2023 ROOKIE OF THE YEAR award

Megan Illsley, FIREFLY SPORTS TESTING 

Throughout the five years that Megan has worked with Firefly Sports Testing, she quickly advanced to to Laboratory Director and is a major part of the operations and quality control within Firefly Sports Testing. She serves as Quality Manager for Firefly’s ISO 17025 laboratory accreditation, oversees the company’s accreditations with FIFA, FIH, ITF and WR, and is actively involved with test method development for ASTM. After several years of Megan assisting with Firefly’s involvement with the STC unofficially, she had always been eager to get more involved and expressed interest in joining a task force.

In 2022, Megan enthusiastically joined the Performance and Quality Guidelines for the STC Sports Fields Task Force. In a short time, her participation evolved from adding her input to being a key contributor/editor in the completion of the document. Megan wrote and rewrote several sections of the guideline, aided in selecting the recommended values, contributed photos, created graphics and took the lead on formatting all the contributions from the task group members into a complete draft document."

"Megan’s contributions have far exceeded what I would consider rookie of the year," Jeff Gentile, Co-Founder of Firefly Sports Testing, commented, "The rookie status is only relevant to the length of time she has officially been a task group member, however her technical knowledge and industry experience far exceed what would typically be expected of a rookie. Her effort, insight, and dedication to the group would more accurately qualify her as a MVP candidate, something I am confident we will see her earn many times over as her career progresses."