Ben Kosmatka Community Service Award - Overlook Lakes Condominium Association

About the Ben Kosmatka Community Service Award

The Overlook Lakes Condominium Association (OLCA) was fortunate to have a member by the name of Ben Kosmatka living here. Ben was a tireless volunteer, both outside of the OLCA community as well as serving our OLCA membership in multiple capacities over 20-plus years.

He was known for being honest, compassionate and of unquestionable integrity in all of his actions, decisions and responsibilities as an OLCA Board member as well as in his roles on the finance and the buildings and grounds committees.

Sadly, Ben passed away in 2020, but in his honor, the Board of Directors created the “Ben Kosmatka OLCA Community Service Award” in 2022 to recognize Ben’s many contributions to our community that exemplify the qualities of leadership our community members have all benefited from.

Anyone wishing to nominate a community member for this award may do so by submitting the name of the individual to the Board, along with a description of why they feel the individual should be considered for the award. The recipient will be announced at the next OLCA Annual Meeting.

2021 Recipient – Ben Kosmatka

This honor for 2021 was awarded posthumously to Ben Kosmatka and presented to his wife Grace at the OLCA homeowner’s association (HOA) meeting on May 17th 2022. Grace, and daughter, Jill continue to live at Overlook Lakes.

Award Plaque

A special plaque has been generously donated by Tom and Linda Meyer to commemorate the award recipients. The plaque, with each recipient name engraved, is hanging in the lobby of the management office for all to see.

2022 Recipient – Trevor Podd

By unanimous decision, the Board of Directors was pleased to honor and present this award to the 2022 recipient, Trevor Podd, at the May 17th 2022 HOA meeting.

You may not know Trevor, but he is essential to the OLCA community. Because of Trevor’s professional expertise, our community has its own professionally designed website. He single-handedly brought our community into the 21st century by bringing so much important, strategic information to our fingertips with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. Trevor is the reason the Board can very quickly and inexpensively convey important information to homeowners about all sorts of communications pertaining to the important activities associated with managing and living in a community of this size.

We are so used to living with the availability of “instant information” that it’s easy to take this kind of access for granted and forget that, while it may seem like “magic,” it isn’t. It takes time and skill—in this case, Trevor’s time and skill!

It can’t be overstated that if our Association had to pay for a website design/maintenance and someone to manage our e-communications, we couldn’t afford it. Nor can it be overstated that Trevor is always happy to help (even with last minute requests) and eager to make suggestions for improvement.