Celebrating 2025 IMPACT Award Winners

This year marked the launch of Polaris’ IMPACT Awards: a new, peer-driven way to recognize employee-owners who consistently live out our core values: Innovative, Motivated, Proactive, Accountable, Collaborative, and Trustworthy. Team members were invited to nominate their peers and share why they exemplify each value. We’re excited to formally recognize those winners here and share some of the words their colleagues used to describe their impact.

Innovative Award Winner: Mark Merino
Creation of new and unique solutions to problems; thinking outside the box

“Mark has the vision for Chordata and brings clarity and direction to everything we are delivering with Chordata.”

“Mark’s vision and leadership for Chordata batch are a huge asset to Polaris. He has appreciation for both user needs and technical implementation. The ability to bridge that gap is rare. We are blessed to have Mark.”

Motivated Award Winner: Derek Simonette
Taking initiative; going above and beyond without being asked to do so; growth-minded

“Derek is consistently engaging in customer and sales conversations and pushing for development on our sales tools.”

“Derek has taken on the Director of Sales role with enthusiasm. He has a passion for relationships with his fellow owners as well as with our clients, prospective clients, and partners.”

Proactive Award Winners: Sam Zungri & Derek Simonette
Solution-minded; answering questions before they are asked; seeing potential roadblocks before they happen

“Sam’s middle name is ‘solution’ and he is always looking months ahead, trying to anticipate the future and create ways to avoid any potential roadblocks to ensure success.”

“Sam has a unique way of looking at the big picture to see where we could make improvements as an organization. Sam always has our best interests in mind.”

“Derek is proactive and always moving things forward, taking action rather than waiting when others might be slow to act.”

“You never hear the words ‘I’m waiting for…’ from Derek. He is always trying to find ways to move things along faster.”

Accountable Award Winner: Eric Diamond
Strong sense of individual responsibility; having difficult and transparent conversations; thinking like an owner

“Eric has impressed me with his level of commitment and responsibility to the Company, and he’s always willing to do anything to help it prosper.”

“Eric holds everyone in his group to a standard level of performance and accepts nothing less.”

Collaborative Award Winners (Three-Way Tie): Emily Edwards, Josh Medley & Alyssa Workman
Passion for building meaningful relationships; open to new ideas and ways of thinking; excellent listening skills

“Josh is always available to go over RFQs and bid specs with me.”

“Josh works well with every client.”

“Emily is always going the extra step to make people feel included.”

“Emily has excellent communication skills enabling her to work with a variety of customers and projects and coordinate all parties involved.”

“Alyssa is the ultimate team player, always open to listening to new ideas from the team and willing to act on these suggestions.”

“Alyssa has a passion for growing Polaris and its individual employees.”

Trustworthy Award Winners: Nick Kiser & Sam Zungri
Entirely honest and truthful with the highest level of integrity; authentic

“Nick demonstrates the highest level of integrity and consistently advocates for what is best for our customers, even when it requires extra effort or difficult conversations.”

“Nick speaks the truth about problems and solutions.”

“Nick is always honest and truthful and rarely holds back voicing opinions for creating the best results. I really appreciate his authenticity.”

 “Sam is always straight forward.”

Sam was also nominated multiple times for this award without additional written comments — a strong reflection of the trust and credibility he has built across the organization.