Berenice Cortez says she and her Harvey Mudd colleagues are like one big family, and she has nothing but praise for their talent and capability. But her peers decided that it was time for Cortez to receive the praise. Their recommendations resulted in her receiving the 2018 Binder Prize, which honors a member of College\u2019s support staff who combines a record of exceptional service with a helpful and friendly attitude toward College community members.<\/p>\n
\u201cBerenice touches every department with her dedicated service to the catering department from overseeing event setups, putting the finishing touches on floral arrangements, to serving meals.\u00a0Berenice is patient and adept when last-minute changes are needed,\u201d one of Cortez\u2019s nominators wrote.<\/p>\n
Surrounded by colleagues, Cortez was told she\u2019d won the award and was presented with a bouquet of flowers by Bill Daub, professor of chemistry and a member of the selection committee, who was joined by Miguel Ruvalcaba, dining services manager, Ramona Campoy, assistant manager, and Dana Nagengast, assistant vice president for human resources. \u201cIt makes you feel special, that you\u2019re recognized and appreciated,\u201d Cortez says.<\/p>\n
For 18 years, Cortez has served and tasted many plates of food from the kitchen at Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons. When alumni return to campus for events they often comment on the quality of the food, she says. She began as a beverage runner, then worked in catering, where she\u2019s been ever since. Cortez is now catering lead, a job that requires organization, creativity and skill as well as the patience that she\u2019s known for.<\/p>\n
Cortez is a seasoned pro in the busy world of catering, dealing with all sorts of dilemmas like inclement weather, staff shortages (she\u2019ll jump in to cook if necessary) or switching venues because someone\u2014sometimes herself, she admits\u2014provided the wrong location. She has even memorized many community members\u2019 food and catering preferences.<\/p>\n
Hiccups and last-minute adaptations are a common occurrence, just part of the job, she says. Cortez recalls catering a barbecue for HMC\u2019s fourth president, Jon Strauss, to celebrate his son\u2019s high school graduation. She did not have lighter fluid and she struggled to light the charcoal. Finally, by virtue of copious amounts of Sterno, she managed to, and then the sprinklers went on. She laughs at the memory. \u201cI had to try to cover the grill and move it, and someone called maintenance to get them to come turn the sprinklers off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her ability to remain calm and professional under circumstances like these was cited by one of the nominators. Another said, simply, \u201cBerenice is a great asset to HMC Dining Services.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Binder Prize was established in 1997 by a gift from engineering Professor Emeritus Sam Tanenbaum and Carol Tanenbaum, his wife, to honor Carol\u2019s mother, Mary G. Binder, and to express their gratitude to the College\u2019s support staff. In addition to the award of $750, Cortez received a commemorative certificate and will have her name added to the Mary G. Binder Prize plaque in the foyer of Galileo Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Berenice Cortez says she and her Harvey Mudd colleagues are like one big family, and she has nothing but praise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":6598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,83,28],"class_list":["post-6597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-award","category-diversity","category-staff"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}