2024 Spirit of Innovation

Nichole Chmidling, assistant director of budget planning and resource analysis

Nichole Chmidling, assistant director of budget planning and resource analysis in the Office of the Controller, received the 2024 Spirit of Innovation Award.

It’s fitting that Chmidling was honored for innovation since she works for a university named for two of the most famous innovators in history. And like Wilbur and Orville Wright’s advances in aviation, Chmidling’s work has led to helping many people.

“I can guarantee her efforts likely have some effect on almost everyone at Wright State,” said Donna Braswell, fiscal services manager in the Division of Financial Operations. “Her efforts have truly resulted in innovation in the budget build process that, in turn, touch virtually every part of Wright State.”

Chmidling excels in Excel, the computer spreadsheet software program that aids in fiscal planning.

“To say she is skilled at Excel is an understatement,” Braswell said. “Nichole is an Excel whiz and has made the lives of many a fiscal manager easier using her Excel magic. Nichole is a fairly quiet person, but don’t let that fool you, she is a powerhouse.”

Braswell said several years ago, fiscal and business managers submitted their annual budgets to the Office of Budget Planning, which consolidated the information, checked for and corrected errors and built an annual budget book. That process took several weeks of labor by a lot of staff.

That changed when Chmidling was brought on board.

“She made significant contributions almost immediately,” Braswell said. “She improved the budget development process, providing fiscal managers with Excel workbooks for the budget build.

“These workbooks have gotten better year over year,” Braswell added. “The directions and guidance provided are clear and well executed. The tabbed pages talk to each other, data pulls in where it is supposed to, and many hours of human labor have been saved.”

A few years ago, the Office of the Controller considered bringing in a third party to assist in budget building, but, Braswell said, “Let’s just say Nichole’s tools were head and shoulders above that of the outside vendor.”

All of that describes Chmidling the professional. Chmidling the person is even better.

“Besides being knowledgeable, Nichole is also incredibly kind and helpful,” Braswell said. “She has designed the process so that it is practically goof-proof and even when a user makes an error, Nichole is able to quickly find and correct the issue. She is accessible, always willing to jump on a Team’s call to discuss a problem.”

While Chmidling deserves to be honored, Braswell said she is like many Wright State employees “who work quietly, behind the scenes, making Wright State run.”