Dave Anderson nominated for NIB career achievement award

Dave Anderson was honored with a nomination for the National Industries for the Blind (NIB) Milton J. Samuelson Career Achievement Award! This award recognizes the talent and commitment of individuals working with the blind and visually impaired.

Dave has been with NewView Oklahoma for over 10 years, starting his career as a hose coupler. His natural ability to coach, mentor, and motivate employees took him to a position as floating supervisor. This required him to learn all aspects of production, including hoses, wheel chocks, vinyl, rations, and first aid. Undaunted by the tasks, Dave quickly learned the ropes and has become an integral part of our production management team.

He has been instrumental in our attempts to streamline and eliminate waste in our processes and procedures in production and manufacturing, and is continuing to use his skills to transform our manufacturing plant – taking us to the next level in capability and quality. One of his most recent projects was developing the Blind Friendly University initiative, which requires department leads to work at all respective workstations blindfolded. This led to several improvements in workstations and processes in every department.

Dave has made it a point to be an advocate and liaison for the vision impaired of NewView Oklahoma and the Oklahoma City Transit system. He has participated in town hall meetings, provided blindness awareness training for the bus drivers, and invited transit leadership to meet with employees to hear directly from them the issues that impact their overall ability to come to work.

He has served on the Quality Work Environment committee, Safety Committee, Holiday Party planning committee, Water 4 project, ISO 9001 projects, and projects related to re-design and upgrade of production areas. He has completed ISO 9001 Internal Auditing, NIB’s Leaders training program, participated in LEAN training, and Giant’s Leading UP leadership class. Dave also served for a period of time as Chief of Officials for USA Boxing and President of the Southside Boxing Club. Not only was he a boxer and trainer, but also a coach and mentor for the club youth.

Thank you, Dave, for your continued dedication to NewView Oklahoma, your encouragement to employees, and your commitment to improving the efficiency of our manufacturing process!