IESC Announces Frank Pace Award Winner – Dayna Bateman
June 11, 2019
Volunteers have been a critical part of IESC’s mission since 1964. Every year, IESC recognizes individuals whose dedication and service have truly made an impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the world.
The Frank Pace Award, named for one of IESC’s founders, is awarded each year to the volunteer expert who performed the most outstanding project in the previous year. For 2018, IESC recognized Dayna Bateman for her volunteer support on our U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded Food for Progress Exporting Quality program in the Dominican Republic. Dayna went on two assignments to the Dominican Republic where she trained local entrepreneurs in e-commerce solutions in order to increase sales and create a larger market outreach. On her first visit, she met with the local businesses and entrepreneurs to gain knowledge and insight on how they operate and how they could improve. The goal of the volunteer assignment was to support Dominican entrepreneurs and give them everything they needed, including access to markets and technology, for them to be successful. Many of the companies Dayna worked with increased sales and efficiency, and used the new skills they learned to improve and expand on business operations. Dayna was successful in creating hands-on approaches to e-commerce and assisted in implementing a program that specifically supported the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Dominican Republic to improve their outreach and services. None of these achievements would have been made possible without the help and the hard work of Dayna.
