Olga Dancaescu, 27, an employee of The Island Empress, a Pensacola Beach development, has received an American Resort Development Association Circle of Excellence Award for Emplo9yee of the Year at the Annual International Convention in Orlando.
The award honors individuals who have attained the highest level of excellence in their field and more than 600,000 employees were eligible nationwide.

Dancaescu, who focuses her energies on her job reacted modestly.
“With a once-in-a-lifetime award behind me at 27…the sky’s the limit as I move forward with the project to help create something truly spectacular and world-quality on our little island paradise. Simply being nominated was such an honor, but with so many presidents and CEO’s of the major resort chains eligible, I never thought I would actually be named the winner.”

A former member of the Children’s Chorus when she attended Pensacola High School, Dancaescu received her real estate license at age 18, then became a commercial agent in 2006. Her Island Empress association began the following year.
Dancaescu said singing is still her passion but she “really only sings at karaoke.” Music is still very much a part of her non-working life.
“I taught swing dancing from 1997-2006, also took up ballroom and became a competitive dancer, and you can always find me in the middle of a crowd acting like a fool and dancing to great music,” she said.

She’s a Gator fan and, oddly, played full-tackle football during her college years.
“Yes, I was the only girl on the team”

For the last three years, Dancaescu has been the information hub and right-hand woman to the developers of The Island Empress and in the spring went to a London conference to help create relationships on an international level.
“The more we can get the word out as to how amazing our beach is….the more money we, as a community, will have coming in from outside sources.”

Olga Dancaescu – she sings, she dances, she promotes Northwest Florida.