department also has recognized Cintron’s exemplary efforts, presenting her with the 1996-97 Commissioner’s Award for “her many taxpayer outreach initiatives over the years and her impact on the public’s perception of the department.”

“She was instrumental in setting up the department’s Hispanic Outreach Program. She has appeared on Hispanic television and radio programs, as well as serving as a spokesperson for the department at Hispanic community forums. Many of her overtures to the Hispanic community have resulted from extra-curricular activities in Albany, visiting with, for example, members of the Legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus.”

In addition to her many activities on behalf of the state Tax Department, Cintron is an active member of PEF Region 12 on Long Island.
“I am particularly proud to be a member of Region 12’s Multi-Cultural Committee and also a member of the PEF Statewide Hispanic Committee,” Cintron said.
She also represents PEF in the Nassau-Suffolk Hispanic Task Force which conducts an annual regional conference in January.

“Many Puerto Rican and Hispanic leaders, professionals, business owners, community residents and others come together at this regional event to participate in workshops of special concern to this ever growing segment of our population,” Cintron said. “We then prepare a report that we forward to our legislators so that our issues can be included in their agenda.”

As a longtime resident and single parent who raised two children to adulthood in that community, Cintron said she understands its needs and concerns very well.
And her interest and commitment only get stronger, she said, as her family grows.
Her newest incentive: “my beautiful 16-month-old granddaughter, Christina Marie.”

OUTSTANDING – PEF member Jermin Bain, a habilitation specialist at Bernard Fineson Developmental Disabilities Services Office in Queens is honored as 1999 Employee of the Year at ceremonies last December. Shown are Deputy Director Essa Jallad, Bain and Division 207 Council Leader Elizabeth Cheese.
— Photos by Olubiyi Sehindemi

ONLY THE BEST – Recreation worker Annie Dale, a PEF member at Bernard Fineson Developmental Disabilities Services Office in Queens, receives a plaque naming her as a 1998 Employee of the Year from PEF member Karen Freeman at ceremonies last December. Former PEF member Maureen Nembhard was also honored as a 1998 Employee of the Year.

Three recent ‘employees of the year’
Members shine at Bernard Fineson DDSO in Queens

By M.K. Fottrell
PEF members are on a roll at Bernard Fineson Developmental Disabilities Services Office in Queens. Three of them have been honored for their outstanding service in the last two years.

“I’m thrilled our members are finally being recognized,” says Elizabeth Cheese, PEF Division 207 Council Leader at Bernard Fineson. “It seemed like ‘Employee of the Year’ always went to Civil Service Employees Association members before.”
PEF members Annie Dale, Maureen Nembhard and Jermin Bain were honored, first at an Albany dinner with Gov. George Pataki in the fall of 1999, and again in Queens on December 21.

Tender, loving care
Bain is an habilitation specialist 1 at the facility which serves mentally retarded clients. A Fineson employee for the last 18 years, she evaluates clients, creates individual programs for them and then carries them out.

“My concern is for the clients,” she says. “I do just about anything to make sure they feel loved and comfortable.”
Bain dislikes the way the mentally retarded are sometimes kept away from the rest of the public.
“They are part of us, part of life,” she says.

Bain has never enjoyed being in the spotlight, especially for what she considers is just doing her job. So she laughs as she remembers receiving her certificate of recognition. “I was totally embarrassed!” she said.

Make someone happy
Annie Dale has been a recreation worker for 23 years. She doesn’t mind that she often gets home late from work. She hardly seems to notice, because she enjoys her job — which includes dinners, dancing, afternoons at the circus, or other recreation at the center.
“Just seeing the smiles on their faces, watching them dance — that makes my day,” she says.

“I like to make everybody laugh and feel good about themselves,” she says.
Dale enjoyed being honored at Employee Recognition Night.
“I was just elated. You work hard, but sometimes it seems you just didn’t do enough,” she says. “Then someone says, ‘Guess what? You’re Employee of the Year!’ It really makes your day.”

Nice to be appreciated
Maureen Nembhard was a PEF member and an intermediate residential alternative program manager at Bernard Fineson when she was named Employee of the Year.
She managed two group homes that service 15 clients.

Nembhard, who was recently promoted to a management position, was pleasantly surprised by the fuss made over her.
“I told my husband I didn’t expect to be treated so well,” Nembhard says. “I work for the state — we pinch every penny.”

The celebrations in Albany and Queens she says, “made me feel very appreciated. I always try to do my best, and it’s nice when someone notices.”
Employee of the Year candidates are judged not only on job performance, but on attitude and outside community involvement, as well.
These women were perfect choices, Cheese said, because they each shine in all three respects.

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