One of the 1NService regional alliance companies, D&D Consulting, just gave out its second batch of awards recognizing great work by the vendor field reps. I couldn't resist reporting something positive for a change. Besides, field reps bear the brunt of the abuse when someone higher up on the food chain implements a poorly thought-out strategy.

So, here's the deal: D&D President Chris Labatt-Simon just recognized three vendor field reps and channel managers that regularly work with his company. Each was nominated by members of the D&D account teams and then the selections were debated internally.

Kudos go to Rick Fern of Avaya, who was named Partner Support Engineer of the Year. "While assisting partners is in your job description, the extensive amount you worked with our people is not," Labatt-Simon wrote in his congratulatory letter to Fern.

George O'Connor of RSA Security received props as Partner Channel Manager of the Year. "You made sure that our account teams, our consulting staff and our customers had the resources they needed to be successful, and that during times of changing corporate ownership, we had someone to talk to," Labatt-Simon wrote.

Finally, for the second consecutive year, D&D recognized Jeffrey Mow of Juniper Networks as Partner Account Executive. "Jeffery, the vote at D&D was unanimous," Labatt-Simon said in his letter to Mow. " Because of your tireless efforts over the years, D&D Consulting and Juniper Networks share the best partnership, bar none, of all the partnerships we maintain."

For more about the awards D&D gives out and the rationale behind them, see next week's Bright Ideas segment on CRN TV, which will be posted on March 15 to hear Chris talking about his idea in more detail.

Who has done right by you? E-mail anecdotes about your best vendor field support experiences to hclancy@cmp.com.