On a Sunday evening in September, Camp Foster Burger King’s menu board suddenly went blank. The manager on duty quickly made a call to LSI Corp., whose local vendors installed the menu board. They realized something was blocking the media player from gaining access to the internet.
LSI, headquartered in Cincinnati called the local vendor to fix the problem, but the language barrier was too much for them to overcome and, as a last resort, LSI called the Okinawa Exchange Information Technology team to for support.
Mika Belote and Tetsu Sakihama, IT specialists, came to the rescue.
“The majority of our IT efforts are done behind the scenes throughout the day, weekends, late at night or early in the morning,” IT Pacific Field Support Manager Shinobu Agarie said. “Sometimes their hard work goes unnoticed, and people don’t always realize how much effort and analytical thinking goes into troubleshooting each issue.”
After they were assigned the task of troubleshooting the issue, Belote went to the site to gather accurate information to provide to LSI. For more than an hour, she sent emails, screenshots and troubleshooting actions without any response because of the time difference between Okinawa and the U.S.
The following day, Belote, Sakihama and LSI technicians spent hours emailing, calling and troubleshooting until they solved the problem, earning them praise and recognition from within the Pacific Region Headquarters.
Col. Jason L. Beck, commander, and Sgt. Maj. Generose Green, senior enlisted advisor, awarded them with their challenge coins for their selfless service.
“It is especially important for us to recognize associates’ hard work because they are what makes the Exchange better and successful.” Agarie said. “Mika and Tetsu are always willing and ready to step in to assist whenever they are needed.”
Belote earned additional praise from the technicians she worked with from LSI.
“This evening I worked with Mika Belote, and I would like to say she is a great tech. She worked with our team for several hours and we were able to restore Burger King’s menu board to working order,” LSI IT Tech David Cocciolone said. “She is one of the finest techs I have ever worked with over the phone, and because of Mika’s efforts, we were successful.”
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