Newport, Rhode Island (January 3, 2023) – Global Connections to Employment (GCE) has named Antanika Doukkali as the 2022 Team Member of the Year. 

Antanika Doukkali was born with a learning disability and experienced an unstable early childhood. It prompted her grandmother to raise her. She started working at Global Connections to Employment eight years ago. At first, she didn’t think she couldn’t do the job. Back then, she was a self-conscious, timid, scared new employee. Today, she is adept at multiple jobs such as food serving line attendant, floor runner, salad bar attendant and skullery. She is known for proactively approaching other team members to ask how she can help or to teach them the ropes. 

Antanika has been recognized as Team Member of the Month five times in eight years! She was also an asset in achieving the U.S. Navy Captain Edward F. Ney Memorial Award – the highest honor given to U.S. Navy food service operations to recognize food service excellence. 

“Antanika impresses everyone – the food services officer, Navy sailors, coworkers and other customers,” said Rodney Novak, project manager. “They ask to go through her food line because she’s so friendly.”

GCE is a nationwide team providing jobs for people with significant disabilities and one of the country’s largest private employers of persons with disabilities.

Learn about jobs at GCE and the variety of services our teams provide.