Longtime county employee Pat Soria was honored this week at the 2008 Clean Air Campaign Awards luncheon for outstanding marketing and creativity for her work in developing posters boosting public transit, carpools, van pools and other commute options in Maricopa County.

Nancy Fountain, payroll coordinator from Maricopa County Air Quality Department, was also honored receiving the "Outstanding Commuter--Bus Rider Award" for going above and beyond to help alleviate congestion and air pollution by consistently using an alternative mode of transportation.

Soria, an administrator with the Office of Communications, and Fountain were honored at a luncheon Tuesday, October 28 at the Arizona Biltmore, attended by more than 500 persons and sponsored by Valley Metro, the regional transit agency.

"I am excited and proud to see county employees honored by Valley Metro,". said District 4 Supervisor Max Wilson "Pat and Nancy have shown tremendous leadership and personal commitment to keeping our skies clean and blue. They deserve our respect and gratitude."

Soria’s work was judged the best in a Valleywide competition, beating out finalists Scottsdale Healthcare and Costco Wholesale. "The Maricopa County commute poster uses icons to show all of the commute options available to employees in a format that is easy to read, informative and humorous,” the judges concluded. “How do you capture the attention of a multi-generational workplace when most people are saturated by e-mails, voice mails and the Internet? In this electronic age, sometimes a good poster is all you need."

When Fountain’s carpool partner elected not to drive to work anymore, she decided to look at other alternatives to driving alone. Fountain tried riding the bus and was surprised to discover she enjoyed commuting this way. She takes the bus from Apache Junction to downtown Phoenix every day – 37 miles each way. Over the past two and a half years, she has saved money and over 1,151 pounds of pollution from our Valley’s air.

Business manager for the office of communications, Pat Soria has served as the commute options coordinator in which she provides administrative support for services to employees in the county’s Trip Reduction Program She oversees marketing, communications, vanpool billing and coordinates the annual survey, Clean Air events, the Guaranteed Emergency Ride Home program and the weekly employee newsletter, Monday Morning Breather. She recently directed and the implementation of new bus cards for commuting employees.

The County’s "Green Government Program," to develop a host of short-and long-term strategies to reduce the carbon footprint of county government activities, was also a finalist in the Outstanding Leadership category. County Manager David Smith and Planning and Development Director Joy Rich were nominated in this category.