John Deltuvia

Throughout the headquarters of the Office of Probation Services, as well as the field offices, I am branded as the 'make-it' guy because of my ability to provide innovative workarounds when standard procedures will not solve the problem. In recognition of these skills, I was moved in 2018 from a section concentrating on one sub-operation to a section that assists all of Probation Services. Projects that have been assigned to me resulted in direct cash cost savings of over $100 million to the State, as well as reducing staffing needs by at least 6 FTEs. In 2018, I was also given the responsibility of training new employees how to program. Since we are an operations unit, programming is done primarily in VBA using the Excel and Word object models, along with Microsoft Access, Microsoft Forms and Power Automate. Some reports are drawn from the mainframe using TIBCO WebFocus as well. As necessary for a given project, I utilize aspects of SDLC and Project Management such as analysis, design, database creation, and programming - but I sometimes find that it's simply a training issue and don't re-invent the wheel with a duplicative computer program.

One of the offices I converted to the new ACSES system in my prior employment was the Monmouth office. I was talking to the Vicinage Assistant Chief Probation Officer and he set plans in motion to hire me because he liked my ideas not only for implementing the new computer system but for reorganizing the Probation Child Support Unit (PCSU) as well.

Within a few years, the success of Monmouth compared to other counties was so noticeable that the state coordinator tried to get other PCSUs to hire positions similar to mine. Unfortunately, budget constraints - despite the overall cost savings - prevented most from doing so.

I revamped the office operations such that all workers were empowered in their areas of expertise; if even the lowest level clerk - or an Officer - received directions from the Vicinage Chief Probation Officer to update a financial entry, and that clerk felt there was improper documentation, that clerk was permitted to go straight to the Chief without the cumbersome chain-of-command to discuss it with him. Usually, the clerk (or other line employee) was correct, and the Chief or Assistant Chief would modify the request.

Once PCs were made available to the workers, I also automated some tasks, using the API from the PC terminal emulator.

In addition, I worked on Microsoft Access-based projects for Probation Supervision Services including the pilot for a fines and restitution collections project and the first Megan's Law tracker in NJ, among others.

After several years as a line worker in Six Flags Great Adventure Food Service, I expressed a wish to department management to move into management. Within two days, I was promoted to full stand manager, skipping a step above the normal first promotion, assistant stand manager. My normal assignment was one of the cotton candy stands, with 2-5 reports and the need to train people in spinning cotton candy (a bit more complicated than most food tasks at the park.) Occasionally I was assigned to a medium-size stand (7-10 reports) or a full-size restaurant (approximately 25 direct reports and usually done by people one grade above my title.) I believe I might have moved up further, but my own talent held me back - cotton candy was an extremely high-margin product ( 98% profit margin), and finding people who could not only make it but teach others to make it was extremely difficult for the park.