This year’s Pride of Extension Award was bestowed upon Linda Doering, design office assistant at Iowa State.

“She’s the hub of what we do up here,” said Tim Borich, interim director for design.

Doering, who has worked for the university for more than 20 years, works for the design extension office and was also “adopted” into the Institute for Design Research and Outreach (IDRO) program when it began in 1992.

One project on which the design extension program is currently working is the community visioning project. They are working with a dozen or so communities as well as the Department of Transportation and Trees Forever to landscape areas where highways pass through Iowa towns.

They also work with community planning, design workshops, economic development, community parks systems and main streets.

“Linda acts as a bridge between different corporate cultures,” Borich said. She is also vital in keeping track of faculty and making connections, he said.

The award’s purpose is “…to recognize an innovative project or effort to satisfy extension client needs and consistently strong office or program management skills,” said Mark Jost, ISU communication systems.

Doering learned she received the award via electronic mail about three weeks before the conference at which she was recognized and given a framed certificate acknowledging her diligent work.

The extension program is part of the land-grant-institution mission to make education available to everyone in the public, Jost said. The extension program has offices in every county of Iowa through which information developed on campus is distributed throughout Iowa rather than just on campus.

Since starting work with IDRO, Doering has worked closely with the design college faculty, but before she worked primarily with people in the county extension offices.

“It’s incredible how many people she knows,” Borich said. “She knows who to see and when to see them to get things done.

“She has working knowledge of what’s going on, of who’s doing what in the college and the field.”

Aside from her work at ISU, Doering has another full time job as the mother of two girls.

“The girls pretty much take up much of my time,” Doering said. As a mother, “Every day is our day of fame; we just don’t get recognized for it,” Doering said.

“It’s nice to get respect from co-workers, to know you’re appreciated once in a while from both sides — family and work.”